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More "Abrupt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and Corylus) were often plainly zigzag and sometimes looped. After hypocotyls or epicotyls have emerged from the ground, they quickly become perfectly straight. No trace is left of their former abrupt curvature, excepting in the case of Allium cepa, in which the cotyledon rarely becomes quite straight, owing to the protuberance developed on ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... alleged wrong which had thus been done to Patrick Henry during his brief military career, and which had brought that career to its abrupt and painful close, seems to have continued for a considerable time. Throughout the colony the blame was openly and bluntly laid upon the Committee of Safety, who, on account of envy, it was said, had tried "to bury ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... STAGE.—After sufficient time has been devoted to the long turns shorter turns may be made, and these also require the same care, and will give an opportunity to use the lateral controls to a greater extent. Begin the turns, not by an abrupt throw of the turning rudder, but bring it around gently, correcting the turning movement to a straight course, if you find the machine inclined to tilt too much, until you get used to the sensation of keeling ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... woman, her maternal solicitude would have been the first denouncer, even the abrupt betrayer of a plotted crime in which one companion of her son could have been implicated, had cognizance of such reached her. Her days would have been agonized, and her nights sleepless, till she might have exposed and counteracted ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... and women who surged up to stare at me, as I passed in the middle of the road. The thick line of trees that are near Rathnew makes the way intensely dark even on clear nights, and when one is riding quickly, the contrast, when one reaches the lights of Wicklow, is singularly abrupt. The town itself after nightfall is gloomy and squalid. Half-drunken men and women stand about, wrangling and disputing in the dull light from the windows, which is only strong enough to show the ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... late Edward Huntington, a successful English merchant, who had resided many years in India and had realized a fortune, which he had proposed to return to his native land to enjoy with his wife and only child. But death had stepped in to put an abrupt end to his hopes, and to render abortive all his well-arranged plans, some twelve months previous to the period of which we have spoken. Mrs. Huntington, the widow, had remained in Calcutta to settle up her husband's affairs, and this done, she ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... reckless driver did "go" just at that moment. He came up to the corner of the new fence, where the road took a rather abrupt turn, in a style that insured a capsize. In another second the spirited horse turned sharp round, the sleigh turned sharp over, and the occupant was pitched out at full length, while a black object, that might have been mistaken for his hat, rose from his side like a rocket, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... done before, that Mrs. Phillips's post was not particularly enviable. Daphne treated her in many ways with great generosity, paid her highly, grudged her no luxury, and was always courteous to her in public. But in private Daphne's will was law, and she had an abrupt and dictatorial way of asserting it that brought the red back into Mrs. Phillips's faded cheeks. Mrs. Verrier had often expected her to throw up her post. But there was no doubt something in Daphne's personality which made life beside her too full ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was well acquainted with the abrupt ways of the godfather, frowned at him with disapprobation. Nevertheless, thanks to Maurice, who made a point of laughing at everything Adhemar said, they had a gay luncheon, and Adhemar himself, appreciating the consideration shown for his palate, cast aside his ill humour and enjoyed with full ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... broad river, sweeping round in an imposing curve from the South-Eastward, with abrupt ranges of sandstone hills, for the most part cleared of forest, hemming it in on either side, and a glimpse of lofty blue mountains towering skywards far away to the North-East, is a long straggling collection ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... fading glow of the fire, my thoughts became fixed that whether she came from Earth or Heaven or Hell, my lovely visitor was already more to me than aught else in the world. This time she had, on going, said no word of returning. I had been so much taken up with her presence, and so upset by her abrupt departure, that I had omitted to ask her. And so I am driven, as before, to accept the chance of her returning—a chance which I fear I am or may be ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... stupid creature! but I must pass some little time with him, if it is only to endeavour to learn whether it was his master that made such an abrupt entrance into our house, and my young mistress' heart, this morning. [Aside.] As you don't seem to like to talk, Mr. ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... four-horse Concord stage, which from all appearances might have been in action ever since the days of Bret Harte. At last I felt I was in touch with the Sierras. The driver even honored my bow with an abrupt "Howdy!" which from such a magnate, I took ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... French on both sides, surround and capture them. The other division was on the Adige in front of Verona, ready to relieve Mantua. Between that river and the lake rises the stately mass of Monte Baldo, abrupt on its eastern, more gentle on its western slope. This latter, as affording some space for manoeuvers, was really the key to the passage. Such was the first onset of the Austrians down this line that the French outposts at Lonato ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... hammer rings upon them as upon a bell, and their fracture is brilliantly crystalline. The basalt is the same as that which caps the sandstone hills of the Vindhya range throughout Malwa. The sandstone hills around Gwalior all rise in the same abrupt manner from the plain as those through Malwa generally; and they have almost all of them the same basaltic glacis at their base, with boulders of that rock scattered over the top, all indicating that ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... existence, he added sharply— objectively; and the stout figure in knickerbockers, rough stockings, a yellow buckskin jacket and checked cap pulled over a face which, he felt, was brightly red, surprised and a little annoyed him. In the abrupt appearance of this image it seemed that there had been no transitional years between his slender youth and the present. He had an absurd momentary impression that an act of malicious magic had in a second transformed him into a shape decidedly too heavy for grace. His breathing, where the ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and abrupt change. Impossibly strange! I walked toward one of the trees, stopped at a reddish boulder to examine it. And surprise caught at my throat. It was an artifact—a crumbling ruin, the remnant of an ancient structure whose original appearance I could ...
— Where the World is Quiet • Henry Kuttner
... together, but, as fate would have it, Smith's quest among the tribes was to be quickly ended. Hardly had he begun his pilgrimage when he found the Indians in wild commotion. Again the hatchet had been unburied, and for the sake of security he had to bring his mission to an abrupt end. ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... form any clear picture. The most distinguished is Yajnavalkya who, though seen through a mist of myths and trivial stories about the minutiae of ritual, appears as a personality with certain traits that are probably historical. Many remarks attributed to him are abrupt and scornful and the legend indicates dimly that he was once thought a dangerous innovator. But, as has happened so often since, this early heretic became the corner stone of later orthodoxy. He belonged to the school of the Yajur Veda and was apparently the main author of the ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... his abrupt, decisive way. He threw the cigarette into the empty fireplace and stood up. "I think I'll take your advice and marry ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... slight crush at the doors of the theatre, and what with the abrupt change from the pleasant warmth and light of the interior to the sharp chill of the night outside, Preston shivered, and a sudden weakness smote him ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... artistic touch in the parable is its abrupt close. We do not know whether the elder son yielded to the entreaty of his father or not. It was an appeal to the Pharisees; would they accept the grace of God and further his plans for the salvation of the lost, ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... awkwardly uncomfortable in ordinary company. The man, Val sometimes thought privately, lived, ate, slept books. Save when they were the subject of conversation, he was as out of his element as a coal-miner at the ballet. "We should explain the reason for this—this rather abrupt call." He fingered his brief-case, ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... As though we were not strangers at all. I suppose it is what they call mesmerism. He had that soft, delightful way of speaking, and gentle mannerism. There was nothing abrupt or new about him. He seemed, somehow, to become part of the life of any one in whom he chose to interest himself in the slightest. And he talked so delightfully, Arnold. I cannot tell you how ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of deep pain and repulsion came out upon Edith's face, and he saw it. The avowal of his love was so abrupt—indeed it was almost stern; and, coming thus from quite a stranger, who had little place even in her thoughts, it was so exceedingly painful that it was like a blow. And yet she hardly knew how to answer ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... Several cases have been reported in which the specific gravity of the urine was extremely high, due to an excess of urea. Wood calls attention to the wave-like course of leukoderma, receding on one side, increasing on the other. The fading is gradual, and the margins may be abrupt or diffuse. The mucous membranes are rosy. The functions of ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... lackeys also had stopped their horses, which stood pawing and snorting at a respectful distance. It was an awkward moment for me. I could not stand there trying to persuade a perfectly serene man to fight. So with an abrupt pull of the rein I started my horse, mechanically applied the spur, and galloped off. A few minutes later I was out of sight of this singularly self-controlled gentleman, who resented my description of the Duke of Guise. I was annoyed for some time to ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... another question on other subject put and answered, collected his thoughts, rose and begged to say that "Prince Louis of BATTENBERG served under me, and a more efficient officer——" Here sentence came to abrupt conclusion. Angry cries of "Order!" stormed round gallant Admiral. COMMERELL a man of proved valour, as the Victoria Cross worn on his breast on Jubilee Day and other high festivities testifies. But his bronzed cheek blanched ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various
... every now and then came up sniffing behind me, and seemed very much inclined to have a bite at it. We saw several more jungle cocks on our way. They were very like the common game-cock, but the voice was much shorter, and more abrupt. The Malays call it the bekeko. We had reached an open space, when we saw running before us a couple of the most magnificent peacocks. Their tails, spread out as they ran along, were fully seven feet in length. ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the hollow became more and more abrupt as they advanced, though they were less covered with brushwood. The fugitive made no attempt to climb the bank, but still pressed forward. The road was tortuous, and wound round a jutting point of rock. Now he was a fair mark—no, he had ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... empire could escape from the effects of frequent and abrupt changes in its rulers: like so many previous dynasties, that of Nabopolassar became enfeebled as if from exhaustion immediately after the death of its most illustrious scion, and foundered in imbecility and decrepitude. Popular imagination, awe-struck by ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... countrymen. But the penalty of refusing it was the prophet's wrath, with its terrible attendants, war and rapine, and none of the Arabs cared enough for their old gods to brave such terrors for their sake. The inhabitants of Taif endeavoured to make terms, so that the change might be less abrupt. Their ambassadors urged that fornication, usury, and the use of wine might be allowed them, but this could not be granted; the Taifites must accept the deprivations to which all the Moslems had agreed. Then ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... moment to take stock of the situation, and then we hurried on again. Every time he struck a man for lazy running, the man in his turn paid me with punch or kick. After a mile or so, the avenue made an abrupt turn to the east and brought us out on the main road in the rear of the ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... anti-mediaevalist, but he is very much afraid that an average mediaeval romancer might have thought it necessary to catalogue these other monsters with the aid of a Bestiary. On the other hand, there have been times—no matter which—when this abrupt introduction and dismissal of monsters as common objects (for which any respectable community will have proper stables or cages) would have been disallowed, or explained away, or apologised for, or, worst ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... A wise man would count before the war, if he can accomplish it: and if he cannot, then he would send messengers of peace, and cede in all things he may without sin. If it be but more honour and wealth to our king,(397) should we destroy the kingdom to purchase that? Our rash and abrupt proceedings show our folly. Ver. 20. "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." A man will be, must be, assimilated to his company, and then partake of their ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... to the first cities, historically a vast interval, would have seemed to that still watcher, measuring by the standards of astronomy and the rise and decline of races and genera and orders, a, step almost abrupt. It took, perhaps, a thousand generations or so to make it. In that interval man passed from an animal-like obedience to the climate and the weather and his own instincts, from living in small family parties of a score ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... many passages, partly from the brevity and apparently disjointed nature of the individual sections. Possibly this is due, in large measure, to later redactors of the book, or to the fragmentary reports of the prophet's addresses; perhaps, however, it also expresses something of the abrupt passion of his speeches, which, as Kautzsch says, were "more sob than speech." The general theme of this division appears in its opening words, "There is no fidelity or love or knowledge of God in ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... Mr. Norman Maugans, always grew temperamental when he played Mendelssohn's "Wedding March," and always relieved its monotonous cadence with passionate accelerations and abrupt retardations. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... met us; he was in a cotton suit walking about among his flowers and enjoying the evening. He was a man of about fifty, short, strong, brown, and abrupt. Though it was already evening and one could see little, we knew well enough that his eyes were steady and dark. For he had the attitude and carriage of those men who invigorate France. His self-confidence was evident in his sturdy legs and his arms akimbo, his vulgarity ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... to return to the cable office about midnight and await the reply to his cablegram. He had proceeded but a few blocks from the cable office, however, before a disturbing thought struck him with such force as to bring him to an abrupt pause. ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... the wild geese to start out—two and two—in different directions, to search for him. But after a two days' hunt, whether or not they had found him, they were to meet in northwestern Smaland on a high mountain-top, which resembled an abrupt, chopped-off tower, and was called Taberg. After Akka had given them the best directions, and described carefully how they should find ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... less subject to it. Isaacson had known that when he saw Nigel draw his chair nearer to hers at the supper-table in the Savoy. But he had been subject to it without ever saying to himself, "I am in subjection." He had never supposed that he was in subjection. The abrupt consciousness of how it was with him excited him tremendously. After the long interval of years, was he to feel again the powerful fever, and for a woman how different from the woman he had loved? She stood, in her young purity, at one end of the chain of years, and Mrs. ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... own way they strove to continue, possibly under the modifying influence of the art tradition of their conquerors, the great story of the art of Knossos. There is no abrupt break in the style of the pottery and other articles belonging to the latest Minoan period, as compared with that of the days before the catastrophe. Technical skill is almost as great as ever; it is degeneration in the inspiration of the art that has begun. ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... part, I think there is somewhat peculiarly sweet and amusing in the shapely-figured aspect of chalk-hills in preference to those of stone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, and shapeless. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... request to householders to return the names of those of military age ready to serve if called on, he heard of it, and stopped munching to say in his abrupt fashion: "I'll go—fight the Germans." But the farmer did not put him down, ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... clauses of the treaty of Washington, in pursuance of the joint resolution of March 3, 1883, must have resulted in the abrupt cessation on the 1st of July of this year, in the midst of their ventures, of the operations of citizens of the United States engaged in fishing in British American waters but for a diplomatic understanding reached with Her Majesty's Government in June last, whereby assurance was obtained ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... involuntarily, acquired. Not long afterwards, Tatyana's name-day festival is celebrated by a dinner, at which Onyegin is present, being urged thereto by Lensky. He goes, chiefly, that no comment may arise from any abrupt change of his ordinary friendly manners. The family, ignorant of what has happened between him and Tatyana, and innocently scheming to bring them together, place him opposite her at dinner. Angered by this, he revenges himself on the wholly innocent Lensky, by ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... married, Peggy, yes or no? Tell me at once, before I let you go!" Abrupt he spoke, and gave her arm a swing, But the same moment felt the wedding ring, And stood confus'd.—She wip'd th' empassion'd tear, "I am, I am; but is my father here?" Herbert stood by, and sharing with his bride, That perturbation which she strove to hide; "Come, honest Gilbert, ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... Mr. Clark himself appeared, and in a particularly happy frame of mind. For an hour the delighted senior and myself sat laughing at the fellow's quaint conceits and witty sayings, the conversation at last breaking up with an abrupt proposition from Mr. Clark that I remain in the city overnight and accompany him to the theater, an invitation I rather eagerly accepted. Mr. Clark, thanking me, and pivoting himself around on his high stool, with a mechanical "Good afternoon!" was at once submerged in his books, ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... mountain she could place upon a given space; she had, however, still some regard for utility, for the mountains are rarely precipitous—very steep, often rocky and shingly when they have attained a great elevation, but seldom, if ever, until in immediate proximity to the West Coast range, abrupt like the descent from the top of Snowdon towards Capel Curig or the precipices of Clogwyn du'r arddu. The great range is truly Alpine, and the front range occasionally reaches an altitude of nearly ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... piece of scrubbing-soap on the table, and an unwrung house-flannel soaking on the seat of a wooden chair. There is a nice, old-fashioned, round-fronted chest-of-drawers with brass handles in the room, but the most striking detail of its equipment is a stumpy and amazingly abrupt bedstead against the wall, which is just big enough for a big doll. The bedclothes of this eerie little cot are thrown back, and in the centre of the rumpled mattress, in the hollow made by my heroine's recumbent form, curled up in a sublime indifference to the puffing ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... it wullna be sair partin'—" And then, seeing the sympathy in the landlord's eye and fearing a disgraceful breakdown, Auld Jock checked his self betrayal. During the talk Bobby stood listening. At the abrupt ending, he put his shagged paws up on Auld Jock's knee, wistfully inquiring about this emotional matter. Then he dropped soberly, and slunk away under his ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... impenetrable cloud of mist; but it so chanced, by what freak of Dame Nature I know not, that the fog on that day was confined to the deep water, so that we who were in the port could see it at the distance of several miles from the coast, lying on the ocean like a huge stratum of snow, with an abrupt ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... his first experience of a trotting camel, and at first the motion, although irregular and abrupt, was not unpleasant. Having no stirrup or fixed point of any kind, he could not rise to it, but he gripped as tightly as be could with his knee, and he tried to sway backwards and forwards as he had seen the Arabs do. It was a large, ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the croft mending his gear. He never went down to the harbour for work like the other fishermen and never worked on the land. Humming away and talking to himself he fiddled about in his shed, around his boat-house or his croft, his hands all grubby with tar and grease. If addressed, he was abrupt and curt in his answers, sometimes even abusive. Hardly anyone dared ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... which the chief matter I much care to recollect at present is, that a pitful of good-natured people applauded it. Ever since, I have been desirous of doing something in the same way that should better reward their attention." But, except in so far as its abrupt declension from the stage hurt its author in the eyes of the critics, and possibly in those of theatrical managers, "Strafford" was certainly no failure. It has the elements of a great acting play. Everything, even the language (and here was a stumbling-block with most of the critics and criticasters), ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... with any abrupt change of the outer man, there is sometimes a more, very more natural abandonment of the inner thoughts and disposition and character. Just as men so often lose self-respect when they take to the bush life; or children who pray by their own little ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... more extraordinary in the history of the Vegetable Kingdom, as it seems to me, than the APPARENTLY very sudden or abrupt development of the higher plants. I have sometimes speculated whether there did not exist somewhere during long ages an extremely isolated continent, perhaps near ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... "All night!" rakishly, rakishly; They would pelt me with oysters and wiggletails, Laughing and clapping their hands at me, "All night!" prankishly, prankishly; But I would toss them back in mine, Lobsters and turtles of quaint design; Then leaping out in an abrupt way, I'd snatch them bald in my devilish glee, And skip away when they snatched at me, Fiendishly, fiendishly. O, what a jolly life I'd lead, Ah, what a "bang-up" life indeed! Soft are the mermaids under the sea— We would live ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... suggested for ladies who are inclined to be stout, for in them, only slim figures appear to receive consideration. I would recommend the loose-fitting coat as the most becoming for portly persons, because with a loose garment there is no abrupt accentuation of bulk, a fact which many stout ladies who adopt the Eton jacket style of dress, fail to recognise. On the stage, a slim actress may look well in tights, but this skin-like covering on a bulky figure would be ridiculously ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... I can't possibly—" She came to an abrupt pause. Her eyes had encountered Rosa's, and in Rosa's eyes the puzzled questioning was plainly ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... boasting, followed the dictates of reason and loved virtue. When did she sadden her parents even by a look?... There was nothing forward in her looks, bold in her words or unbecoming in her actions. Her carriage was not abrupt, her gait not indolent, her voice not petulant, so that her very appearance was the picture of her mind and ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... candles, where two gentlemen sat at a table finishing a bowl of punch. One of these was stout, elderly, and irascible, with a face like a full moon, well dyed with liquor, thick tremulous lips, a short, purple hand, in which he brandished a long pipe, and an abrupt and gobbling utterance. This was my Lord Windermoor. In his companion Nance beheld a younger man, tall, quiet, grave, demurely dressed, and wearing his own hair. Her glance but lighted on him, and she flushed, ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of a consciously despicable character standing before Christ, wondering, yearning, hungering to be like that! Yet must one trust the process fearlessly and without misgiving. "The Lord the Spirit" will do His part. The tempting expedient is, in haste for abrupt or visible progress, to try some method less spiritual, or to defeat the end by watching for effects instead of keeping the eye on the Cause. A photograph prints from the negative only while exposed to the sun. While the artist is looking to see how it is getting on he simply ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... topic was so abrupt and barefaced that the lover stared for a moment, then tried not ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... passes. On the S.W. and S., on the borders of Yun-nan, high mountains and deep valleys separate China from Burma and Tongking. On the narrow N.E. frontier the transition from the Manchurian plateau to the alluvial plain of northern China is not abrupt, but, before the advent of railways, Manchuria afforded few and difficult means of access to other regions. Thus China was almost cut off from the rest of the world save ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... housekeeper, a wiry, sad-eyed woman, came to see why the door was left open. When she saw the master of the house she retired in abrupt, angular fashion, but the suggestion of her errand recalled him ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... of us there was a plain which extended for some twelve hundred paces to the foot of an abrupt rise in the ground. This we fortunately reached before the English, although we were exposed all the way to the fire of their guns. But even when we gained the rise we were little better off, as it was too low to give us cover. The English were scarcely ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... climate, and cultivation of Italy, the whole party agreeing that it exceeds in natural blessings all other lands. The first book contains directions for raising crops of all kinds as well as vegetables and flowers, and is brought to an abrupt termination by the arrival of the priest's freedman who narrates the murder of his master. The party promise to attend the funeral, and with the sarcastic reflection de casu humano magis querentes quam admirantes ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... the rhythmic pulse, during the measure allotted to the cadence-chord, that the desired dual impression,—that of cadential interruption without actual cessation,—is secured. It is like rounding off a corner that might otherwise be too angular or abrupt. ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... so. He waited impatiently to hear more, either to quench or confirm his suspicions. If she had not been lying there, very still and calm, he would have forced the words out of Mr Donne, by some abrupt question. As it was, he listened silently, his ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... short by the sudden opening of the door, followed by the abrupt entrance of a tall, slender young man, who hastily advanced towards the table, around which the company were seated. His appearance excited the utmost astonishment in the whole group: curiosity was exhibited in every countenance—the magnum remained poised midway in the hand of Palmer—Dr. ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Crowland gathered round the cell of Guthlac in the midst of a desolate mere. Evesham occupied a glade in the wild forests of the western march. Glastonbury, an old Welsh foundation, stood on a solitary islet, where the abrupt knoll of the Tor looks down upon the broad waste of the Somersetshire marshes. Beverley, as its name imports, had been a haunt of beavers before the monks began to till its fruitful dingles. In every case agriculture soon turned the wild ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... country's immediate economic challenge is an acute financial crisis that is undermining monetary stability and preventing disbursement of foreign development assistance. Cambodia is still recovering from an abrupt shift in 1990 to free-market economic mechanisms and a cutoff in aid from former Soviet bloc countries; these changes have severely impacted on public sector revenues and performance. The country's infrastructure of ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... himself as honest a young man as ever lived, was utterly unconscious,—the pouring of a glass of beer from the window. The beer did as little harm on the cuirassiers' coats as it would have done in the American's stomach, and was at least the incidental means of bringing the whole scene to an abrupt end. The government was inclined to do us justice, but very naturally thought that the drenching of its cuirassiers might be pleaded in abatement of the insult to our national dignity; and so a nominal punishment of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... known than they suppose—may say, and although they are preparing to infect foreign countries with their correspondence, our Bretons did not run away on Thursday. It is true that when they saw the Saxons emerging from their holes and shouting hurrah, our Bretons were a little troubled by this abrupt and savage joke, but"—then follows the statement of several of the heroes themselves that they fought like lions. The fact is, as I have already stated in my letter of yesterday, the Mobiles fought only tolerably well, and some of their battalions rather the reverse of well. The Line, ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... the hair while my eyes were being burnt prior to my abortive execution. Wilson and Karak Sing seized and disarmed me, but there was a general stampede of the Tibetan officers, and thus our interview and negotiations were brought to an abrupt end. ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... evening, he was unable to appear. A severe attack of pneumonia developed itself. He was carried to his hotel, and his last engagement was brought to an abrupt and melancholy end. As soon as he was able to move, he left Boston for his home in Philadelphia, resting on his way only a day in New York. As the summer passed away, the desire for work grew stronger and stronger, and he decided to re-enter public life, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... steady. In his heart he did not believe that the quarrel would prove final, that she would break off the engagement on the grounds of his past failings. It was just a passing cloud, he told himself. Both of them would have been more upset had their love affair come to a sudden and abrupt close. He remembered how he had felt when he had parted from Lalage, the fever and the agony of it, the sense of utter desolation and hopelessness. And from that he came to think of Lalage herself. She had never turned on him because he drank. ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... my grandfather's speech and presence, no doubt forgot all he had said with wholesome quickness, and set themselves to the interesting and necessary work of gaining their own experience. Once, indeed, a dreadful thing happened, whose immediate consequence was the abrupt end to the long and close friendship between us and our nearest neighbour. His son was brought to the arbour and left there in the usual way, and either he must have happened on the critical half ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... men have passed from an initial peaceable stage to a subsequent stage at which fighting is the avowed and characteristic employment of the group. But it is not implied that there has been an abrupt transition from unbroken peace and good-will to a later or higher phase of life in which the fact of combat occurs for the first time. Neither is it implied that all peaceful industry disappears on the transition to the predatory phase of culture. Some ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... of Sinai, as far as we can see from the shore, reflects, in wilder forms and more abrupt lines, the opposite coast of Midian: there is, however, the important difference that the Secondaries and the quartz-veins, there so important, are here wanting. The skeletons of mountain and hill appear as if prolonged under water. The ruddy syenite is dyked and veined by the familiar ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... in the breath, as already directed, and emit it with a sudden and violent explosion, in a very brief sound of the letter h, in the style of an abrupt and forcible, but whispered cough. The breath is, in this mode of expiration, thrown out with ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... Gloucestershire side (see CLIFTON). Others are Victoria Park, south of the river, near the Bedminster station, Eastville Park by the Frome, on the north-east of the city beyond Stapleton Road station, St Andrew's Park near Montpelier station to the north, and Brandon Hill, west of the cathedral, an abrupt eminence commanding a fine view over the city, and crowned with a modern tower commemorating the "fourth centenary of the discovery of America by John Cabot, and sons Lewis, Sebastian and Sanctus." Other memorials in the city are the High Cross on ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... at bottom true to their paternal training. John Keble added to it great attainments and brilliant gifts of imagination and poetry; but he never lost the plain, downright, almost awkward ways of conversation and manner of his simple home—ways which might have seemed abrupt and rough but for the singular sweetness and charm of his nature. To those who looked on the outside he was always the homely, rigidly orthodox country clergyman. On Isaac Williams, with his ethical standard, John Keble also impressed his ideas of religious truth; he made him an old-fashioned ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... bank of sand and white coral; the northern is about half a mile across, of the same formation precisely as the low isles of Forestier Group. It is fronted on all sides with a coral reef extending off from a mile to a mile and a half, which dries at low-water, leaving an abrupt wall of from two to three feet at the outer edge, with pools between it and the island, in which several luckless turtles, who had deferred leaving until too late, were found. Though we only took what was required for our own ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... spared, 'that he would not turn on his heel to be President,' and that 'he had given up all for his own brave, magnanimous little State of South Carolina.' While thus protesting, his eyes flashed, his brow seemed charged with thunder, his voice became almost a bark, and his sentences were abrupt, intense, producing in the auditory a sort of laugh which is squeezed out of people by the application of a very sudden mental force. I believe he knew not what a revelation he made in a few sentences. They were to us strangers the key, not only to ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... traces of mounds, and the stones are generally on a level with the surface. On the outside, in close proximity to the others, are ten more, while on the slope of the hill to the northwest—the hill not being so abrupt in its descent at this point—are eighty-six more graves; making a total of one hundred and thirty-six buried on this hill. All are marked in the same manner, the last being covered by a thick growth of blackberry vines and bayberry bushes, and ...
— John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter Cockenoe-de-Long Island and The Story of His Career from the Early Records • William Wallace Tooker
... near the surface, and in places came through, when the grass was changed for lichens and mosses. Through this rocky meadow now roamed, now rushed, now tumbled one of those Alpine streams the very thought of whose ice-born plenitude makes me happy yet. Its banks were not abrupt, but rounded gently in, and grassy down to the water's brink. The larger torrents of Winter wore the channel wide, and the sinking of the water in Summer let the grass grow within it. But peaceful as the place was, and merry with the constant rush of this busy stream, it had, ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... here?' cried Walpole in horror, for he now perceived that the road really came to an abrupt ending in the midst ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... when irritated, pout the lips, gaze with a fixed and savage glare on their foe, and make repeated short starts as if about to spring forward, uttering at the same time inward guttural sounds. Many display their anger by suddenly advancing, making abrupt starts, at the same time opening the mouth and pursing up the lips, so as to conceal the teeth, while the eyes are daringly fixed on the enemy, as if in savage defiance. Some again, and principally the long-tailed monkeys, or Guenons, display their ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... do not properly belong to the object of a Collection of Voyages and Travels; but which, if altogether passed over, would leave much of the foregoing circumstances, and some that have to be noticed in the sequel, abrupt, isolated, and almost unintelligible. It has therefore been deemed proper to give a brief account of these differences, and of the singular so called union, which took place in consequence, extracted from the Annals of the East India Company, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... sir, whom I am now answering, arguments can be of very little importance, because, by his own confession, he is retained as a mere machine, to speak at the direction of another, and to utter sentiments which he never conceived, and which his hesitation and abrupt conclusion shows him to admit with very little examination. He had not even allowed himself time to know the opinion which he was to assert, or to imprint upon his memory those arguments to which he was ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... become the center of business. It, however, was soon perceivable that the advantage of water privileges, stone, and access to both, was greatly in favor of Rochester. At Carthage the Genesee is narrow and its banks steep and abrupt, rising in many places three hundred feet above the bed of the river, which of course render the privileges and business on it far less easy of access for building purposes. I may have occasion to speak hereafter of the expensive and magnificent bridge ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... the flagstones outside, and the next moment an officer appeared at the door accompanied by several soldiers. In abrupt, peremptory tones he ordered Heideck ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... a veiled significance; for our quest of Dr. Fu-Manchu had come to an abrupt termination by reason of the fact that all trace of that malignant genius, and of the group surrounding him, had vanished with the destruction of ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... continuous from the present time up to the commencement of the Tertiary period; and then so abrupt a break occurs, that, with the exception of the microscopic diatomaceae, to which I last evening referred, and of one shell and one coral, not a single species crossed the gap. On its farther or remoter side, however, where the Secondary division ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... must appear obvious on a slight consideration. As no plans existed, it was impossible to tell to what extent or in what direction the underground works were being carried. The crossing of mattocks, that is to say, the actual meeting of the workmen underground, was often the abrupt signal for contention; the driving of narrow headings was a means by which one coal-owner might gain possession of coal which of right belonged to another; and a pit, though sunk at a cost of several thousand pounds, had ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... the region where the famous witchcraft delusion took its rise; but reminiscences of this cruel drama are cut short by the abrupt transition to the closely-built streets of Salem, where our friends soon find themselves moving on through Essex Street, passing the East India Marine Hall, containing the contributions of Salem's numerous merchants and mariners, passing also the White mansion, a ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... labors of his contemporaries, and attracting to himself a share of their lustre; the honor, be it said, not the fortune, for he managed to remain the centre of intellectual movement as well as of the court, of literature and art as well as affairs of state. Only the abrupt and solitary genius of Pascal or the prankish and ingenuous geniality of La Fontaine held aloof from king and court; Racine and Moliere, Bossuet and Fenelon, La Bruyere and Boileau lived frequently in the circle of Louis XIV., and enjoyed in different degrees his favor; M. de la Rochefoucauld ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... determined that she would not sink herself in the hum-drum of uneventful existence without some effort to avoid it; and so it happened that that same evening, after doing her duty by the baby pup and Tom's new cricket bat, she startled her father and mother by the somewhat abrupt and altogether unexpected question,— ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... yes! If you will allow me I will leave you. You will, I know, excuse me if I am abrupt to you." Then she strode out of the room, and was no more seen of the eyes of ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... a fly, (an English term for an exceedingly sluggish vehicle,) and drove up to the Minster by a road rather less steep and abrupt than the one we had previously climbed. We alighted before the west front, and sent our charioteer in quest of the verger; but, as he was not immediately to be found, a young girl let us into the nave. We found ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic concision—that abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation—that leaden, self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... has followed the daily notes of Samuel Pepys from January, 1660, to May, 1669, but must feel sincere regret at their abrupt conclusion, more particularly as the writer lays down his pen ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... mouth was lower, in the side of the same new-formed hill, and filled with such red hot liquid matter as we see in a glass-house furnace, which raged and wrought as the waves in the sea, causing a short abrupt noise, like what may be imagined from a sea of quicksilver dashing among uneven rocks. This stuff would sometimes spew over, and run down the convex side of the conical hill, and appearing at first red hot, it changed colour, and hardened as it cooled, shewing the first rudiments ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... was a keen note of irritation in the reply. Daisy leaned suddenly forward, her fingers locked together. "You might as well ask me when I think of dying," she said, with abrupt and startling bitterness. ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... progress from the brute does not admit of the introduction of new causes, and that we have no evidence of the sudden change of nature which such introduction would bring about. The fallacy as to new causes involving any breach of continuity, or any sudden or abrupt change, in the effects, has already been shown; but we will further point out that there are at least three stages in the development of the organic world when some new cause or power must necessarily ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the underground caverns in which lived the Nome King. There was a dim path, winding between stones and boulders, over which the walking was quite difficult, especially as the path led up hills that were small mountains, and then down steep and abrupt slopes where any misstep might mean a broken leg. Therefore it was the second day of their journey before they climbed halfway up a rugged mountain and found themselves at the entrance of ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... therefore, to return to the cable office about midnight and await the reply to his cablegram. He had proceeded but a few blocks from the cable office, however, before a disturbing thought struck him with such force as to bring him to an abrupt pause. ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... same! He's—Stanor's uncle ... Pat's friend—he was just kind like other friends. ... He never said a word ... looked a look." Suddenly, unexpectedly the blood flared in her face as memory took her back to the hour when she stood at the door of the flat and watched Stephen's abrupt descent down the flagged stairway. "Oh, Bridgie, are ye sure? Are ye sure? How are ye sure? It's so easy to be deceived! Bridgie, you've no right to say it if you are not sure. I don't believe you! Nothing could make ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... American banker, broker, financier. He was an old-time friend of Hilda's family—a young widower, in that successful period of early middle-age when the hard work and the dirty work have availed and the momentum of the career maintains itself. In the prematurely gray hair, the good-looking face, the abrupt speech, he was very much American. He was neat—neat in his way of dressing, and in his compact phrases, as hard and well-rounded as a pebble. The world to him was a place full of slackers, of lazy good-nature, of inefficiency. ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... with the Fides Publica of Morus annexed: Preface by Dr. Crantzius to the Reprint: Ulac's own Preface of Self-Defence: Account of Morus's Fides Publica, with Extracts: His Citation of Testimonies to his Character: Testimony of Diodati of Geneva: Abrupt Ending of the Book at this Point, with Ulac's Explanation of the Cause.—Particulars of the Arrest and Imprisonment of Milton's Friend Overton.—Three more Latin State-Letters by Milton for Oliver (Nos. XLIX.-LI.): No State-Letters by Milton for the ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... because his friend, Sir John Somebody, wished him to stay and go down to Poll at Lincoln. I have no doubt that this Poll, whoever she may be, is a very respectable young woman, but mentioning her by her Christian name only in so abrupt a manner had a very unpleasant appearance at any rate. Nothing remarkable occurred till we reached the Obstacle in St. George's Fields, where our attention was arrested by those great Institutions—the school for the Indignant Blind, and the Misanthropic Society for making shoes, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... consist of a mass of mountains, the highest points of which rise in a central ridge. Cliffs varying in height from 100 to 2000 feet form the coast boundary of the island. On the north they are the highest and most abrupt, while on the south they are lower and more accessible. The central mountains branch down to the sea in ridges parted by deep ravines, in some places full of dark forests, adding to their gloomy grandeur. The towns are generally situated in the more open parts of these ravines. ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... Notwithstanding Lord Dunmore's abrupt dissolution of the House of Burgesses, the members still continued on courteous terms with him, and the ball which they had decreed early in the session in honor of Lady Dunmore, was celebrated on the 27th ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... had (as we had conjectured) written to Todd's Corner, asking pardon in the first place for the abrupt manner in which she and Anne had left their friends at the farm-house (on the morning after I had met the woman in white in Limmeridge churchyard), and then informing Mrs. Todd of Anne's disappearance, and ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... rose from the supper-table, he well-nigh fell backward when Fagon, coming forward, cried in great trouble that all was lost. It may be imagined what terror seized all the company at this abrupt passage from perfect security to hopeless despair. The King, scarcely master of himself, at once began to go towards the apartment of Monseigneur, and repelled very stiffly the indiscreet eagerness of some courtiers who wished to prevent him, saying that he would see his son again, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... and indeed had little scope. The chansons had a common form, or something very like it, which almost dispensed the trouvere from devoting much pains to the individual conduct of the story. The most abrupt transitions were accustomed, indeed expected; minor incidents received very little attention; the incessant fighting secured the attention of the probable hearers by itself; the more grandiose and striking incidents—the crowning of Prince Louis and the indignation of William ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... be sure. But it can wait a minute." Sir Terence pushed back his chair, and rose. He crossed slowly to his secretary's side. "What's on your mind, Ned?" he asked with abrupt solicitude, and Ned could not suspect that it was the matter on Sir Terence's own mind that was urging him—but ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... was not altogether groundless, for she stood on the edge of an abrupt fall of the ground, and he ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... delineation is twice the size of the ordinary man, and so it is in descriptive music. For instance, in Beethoven's "Pastoral" symphony, the cuckoo is not a bird which mysteriously hides itself far away in a thicket, the sound of whose voice comes to one like a strange, abrupt call from the darkness of the forest; no, it is unmistakably a cuckoo, reminding one strangely of those equally advanced and extremely cheap art products of Nuremberg, made of pine wood, and ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... openly advocated the aims, and defended the methods, of the Afrikander Bond. The Bond's determination to do all in its power to secure the independence of the Boers, and thereby defeat the policy of the Imperial Government, was manifested by the abrupt refusal of its leaders to associate themselves with the efforts of the Burgher Peace Committee. Mr. P. de Wet and the other peace delegates who had visited the Colony in the circumstances already ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... had been in the employ of the Falconieri for a century, advanced as with the burden of their united years and opened the high gate to us and delivered us over to a mild boy. He bestowed on us, for a consideration, a bunch of wild violets, and then, as if to keep us from the too abrupt sight of the repairs and changes going on near the casino, led us first to the fish-pond, in the untouched seclusion of a wooded hill, and silently showed us the magnificent view which the top commanded, if commanded is not too proud a word for a place so pathetic in its endearing neglect. It ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... striding over the recumbent tombstones, and slipping between the broken columns and upright slabs. They lost the coffin and found it again. Nanteuil evinced a certain eagerness in her pursuit of it, anxious and abrupt, her prayer-book in her hand, freeing her skirt as it caught on the railings, and brushing past the withered wreaths which left the heads of immortelles adhering to her gown. Finally, the first to reach the graveside smelt the acrid odour of the freshly ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... ran from north to southwest; but in consequence of its standing, as it were, somewhat out of the ranks, its whole appearance and character as a distinct feature of the country were invested with considerable interest to a scientific eye, especially to that of a geologist. An intersection or abrupt glen divided it from those which constituted the range or group alluded to; through this, as a pass in the country, and the only one for miles, wound a road into an open district on the western side, which road, about half a mile after ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... specimen of a dispute in the Socratic method; and soon after I procured Xenophon's Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there are many instances of the same method. I was charmed with it, adopted it, dropped my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter. And being then, from reading Shaftesbury and Collins, become a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine, I found this method safest for myself and ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... she lighted the matter for him more, really, than his own courage had quite dared—putting the absent dots on several i's—he saw new questions swarm. They had been till now in a bunch, entangled and confused; and they fell apart, each showing for itself. The first he put to her was at any rate abrupt. "Have you heard of late ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... hands. The doctor skillfully evaded the questions that were trembling on Mrs. Hastings' lips and hungering in Dora's eyes concerning the nature and extent of Pliny's injuries, which fact led Theodore to be very much alarmed, and yet he was totally unprepared for the abrupt answer which he received when he first found a chance to ask ...
— Three People • Pansy
... him; the neighbourhood was very lonely, the house isolated in its garden. It seemed as if his observation must here come to an abrupt end. A second glance, however, showed him a tall house next door presenting a gable to the garden, and in this gable a single window. He passed to the front and saw a ticket offering unfurnished lodgings by the month; and, on inquiry, the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of his profession of faith, however, partakes very much of the most offensive peculiarities of his manner. It is abrupt and violent to a degree which not only shocks good taste, but detracts considerably from the appearance of sincerity. It seems as if he considered his creed as a sort of nauseous medicine which could only be taken off at a draught, and he looks ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Children were enticed in as models, till their incoherent accounts of her mysterious doings caused Miss Amy to be regarded in the light of a young ogress. Her efforts in this line, however, were brought to an abrupt close by an untoward accident, which quenched her ardor. Other models failing her for a time, she undertook to cast her own pretty foot, and the family were one day alarmed by an unearthly bumping and screaming ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... and the din they raised was positively hellish. Those who could see the composer's face afterward declared it was wreathed in smiles, but this, of course, I could not see; but I did see, and we all saw, after the rather abrupt end of the march (which finished after a long-drawn-out suspension, capo d'astro, resolved by the use of the diseased chord of the minor thirteenth into a dissipated fifth), the venerable virtuoso ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... passed in the councils of William? The abrupt disappointment which the Grand Assembly had occasioned him did not last very long. Made aware that he could not trust to the spirit of an assembly, William now artfully summoned merchant, and knight, and baron, one by ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... carriages vanished in a cloud of July dust, and the familiar Palace Green, with its spreading trees and the red chimneys beyond—the High Street—Kensington Gore, were left behind. Kensington's last brief dream of a Court was brought to an abrupt conclusion. What was worse, Kensington's Princess was gone, never to return to the changed scene save for the most ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... questions with which he plied his mother were concerned with Granny. They were fairly discreet as a rule, but on the morning after the scene just described, some impulse of which he had no clear understanding made him perplex his mother with the abrupt question: ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... rocks, broken into all sorts of shapes, as if giant animals had trampled them under foot when the earth was still in a condition of mud, on the day when it emerged from chaos, broke the stretches here and there, and relieved from time to time by their abrupt breaks the flat horizon-line which merged into that of the sky in a zone of reddish mist. At vast distances grew palm trees, outspreading their dusty leaves near some spring, frequently dried up, and in the mud of which ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... Canyon from El Tovar, as far up as the point where the pictured rocks appear. Here the Hopi trail turns and follows the course of the main Havasu Canyon. Cushing counted forty-four knots in his buckskin fringe from the village to the exit, each knot denoting an abrupt curve or angle in the winding canyons. The Topocobya Trail descends a sheer cliff of stupendous majesty, and the Wallapai Trail is enough to shatter the nervous system of any but the most experienced; but the Hopi Trail ascent out of ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... greater degree than he had indulged them heretofore,—those whims which had by now become almost driving passions to the exclusion of all else;—and he was certainly not in the least disposed to take Sir Joseph at his word, and to embark upon that undertaking which he knew would put an abrupt end to all the careless dalliance in which his clothes, his fastidious speech, and his parade of artistic discrimination played ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... without doubt be of infinite benefit to science, but I wonder if it would not be of more direct benefit if we were to get back to our own time, alive and well. Accidents always happen, and for all our weapons, we might easily meet some animal which would put an abrupt and tragic finish to our explorations. Is it not so?" asked Stel ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... duly served, while the gentlemen continued their talking and drinking—Pere Joyeuse was always very slow in everything that he did, because of his abrupt excursions into the moon—the girls resumed their work, the table was covered with wicker baskets, embroidery, pretty wools whose brilliant coloring brightened the faded flowers in the old carpet, and the group of the other evening was formed anew in the luminous circle of the lamp ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... read and learn," and Grace led the way up the old steps and across the hall, then through what appeared to the children quite a bewildering maze of dark passages, so dim and sombre after the bright sunshine, that Grace overheard Jean say in an, abrupt whisper, which was instantly smothered by her brother, "I'm afraid, Geordie; I'm no gain' farther upon this ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... narrow non-angelic stairs and out at a little side door. The night air was sweet and cold. She paused for a moment under the light of the porte-cochere to watch the string of carriages and the swirl of silk and laces that passed through the opening door, to listen to gusts of music that came to an abrupt end as the outside ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... covered her husband's abrupt departure, for Godfrey had gone straight to the door, unable ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... and a restless, dark eye, which opened and shut with a peculiar wink that kept time with the motion of his lips in speaking. His clothes were cut in a loose, jaunty style, and his manner, though brusque and abrupt, betokened, like his face, a free, frank, manly character. He was ten or twelve years the junior of the other, and as unlike him as one man ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... in due course, he removed and placed in his pockets before he stepped out upon the platform at Hyeres. He was, of course, an entire stranger to Rudolph and me, and we continued our journey with the victimized millionaire to Cannes, where we were compelled to remain for a week lest our abrupt return should excite anybody's suspicion. Meanwhile, of course, Duperre was already back in London ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... They register less completely, it seems to me, because the departure is too sudden in the rhythmus of the artist. The art of Davies is the art of a melodious curved line. Therefore the sudden angularity is abrupt to ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... and there were many winding shrubbery paths about them, which strangers were apt to find easier to enter than to find their way out of again. Into one of these Mrs. Damer now turned her steps for the sake of privacy and shelter; but she had not gone far before, on turning an abrupt corner, she came suddenly upon the figure of the gentleman she had been introduced to the night before, Mr. Laurence, who she had imagined to be with the shooting party. He was half lying, half sitting ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... for Darrow, by an abrupt rush of memories, and he gave way to a mirth which she as frankly echoed. "Of course," she gasped through her laughter, "I only ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... very fond of you," said Mr. Hervey. Again he paused, and looked round to see whether he could be overheard. "Pardon me for what I am going to say. This is not a proper place. I must be abrupt; for I am so circumstanced, that I have not a moment's time to spare. May I speak to you with ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... her minister—immediately began to concoct plans to gain control of the state. The king was kept in virtual captivity until he reached the age of seventeen, when, having asserted his rights, Concini was killed, and Marie's dominant power and influence came to an abrupt end. ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... series that the process of habit formation was obscured. It would not be fair to say that the mouse temporarily ceased to profit by its experience; instead it profited even more than usually, in all probability, but the unavoidably abrupt increase in the difficultness of the tests was just sufficient ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... No one knows better than we physicians the danger of this autocracy of grief, and I watched Gwen with a solicitude at times almost bordering on despair. But, as I said before, she always seemed to show more interest in affairs when Maitland was present, and, on the night in question, his abrupt and unexpected entrance surprised her into the betrayal of more pleasure than she would have wished us to note, and, indeed, so quickly did she conceal her confusion that I was the only one who noticed it. Maitland was too busy with the ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... to use on occasion. Also, on occasion, she can be firm and hard, even cynical An intellectual woman, and at the same time a very womanly woman, capable of sudden tendernesses, flashes of emotion, and abrupt actions. She is a finished product of high culture and refinement, and at the same time possesses robust vitality and instinctive right-promptings that augur well for the future of ...
— Theft - A Play In Four Acts • Jack London
... an abrupt mechanical movement like a doll wound up to walk, but he snatched the lace scarf that was wrapped round her arm, and held her ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the bare hedges till we came out upon the road which leads away across the moor between Hillsbro' Farm and Hillsbro' Hall. There is a spot on this road which you know well, where the ground sinks into a hollow, and then rises in a steep abrupt hill, on the top of which any object suddenly appearing stands out in sharp relief against the sky, in the eyes of the traveller below. We reached the foot of this hill, John and I; we began to ascend; I raised my eyes, and saw a figure appear ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... said with an engaging smile. "My friend is a stranger to Brazil and not acquainted with your manner of welcome. In our own country men never put the arm around one another except in combat. He has been a soldier. You are a soldier. So you can understand that a fighting man may be a little abrupt when he ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... opinion; but we cannot wholly explain the incredible contradictions of the Holbachs and Renans, without allowing full weight to that need for God which shows itself even in the farthest wanderings of human thought by sudden and abrupt returns. ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... that they made friends where their intimacy was sought and appreciated. There was nothing underbred about themselves; both were ladies ingrain, though Arthurine was abrupt and sometimes obtrusive, but they had not lived a life such as to render them sensitive to the lack of fine edges in others, and were quite ready to be courted by those who gave the meed of appreciation that both regarded ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and did was abrupt, confused, feverish—very likely the words he spoke, as often as not, were not those he wished to say. He seemed to inquire whether he MIGHT speak. His eyes lighted ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... visit to France, and would probably have lingered, goblet in hand, in the old cathedral city till the day of his death, but for the presentation of a little account for wine consumed, which sobered him to repentance and led to his abrupt departure. Dunois, Lahire, Xaintrailles, and their fellows, when they rode with Joan of Arc to the coronation of Charles VII., drank the same generous fluid, through helmets barred, to the speedy expulsion of the detested English from the soil ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... new band, however, consisted but of two gentlemen and their immediate attendants, the Duc de Bar and the Comte de Clermont,(1) always a bird of evil omen, riding hot from St. Denis with orders from the King. These orders were abrupt and peremptory—to turn back. Jeanne and her companions were struck dumb for the moment. To turn back, and Paris at their feet! There must have burst forth a storm of remonstrance and appeal. We cannot ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... underdeveloped countries, such as political instability, a top-heavy civil service, and a generally unfavorable climate for business enterprise. The development of the oil sector led rapid economic growth between 1970 and 1985. Growth came to an abrupt halt in 1986, precipitated by steep declines in the prices of major exports: coffee, cocoa, and petroleum. Export earnings were cut by almost one-third, and inefficiencies in fiscal management were exposed. In 1990-93, with support from the IMF and World Bank, the government began to introduce ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... It seemed abrupt, but I thought maybe the reader wouldn't notice it, because I changed the subject right away to something else. Anyway it loosened up Rowena from where she was stuck and got her out of the way, and that was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in mid-Rome seek Rome And can find nothing in mid-Rome of Rome, Behold this mass of walls, these abrupt rocks, Where the vast theatre lies overwhelmed. Here, here is Rome! Look how the very corpse Of greatness still imperiously breathes threats! The world she conquered, strove herself to conquer, Conquered that nothing be unconquered by her. Now conqueror Rome's ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... at finding himself dragged away in so abrupt a manner by this Englishman, had sought in his subtle mind for some means of escaping from his fetters; but no one having rendered him any assistance in this respect, he was absolutely obliged, therefore, to submit to the burden of his own ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and restless attorney who had acted as the Mexican workmen's mouthpiece, observed through the broad plate-glass window of the San Mateo Cattle Company's office an incident that greatly interested him. For the moment he forgot the resentment kindled by Sorenson's abrupt refusal and brutal words when he asked for the nomination for county attorney. The election was in the autumn; the nomination was equivalent to election; and Felipe considered that he had too long been kept apart from that ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... "Vile caitiff, come not here," Abrupt cried Death; "shall flatt'ry soothe my ear?" "Hence, or thou feel'st my dart!" the Monarch said. Wild terror seiz'd me, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... running over her as she turned and saw her brother Ezra behind her, smiling at her fright. In his arms he held a small white lamb, and it was this little animal's nose that had been pressed to Naomi's neck, and that had brought her day-dreaming to such an abrupt close. ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... of the sort." The Professor is abrupt and decisive, as one who repudiates. "I know nothing about positions. However, Mr. Bradshaw, you are quite right this far—that is what Mrs. Wilson would have meant. She knows about positions. What I meant was that you wouldn't have enough to live upon at the best, in any ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... a broad river, sweeping round in an imposing curve from the South-Eastward, with abrupt ranges of sandstone hills, for the most part cleared of forest, hemming it in on either side, and a glimpse of lofty blue mountains towering skywards far away to the North-East, is a long straggling collection of atap (thatch made ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... where the forest was so open that he could look far into its depths. The course of the creek was so winding that he could see only a short distance ahead, and several times his own momentum carried him close into land before he could accommodate himself to the abrupt curve around which he shot ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... dining-room in Fifi's absence, yet faintly marred in a most singular way by the very absence which alone made them halcyon. It is a fact that you cannot give to any person fifteen minutes of valuable time every night, and not have your consciousness somewhat involved in that person's abrupt disappearance from your horizon. Messages from Fifi on matters of most trivial import came to Queed occasionally, and these served to keep alive his subtle awareness of her absence. But he never took any notice of the messages, not even of ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Subject seemed to drop here. But COMMERELL, having by this time had another question on other subject put and answered, collected his thoughts, rose and begged to say that "Prince Louis of BATTENBERG served under me, and a more efficient officer——" Here sentence came to abrupt conclusion. Angry cries of "Order!" stormed round gallant Admiral. COMMERELL a man of proved valour, as the Victoria Cross worn on his breast on Jubilee Day and other high festivities testifies. But his bronzed cheek blanched ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various
... pleasure than I feel in reading the great Attic poets, but still with admiration. An idea occurred to me which may very likely have been noticed by a hundred people before. I was always puzzled to understand the reason for the extremely abrupt transitions in those Odes of Horace which are meant to be particularly fine. The "justum et tenacem" is an instance. All at once you find yourself in heaven, Heaven knows how. What the firmness of just men in times of tyranny, or of tumult, has to do with Juno's oration about ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... deepened by the return of their emissaries, who not only had been unable to obtain access to Cleo, but who had furtively been warned by the traitorous stage manager "to look sharp after their money." The camaraderie that had hitherto subsisted between that gentleman and Cleo had come to an abrupt end, she cutting him short impatiently in the course of some discussion and bidding him not to argue. In further token of his annoyance he had worded a notice she had told him to put ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... north of Palma, in the heart of the only mountain-chain of the island, which forms its western, or rather northwestern coast. The average altitude of these mountains will not exceed three thousand feet; but the broken, abrupt character of their outlines, and the naked glare of their immense precipitous walls, give them that intrinsic grandeur which does not depend on measurement. In their geological formation they resemble the Pyrenees; the rocks are of that palombino, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... expression—their sense of the deeper value of matter made them despise such aid. A clearer conception would have rectified this error. The matter is confluent with the manner; and only THROUGH the style can thought reach the reader's mind. If the manner is involved, awkward, abrupt, obscure, the reader will either be oppressed with a confused sense of cumbrous material which awaits an artist to give it shape, or he will have the labour thrown upon him of extricating the material and reshaping it ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... managed than one of mine would be, and the only logical thing that I can do, is to take it for granted that the next one is even better than this. If the main feature of the next world consists in there not being one, then so much the better. I would not have thought so. It seems a little abrupt at this moment, perhaps, but it is a mere detail and why not leave it to God to work it out? He doesn't have to neglect anything to do it—which is what we do—and He is going to do ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... rivals and enemies, of whom either the brilliancy of his achievements or his somewhat abrupt and pointed methods of controversy seem to have made him a great many, have risen up, or rather seated themselves, and written him down—well, an individual who strains the truth. Indeed, only this morning one of these inquired, in a letter to the press, alluding ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... the new center, and thence through the uttermost parts of the Roman empire into its heart, His is the presence recognized and obeyed. He is ceaselessly guiding, empowering, inspiring, checking, controlling clear to the abrupt end. His is the one mastering personality. And everywhere His presence is a transforming presence. Nothing short of startling is the change in Peter, in the attitude of the Jerusalem thousands, in the persecutor Saul, in the spirit of these disciples, in the unprecedented ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... it proved to be a bog, and as the rubber-tired wheels sank in and could not be propelled, the natural result followed that the nose of the giant plane was buried in the soft ground, and they came to an abrupt stop. ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... The abrupt, unexpected question startled her, and a crimson tide rushed over her face and neck; but she returned her father's gaze steadily: "No, papa; how could you think ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... His abrupt, incredible recovery had been the first open manifestation of the way it worked. Not that she had tried it on him first. Before she dared do that once she had proved it on herself twenty times. She had proved it up ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... loiters by, watching some sheep on some distant bank, so shy and wild-looking, and, to appearance, so melancholy, so forlorn. Meanwhile, as we "plod our weary way," some dip in the wavy round of olive-hued lumpish mountains, or an abrupt huge chasm of awful rocks, each side being almost perpendicular, startles the traveller with a far-down prospect of some sunshiny, rich, leafy, valley region, at once showing at what a bleak elevation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... was falling so fast. In the little strips of valley, growing narrower as he proceeded between the abrupt hills, it was so nearly dark already that she appeared only dimly ahead of him, urging her horse on with unsparing hand. It seemed that she must have some objective ahead of her, some refuge which she strained to make, some help that ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... in proportion as his presence was more painful to me. I said that I trusted to his taste, and I advised my wife to do the same. He remained just as long as it was necessary in order to efface the unpleasant impression of my abrupt entrance with a frightened face. He went away with an air of satisfaction at the conclusions arrived at. As for me, I was perfectly sure that, in comparison with that which preoccupied them, the question of music was indifferent ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... said the other submissively, showing no surprise whatever at this abrupt prohibition. "You don't wish for secret ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... old Roy, the Skye; the spaniel John, who had been cut off at the door by his master's abrupt exit, preceded her. Norah and Bee ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... across to Ralph, and put her hand on his arm, looking steadily at Chris. Ralph laid his other hand on hers a moment, then raised it, and made an abrupt ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... had ever seen Miss Havisham's adopted daughter, Mrs. Bentley Drummle. He said no. To avoid being too abrupt, I then spoke of the Aged and of Miss Skiffins. He looked rather sly when I mentioned Miss Skiffins, and stopped in the street to blow his nose, with a roll of the head, and a flourish not quite ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... pleasure was not long. It is impossible to judge whether the little self-indulgence was a weak relapse from an iron purpose or part of a definite plan. The former is more likely, so abrupt and apparently conscience-stricken was the return to labor. His inclinations and his earnest hope were combined in a longing for Corsica.[12] It was a bitter disappointment that under the army regulations he must serve a year as second lieutenant before leave could be granted. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... to amend this passage, in which nothing is faulty but the punctuation. The meaning of this abrupt dialogue is this: The perfect spy, mentioned by Macbeth in the foregoing scene, has, before they enter upon the stage, given them the directions which were promised at the time of their agreement; and, therefore, one of the murderers observes, that, since he ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... us ourselves to the front to sit in high place and put them into effect; but so they will be all the more beneficial. Everything teaches us how gradually nature would have all profound changes brought about; and we can even see, too, where the absolute abrupt stoppage of feudal habits has worked harm. And appealing to the sense of truth and reason, these considerations will, without doubt, touch and move all those of even the Barbarians themselves, who are (as are some ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... to dive. The Wrights had known of this tendency from Lilienthal's researches, but had imagined that the phenomenon would disappear if they used a fairly lightly cambered—or curved—surface with a very abrupt curve at the front. Having discovered what appeared to be the cause they surmounted the difficulty by 'trussing down' the camber of the wings, with the result that they at once got back to the old conditions of the previous year and could ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... saw the difficulty of keeping "a state secret." I had scarcely sent in my acceptance of the appointment, when I found a letter on my table from my old Israelite friend, Mordecai, congratulating me on "my decision." It was in his usual abrupt style:— ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... term) during the anxious times of the ill-fated Parthenopean Republic, that short-lived period of aristocratic government which was set up in self-defence by certain Neapolitan nobles, prelates and men of science after the abrupt departure of their cowardly King and Queen to Palermo. We all remember the terrible ending of that government: how the vile rabble-army of Cardinal Ruffo assaulted Naples; how the city capitulated to the Cardinal on the ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... the desert in spate, thumb-nail sketches from a station-agent's window, queer little flavorous stories of crime and adventure and petty intrigue in the town; all done with a deftness and brevity that was saved from being too abrupt only by broad touches of color and light. And he had had a letter. He told Miss Van ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... surprise, wondering at his abrupt leave-taking. He was unmistakably offended about something. Sara Downs had told her more than once that he was the most foolishly sensitive person she had ever known, continually getting his feelings hurt ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... had struck in the room I could not have been more startled than I was by the abrupt utterance of such language in a planter's house, in his very presence, and by his slave. The Colonel, however, expressed no surprise and no disapprobation. It was evidently ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... stairs, swayed by a conflict of emotions. Had I indeed gone too far, been too stern and abrupt? Still it was surely better to err in this direction than to exhibit weakness, and it was only between these two that I had any choice remaining. What lay between us and our own lines was uncertain—possibly ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... apology in her character of mother for the maiden's abrupt proceeding were met by the Queen most graciously. "Spare thy words, good madam. We understand and reverence Mr. Talbot's point of honour. Would that all who approached us had ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... woman, and after a decision she did not reflect, nor did she heed minor consequences. She was always sure that what she was doing was the right and the only thing to do. And, to give her justice, it was; for her direct, abrupt common sense was indeed remarkable. The act of climbing up into the car warned her that she must be skilful in the control of these potatoes; one of them nearly fell out of the right end of her muff as she grasped the car rail ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... smoother and shoaler water, where they grounded, or were floated into little creeks and bays formed by the irregularities of the shores. These quiet places were, of course, on the side nearest the town, the opposite bank being too abrupt and the water too deep, for there was the channel, and there the water tore along ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... when he heard a loud brass band coming down the road toward the plantation playing a strange, lively tune while a number of soldiers in blue uniforms marched behind. He ran to the front gate and was ordered to take charge of the horse of one of the officers in such an abrupt tone until he 'begin to shaking in my bare feet! There followed much talk between the officers and Lindsey's mistress, with the soldiers finally going into encampment a short distance away ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... epidermis was thicker and mind more practical, thought only of their stupidity in not having brought off with them a loaf of bread apiece. In the hurry of their abrupt departure they had even gone off without breakfasting, and hunger soon made its presence felt by the nerveless sensation in their legs. Others among the prisoners appeared to be in the same boat, for ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... paid the most respectful attention to women in every rank and condition of life—the widow and the orphan, the young and the old. While he was often stern and abrupt to men, he was always kind and gentle to women, and he received from them the homage they would pay to a brother. His friendship for Grant I have already alluded to, but it extended in a lesser degree to all his comrades, especially ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... bowed her courteously out. No sooner had the door closed upon her than he sprang upstairs, three steps at a time, and broke impetuously in upon Alwyn, who, seated at a table covered with papers, looked up with a surprised smile at the abrupt fashion of his entrance. In a few minutes he had disburdened himself of the whole story of the "Tiger-Lily's" visit, telling it in a whimsical way of his own, much to the amusement of his friend, who listened, pen in hand, with a half-laughing, half-perplexed light ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... a literal interpretation of my demand; but, without permitting myself to be nonplussed by it, or paying any heed to the abrupt words of dismissal, I replied, half interrogatively: "You, then, are he? You ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... from the house. At first she thought that Augustus surely did know, and she was wretched as she thought that he might probably speak to her on the subject. But he went on talking about Orme and his abrupt departure till she became convinced that he knew nothing and suspected nothing of what ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... belonging to him making love under his nose without any reference to his opinion. 'Things were not made so easy for me,' he says to himself, and feels it to be a sort of duty to take care that the course of love shall not run altogether smooth. George, no doubt, was too abrupt with his father; or perhaps it might be the case that he was not sorry to take an opportunity of leaving for a while Granpere and Marie Bromar. It might be well to see the world; and though Marie Bromar was bright and pretty, it might ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... Dash (-) denotes a long or significant pause, or an abrupt change or transition in ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... helmeted quail. The sun was very hot; but the air was curiously streaked with coolness and with a fierce dry heat as though from an opened furnace door. All the grass was brown and crisp. Darker and more abrupt mountains showed themselves in the distance, with an occasional peak of white and ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... her remarks, but inwardly chafed at the way he seemed to be tied up here for the present, both by business and his aunt's presence. He dared not put his happiness to the test of a letter. That would seem abrupt and strange, with so little to lead up to it. No, he must do as he had been doing all ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... been when Romayne would have asked for some explanation of this abrupt notice of removal. Now, he passively accepted the advice of his spiritual director. Father Benwell made the necessary communication to the authorities, and Romayne took leave of his friends in The Retreat. The great Jesuit and the great landowner left the ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... during the war was therefore to see it in the last phase of its curiously abrupt transition from remoteness and danger to security and accessibility; at a moment when its aspect and its customs were still almost unaffected by European influences, and when the "Christian" might taste the transient joy ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... the heart of man, in the way this other touches it. The great rhetorician found a rhetoric here that put his eloquence to silence and he responded to it with sentences as sharp, as brief, as broken, as abrupt, as stinging and wind-driven, as the rushing waves themselves pouring over a half ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... latter are mounted may be seen from an inspection of Figs. 3 to 5. This new arrangement of spiral springs for the purpose is designed to hold the pistons on the table firmly, and at the same time to prevent the shock that their upper ends might undergo in case of an abrupt turn of the winch. Moreover, the forged iron plate, H, is not exposed to breakage as it is in other machines, where it is of cast iron. The bobbins already mentioned revolve upon strong iron rods, and the moving forward of the wick in the moulds is effected automatically by the very fact of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... you survey the field in preparation for them you are summoned to observe the preluding courtesies of civilised warfare in a manner becoming a chivalrous gentleman. It never was the merely flinging of your leg across a frontier, not even with the abrupt Napoleon. You have besides to drill your men; and you have often to rouse your foe with a ringing slap, if he's a sleepy one or shamming sleepiness. As here, for example: and that of itself devours more minutes than ten. Rockney and Mattock could be roused; but ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... along the south bank, and then broke away from the river (making a deep curve round an amphitheatre, as it were, about a mile wide), and then returned to the stream again, but with gentler slopes, and features of a much less abrupt character." The road crossed the river by a wooden bridge, and ran through the centre of the valley or amphitheatre. Prince Menschikoff had posted the right of his army on the gentler slopes last described, and as it was the key of his position, ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... hastened to the college, anxious to congratulate the prisoners on their deliverance from the double afflictions of a dungeon and of continual insecurity. Mere curiosity also prompted some, who took but little interest in the prisoners or their cause, to inquire into the circumstances of so abrupt and unexpected an act of grace. One principal court in the college was filled with those who had come upon this errand of friendly interest or curiosity. Nothing was to be seen but earnest and ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... The theological change was abrupt. It was as though Presbyterian Scotland had suddenly been put under the rule of the Jesuits. But, like the Society of Jesus, the Shia were pre-eminently intellectual and recognised the necessity of adapting their teaching to the capacities of their hearers, and the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... and nodding his head to show he understood, started boldly on a run toward the door. But the officers who guarded it brought him to an abrupt halt, and, much to Mr. Dwyer's astonishment, drew from him what was apparently a ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... grave; in this dulness of the senses there is a gentle preparation for the final insensibility of death. And to him the idea of mortality comes in a shape less violent and harsh than is its wont, less as an abrupt catastrophe than as a thing of infinitesimal gradation, and the last step on a long decline of way. As we turn to and fro in bed, and every moment the movements grow feebler and smaller and the attitude more restful and easy, until sleep overtakes us at a stride and we move no more, so desire ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... backwards,—then he would evidently appear to be flying from himself, and to be putting off his manhood, and to hate his own nature. On which account, also, some ways of sitting down, and some contorted and abrupt movements, such as wanton or effeminate men at times indulge in, are contrary to nature. So that even if that should happen through any fault of the mind, still the nature of the man would seem to be changed in his body. Therefore, on the contrary, moderate and equal conditions, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... a thousand others—one of those abrupt fissures with which the earth in the Southwest is riddled; so abrupt that you might walk over the edge of any one of them on a dark night and never know what had happened to you. This canyon headed on the Ottenburg ranch, about a mile ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... all that country of any deep or well defined valleys, much less abrupt glens or gorges, that any hollow containing a tributary stream, which invariably meanders in slow and sluggish reaches through smooth, green meadow-land, is dignified with the name of dale, or valley. The country is, however, so much intersected by winding ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... this was a salon—this was where the Chinese panels were to find a haven—and already cream-and-gold furniture had been placed at artistic angles with blue velvet hangings for an abrupt contrast. There was a multitude of books bound in dove-coloured ooze; cut glass, crystal, silver candelabra sprinkled throughout. Men were working on fluted white satin window drapes, and Mary glanced toward the ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... pressed against the walls. I had not advanced more than thirty feet, my every nerve tingling, when I saw the ruddy reflection of a fire, hitherto completely concealed by a sharp turn in the tunnel. Rounding this abrupt point we found ourselves in a large room capable of containing upwards of three hundred persons. This chamber was partly natural in formation, but, as I discovered later, had been considerably enlarged ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... wonderful, the sunlight, the distant view of the sea, the perfumes of flowers and shrubs, had all gone. The car was crawling along a rough and stony road, between hedges dripping with moisture and trees dimly seen like spectres. At last, about three-quarters of the way down to the sea, after an abrupt turn, they entered a winding avenue and emerged on to a terrace. The chauffeur, who had felt the strain of the drive, ran a little past the front door and pulled up in front of an uncurtained window. Tallente glanced in, dazzled a little at first by the unexpected lamplight. Then he understood the ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in Des Vaches. He felt that there was not fight enough in him for the work, even if he had not taken that strong disgust for public life which included the place and its people. He wanted to get away, to get far away, and with the abrupt and total change in his humour he reverted to a period in his life when journalism and politics and the ambition of Congress were things ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... at her, and in her excited, questioning face saw a confirmation of his still half-formed suspicions. In his own abrupt pause and knitted eyebrows she must have read his thoughts also. Their eyes met. Her violet pupils dilated, trembled, and then quickly shifted as she suddenly stiffened into an attitude of scornful indifference, ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... elastic moss, richer than the richest velvet, and ferns in plumy profusion. . . . Dan Burnett leads on, and presently we emerge on the largest and most beautiful of the little prairies through which we have passed. This stretch of open ground lies at the foot of the highest peak, the abrupt sides of which rise in conical shape before us. It is here, Mr. Burnett tells us, that the mountaineers who were searching for Professor Mitchell found the first trace of the ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... scarcely an exception, they are severely simple and square. But there is a certain grandeur in the masses of white marble, which is everywhere lavishly employed, and the Capitol stands right well—alone, on the crest of a low, abrupt slope, with nothing to intercept the view from its terraces, seaward, and up the valley of the Potomac. The effect will probably be better when wind and weather shall have slightly toned down the sheen of the fresh-hewn ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... appeared in English; and, of some pieces, the most accomplished scholar would scarcely undertake to furnish at once a literal and an intelligible version. [370:5] His style is harsh, his transitions are abrupt, and his inuendos and allusions most perplexing. He must have been a man of very bilious temperament, who could scarcely distinguish a theological opponent from a personal enemy; for he pours forth upon those who differ from him whole torrents ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... made no revelations touching his colloquy with Storri. There was a thick down-come of snow, and the new flakes covered the street like feathers to a fluffy depth of two inches. As Dorothy and Richard reached the sidewalk on Dorothy's return to the Harley house, Richard, with the abrupt remark: "I'll save you from the snow, my dear!" caught Dorothy in those Pict ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... search of this new world, whom shall we find Sufficient? who shall tempt with wandring feet The dark unbottom'd infinite Abyss And through the palpable obscure find out His uncouth way, or spread his aerie flight Upborn with indefatigable wings Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive The happy Ile; what strength, what art can then 410 Suffice, or what evasion bear him safe Through the strict Senteries and Stations thick Of Angels watching round? Here he had need All circumspection, and we now no less Choice in our suffrage; ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... have been particularly unpleasant to a high-minded nation like the French—at the very moment when the Egyptian affair and the balance of Europe had been settled in this abrupt way—to find out all of a sudden that the Pasha of Egypt was their dearest friend and ally. They had suffered in the person of their friend; and though, seeing that the dispute was ended, and the territory out of his hand, they could not hope to get it back for him, or to aid him in any substantial ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... left the saloon, Miss Dundas ran up stairs, and from her dressing-room window in the west tower pursued the steps of their horses as they cantered down the winding steep into the high road. An abrupt angle of the hill hiding them from her view, she turned round with a toss of the head, and flinging herself into a chair, exclaimed, "Now I shall be bored to death by this prosing family! I wish his boasted hunter had run away with Shafto before he thought ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... helpless, innocent sufferer," he then said in a pathetic tone, which in spite of his sternness, he could not suppress. "Poor, poor, forlorn girl—it was thus she begged and supplicated, but he denied her." He suddenly recollected himself, and with an abrupt motion he raised the weeping Theodora ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... that fruit-gathering is described with extraordinary grimness and force in the abrupt language of verse 3. The merry songs sung in the palace (this rendering seems more appropriate here than 'temple') will be broken off, and the singers' voices will quaver into shrill shrieks, so suddenly will the judgment be. Then comes a picture ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... outside, and is able to give a portrait of the outside, clear, brilliant, and full of detail. The Imagination sees the heart and inner nature, and makes them felt; but in the clear seeing of things beneath, is often impatient of detailed interpretation, being sometimes obscure, mysterious, and abrupt. Fancy, as she stays at the externals, never feels. She is one of the hardest hearted of the intellectual faculties; or, rather, one of the most purely and simply intellectual. She cannot be made serious; no edge tools ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... of all movement." Aristotle had no doubt a vague presentiment of the cause of the phenomenon; but he attributes to the motion of the atmosphere, and the shock of the particles of air, that which seems to be rather owing to abrupt changes of density in ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... town for a charming little retired village on the west Welsh coast. It was but a small place, with one street, and some straggling houses here and there, but with a beautiful stretch of sand ending in abrupt rocks. Our lodgings were but small; a sitting-room and bedroom above a shop, and two rooms over that. I slept in the small back room off the sitting-room, my mother had the front upper room, and my two sisters were in the room beside her, with only a thin partition between them, ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... made for Grannie's chair, each rosy pair of lips bestowed a vigorous kiss upon her apple-blossom cheeks. She patted them on their shoulders, smiled at them with happy eyes full of love; and they rushed off to school, grumbling a little at her quick, abrupt ways, but loving her well ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... suddenness with which it all went and he grew calm, coinciding as it did with the equally abrupt cessation of the humming and pattering outside—I think this was almost the strangest part of the whole business perhaps. For he had just opened his eyes and turned his tired face up to me so that the dawn threw a pale light upon it through the doorway, ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... rock-ladder, and is the only locality in the wide sweep of the Cirque affording the means of ascent. The rugged strata, which are here vertical, serve as steps in which one can insert the toes and fingers; but as the guidebook truly says: 'It is as abrupt as the ascent of a ladder; and wide spaces of smooth rock often intervene without any notch or projection offering a foothold. To those who cannot look down a sheer precipice many hundred feet deep without a tendency to giddiness, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... waves, and gives singular light to the top of the head; the eyes steeped in a golden penumbra with tawny eyeballs, on a moist and blue crystalline lens like that of a child, send out a glance of astonishing acuteness; the nose, divided into abrupt polished flat places, breathes strongly and passionately, through large red nostrils; the mouth, large and voluptuous, particularly in the lower lip, smiles with a rabelaisian smile under the shade of a moustache much lighter in colour than the hair; and the chin, ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... would not wait for his leisure, but leaving the rest of the party, we started off confidently, just two of us, down the perfectly plain trail. For a short distance there was a beaten path, then, suddenly, the trail came to an abrupt end. We looked this side and that. No trail, no appearance of there ever having been one. With a careless wave of his arm, the guide had said: "Keep in that direction." "That" being to the left, to the left we therefore turned and stormed our way through thicket ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... Came an abrupt lengthening of step, the guiding pressure grew more compelling, and she was caught up and carried along, though her velvet-shod feet never left the floor. Then came the sudden control down to the ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... to that first abrupt turn of the trail he realized that it was a cunning and experienced buck with which he had to deal. He smiled confidently, however, feeling sure of his own skill, and ran at full speed to the point where the ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... startled. The whistle came to an abrupt termination. Perhaps he may even have recognized the voice that called out this one word in such a tone of authority; for while he did not make any outcry he ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... generations, he yet died five years before his allotted time. The intention was to let him live to be one hundred and eighty years old, the same age as Isaac's at his death, but on account of Esau God brought his life to an abrupt close. For some time Esau had been pursuing his evil inclinations in secret. Finally he dropped his mask, and on the day of Abraham's death he was guilty of five crimes: he ravished a betrothed maiden, committed murder, doubted the resurrection of the dead, scorned the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... commissioners came to the French and English ambassadors accordingly, complaining of the abrupt and peremptory tone of the States' reply, the suggestion of conferences for truce, in place of fruitless peace negotiations, was made at once, and of course favourably received. It was soon afterwards laid before the States-General. To this end, in truth, Richardot ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... B— was in love with me, I gave no credit to the report, because he had never declared his passion, and this was the first hint of it that ever escaped him in my hearing. I was therefore so much amazed at the circumstance of this abrupt explanation, that I could make no answer; but having taken my leave, went away, ruminating ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... pointed, and the man dived like a frog over the bank. Like magic his blanket had left his limbs and painted body naked, except for the breech-clout. Balwin's tardy bullet threw earth over the squaw, who went flapping and screeching down the river. Balwin and Powell ran to the edge, which dropped six abrupt feet of clay to a trail, then shelved into the swift little stream. The red figure was making up the trail to the foot-bridge that led to the Indian houses, and both officers fired. The man continued his limber flight, and they jumped down ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... the city, not sparing the spur to my poor horse. A thousand projects flashed through my mind to rescue her. Arrived in the city, I hurried to the General's and ran into his room. He was walking up and down smoking his meerschaum. Seeing me he stopped, alarmed at my abrupt entrance. ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... was neither tree nor shrub for firewood and we were constantly obliged to go half a mile up a steep hill before we could obtain a few stunted bushes to cook with. As the watercourse approached the Broughton the country became much more abrupt and broken, and after its junction with that river, the stream wound through a succession of barren and precipitous hills, for about fifteen miles, at a general course of south-west; these hills were overrun ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... had nothing in it but the abrupt military explosion when he gave his orders now—no argument, no underlying sympathy. He was no longer herding a flock of frightened children. He was ordering trained, grown men, and he knew it and they knew ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... the queerness of this abrupt question. She fell to searching her memory diligently for an answer. "I'm not sure, but I think they speak oftenest of how I never used to like anybody to take my hand and help me along, even when I was barely able to walk. They say ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... half brushed from her face, and clung thickly to her head, then wound in shining braids at the back,—waving and rippling just like Jack's. I never saw such wonderful heads as these four Burtons had. I can give you no idea of them. Her mouth was what I should call abrupt,—that is, shapely, deep-cut at the corners,—the lips smiling without opening widely, or showing more than a white flash of teeth. She so smiled as she spoke to me that first evening, and impressed me even then as no other ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... Agay, is a perfect natural harbour. The red porphyry mountains rise in fantastic shapes above it, and plunge in abrupt crags into the deep blue water. It is a little harbour that calls out "Come and rest in me from every wind." Now a lighthouse has been erected at the extremity of one of the natural moles of rock, a coastguard establishment crowns the heights, two or three fishermen's cottages nestle ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... reached in a few hours from Sydney. In the old times it took four days to get there by coach, and much longer, of course, by bullock team! We crossed a large river, the Nepean, passing through some charming fern-gullies, and soon afterwards reached the zigzags of the railway. They are so abrupt, that instead of the train turning round, it is alternately pulled and pushed up the steep incline. This seems to me a dangerous plan, and it certainly does not economise labour or steam force. It was ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... restless vigil an overpowering sense of lassitude fell upon him. His eyes closed in abrupt surrender to exhaustion. The rhythmic beat of the quickstep leaped off into great distances; the champing and snorting of horses in the dressing-tent died away as if by magic; the subdued voices of the men and women who waited their turn ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... sullenly, and the angry blood darkened his cheeks. Boston wriggled uneasily on his seat, and cleared his throat as though about to speak. But, at the instant, Lynch's booming voice came into the foc'sle, calling the watch on deck, and putting an abrupt end ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... a great chagrin to Hartlib when the London plan came to an abrupt end, and Comenius transferred himself to Sweden. Thither we must follow him, for yet one other passage of his history before we leave him:— "Conveyed to Sweden in August of the year 1642," proceeds Comenius, "I found my new Maecenas at his house at Nortcoping; ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... sign of stopping, only a lifting of a correct looking straw hat that somehow seemed a bit out of place in Sabbath Valley. But Lynn left no doubt in his mind whether she would recognize him. She dropped her broom and sped down the, path, and the car came to an abrupt halt, only a hair's breadth past the gate,—but still—that ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... make man proud for very love Of their humility, and of his pride Ashamed. And in the coffin lay my wife. On, on, we went. The scene changed, and low hills Began to rise on each side of the path Until at last we came into a glen, From which the mountains soared abrupt to heaven, Shot cones and pinnacles into the skies. Upon the eastern side one mighty summit Shone with its snow faint through the dusky air; And on its sides the glaciers gave a tint, A dull metallic gleam, to the slow night. From base to top, on climbing ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... had brought her from Maria Theresa, and without deigning to address a single word to him. In the heat of her passion and resentment, she was nearly exposing all she knew of his infamies to the King, when the coolheaded Princesse Elizabeth opposed her, from the seeming imprudence of such an abrupt discovery; alleging that it might cause an open rupture between the two Courts, as it had already been the source of a reserve and coolness, which had not yet been explained. The Queen was determined never more ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... be apparent to the moral philosopher, no less than to the student of history, that at the time of the appearance of Christianity, a crisis took place in the development of humanity which may be not unfitly described as the commencement of Spiritual Life. The change was not abrupt. It had been preceded and heralded by the increasing spirituality of the Hebrew religion, especially in the teachings of the prophets, by the spiritualization of Greek philosophy, and perhaps by the sublimation of Roman duty; but it was critical and decided. So much is admitted even ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... modest—a regular little girl! There was only one thing about him I did not like: he rarely laughed; but when he did laugh, his teeth—large white teeth, pointed like an animal's—showed disagreeably, and the laugh itself had an abrupt, even savage, almost animal sound, and there were unpleasant gleams in his eyes. His mother was always praising him for being so obedient and well behaved, and not caring to make friends with rude boys, but always preferring feminine society. 'A mother's darling, a ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... towards Bigot. "Pardon me, Mademoiselle. Did the Intendant never speak to you of Le Gardeur's abrupt departure?" asked he. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... of the landing-place is formed solely by the chimney; and hence-owing to the gradual tapering of the chimney—is a little less than twelve feet in width. Climbing the chimney in this part, is the principal staircase—which, by three abrupt turns, and three minor landing-places, mounts to the second floor, where, over the front door, runs a sort of narrow gallery, something less than twelve feet long, leading to chambers on either hand. This gallery, of course, is railed; and ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... her plans, for Martha declined to go. Mrs. Burrell, however, not to be outdone, took Arthur aside and talked to him very seriously about his matrimonial prospects; but Arthur brought the conversation to an abrupt close by telling her he had not the slightest intention of marrying, and had quite made up his mind to go back to England as soon as the ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... his train of speculations, Clayton started at this abrupt deliverance. There was a suspicion of humor in the old woman's tone that showed an appreciation of their different standpoints. It was lost on Clayton, however, for his attention had been caught by the word "mast," which, by some accident, he ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... an hour longer they struggled on over the broken rocks that covered the bottom of the canyon; and then they came to where the canyon made an abrupt turn, and, widening out a little, ran straight ahead for half a mile ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... without being able to stir abroad for want of money and decent clothing. After remaining a fortnight, he made a proposal to the Major to accompany him to St. Petersburgh. "No: I esteem you, but no man on earth shall travel with me the way I do," was the abrupt refusal to the man who had gone out of the way several hundred miles to relieve his wants, and given him his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 12, Issue 328, August 23, 1828 • Various
... me when I assure you I DON'T!" she broke out. It burst from her, flaring up, in a queer quaver that ended in something queerer still—in her abrupt collapse, on the spot, into the nearest chair, where she choked with a torrent of tears. Her buried face could only after a moment give way to the flood, and she sobbed in a passion as sharp and brief as the flurry of a wild thing for an ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... little tables. Here Merrihew saw a tavern such as he had often conjured up while reading his Dumas; sausages and hams and bacons and garlic and cheeses and dried vegetables hanging from the ceiling, abrupt passages, rough tables and common chairs and strange dishes; oil, oil, oil, even on the top of his coffee-cup, and magnums of red and white Chianti. Hillard informed him that this was the most famous Bohemian place in the city, ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... theyre owne dinner and came backe to wait on the King and Prince: but the greatest error was that the goodman of the house was neither invited nor spoken of but dined that day at the Temple." Camden's account of this dinner (Ed. 1719, Vol. II., p. 648), although very abrupt, is to the point: "The wife of Sir Ed. Coke quondam Lord Chief Justice, entertained the King, Buckingham, and the rest of the Peers, at a splendid dinner, and not ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... caused by the immediate crowding out of cottage industry and the abrupt increase in production was insignificant beside the deeper influence, physical, moral, mental, of the machine in changing the permanent habitat and the entire mode of living for millions of human beings. It removed them from those healthy rural surroundings which preserve the half-primitive, ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... previous topic was so abrupt and barefaced that the lover stared for a moment, then ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... Ujiji, Insigazi, and a distant point southwards on the eastern shore of the lake, called Ukungue. Kivira Island is a massive hill, about five miles long by two or three broad, and is irregularly shaped. In places there are high flats, formed in terraces, but generally the steeps are abrupt and thickly wooded. The mainland immediately west is a promontory, at the southern extremity of the Uguhha Mountains, on the western coast of the Tanganyika; and the island is detached from it by so narrow a strip of water that, unless ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... leisure hours he devoted to helping the people round him, especially little ragged boys, whose only playground and schoolroom were the streets or the riverside. And it is curious that he, who amongst strangers of his own class was shy and abrupt, and often tactless, was quite at his ease with these little fellows, generally as suspicious as they are acute. About himself and his own comfort he never thought, and if he was working would eat, when it was necessary and he remembered to do so, food which he had ready in a ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... in them now less of dreaminess, and more of thought. The abrupt change in her outlook brought Evelyn Desmond's pretty, effective figure to the forefront of her mind. For ten years,—the period of Honor's education in England,—the two girls had lived and learned together as sisters; ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... common consent the conflict came to an abrupt end; the two lines drew apart and silence fell between them. Dom Gillian took two or three forward steps. He seemed to be uncertain of where to plant his feet, as is the natural consequent when ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... and turning gray. Around the upper part of his head is a bandage covered largely by a black skull-cap. Of over average height the man is spare and muscular. The eye is keen and penetrating: his voice abrupt and authoritative. An occasional flash of humor brings an old-time twinkle to the one and heartiness to the other. He is wearing the undress uniform of a ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... discipline in that class——" Asa Lemm was saying, when, of a sudden, he happened to glance at the cadets and recognized the Rovers. "What are you doing here? Where have you been?" he demanded, coming to an abrupt halt. ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... going. She had on a pretty walking dress which he had not seen before, and a hat with the rim struck sharply upward behind, and her masses of dense, dull black hair pulled up and fastened somewhere on the top of her head. Her eyes shyly sparkled under the abrupt descent of the hat-brim over ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... of what immediately followed this abrupt declaration; there are some things that never leak out, no matter how prying the chronicler may be. When one stops to consider that this was the first time a question had been put directly to the Prince—and one that he could understand, at that—we may be inclined to ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... and roguery make the subject of an old Scottish satirical poem] Away with thee!" he added, rising in wrath, and speaking so fast as to give no opportunity of answer, being probably determined to terrify the elder guest into an abrupt flight—"Away with thee, with thy clouted coat, scrip, and scallop-shell, or, by the name of Avenel, I will have them ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... stars it stood out luminous, marking the exact center of an enormous circle; a circle roofed by the radiantly flecked heavens, bounded by mountains which rose against the sky-line, abrupt as a wall, black as ink. In the different segments of this far-flung ring the peaks of the Chiracahuas, the Grahams, the Dragoons, and the Galiuros betrayed their ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... eyes, that I could not resist the fascination. I certainly gave her some cause for displeasure that unfortunate evening; for as Olivia has strong passions and exquisite sensibility, I should not have been so abrupt. A fit of jealousy may seize the best and most generous mind, and may prompt to what it would be incapable of saying or thinking in dispassionate moments. I am sure that Olivia has, upon reflection, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... central passage, he called out abruptly, "I see a man!" Every one looked to that point,—"I see a man of Tarsus; and he says, Make mention of me!" It must not be supposed that the discourses of "Uncle Ebenezer," with these abrupt appeals and sudden starts, were unwritten or extempore; they were carefully composed and written out,—only these flashes of thought and passion came on him suddenly when writing, and were therefore quite natural when delivered—they came ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... first sight the most trivial and unimportant, exercise a mighty and permanent influence on our habits and pursuits!—how frequently is a stream turned aside from its natural course by some little rock or knoll, causing it to make an abrupt turn! On a wild road in Ireland I had heard Irish spoken for the first time; and I was seized with a desire to learn Irish, the acquisition of which, in my case, became the stepping-stone to other languages. I had previously learnt Latin, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... surprise at the speaker, shook his head in negation, looked up at the top of the tent, and after a long pause said, in abrupt sentences, with frequent interruptions: ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and fatigue, the travellers found themselves, about sun-set, in a woody valley, overlooked, on every side, by abrupt heights. They had proceeded for many leagues, without seeing a human habitation, and had only heard, now and then, at a distance, the melancholy tinkling of a sheep-bell; but now they caught the notes of merry music, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... OF THE COMPOSITION. In a longer composition, the ending should neither be too abrupt, nor, on the other hand, should it be too long drawn out. It should be in proportion to the length of the composition. Usually, except in the case of a story, it should consist of a paragraph or two by way of summary ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... fellows, came up to me, and in a hasty tone said, 'Sir, in the king's name I seize your person and papers.' To which I replied that I should be glad to see his authority, and know the reason of an address so abrupt. He told me the want of time prevented his taking regular steps, but that it would be necessary for me to return to Penzance, as I was suspected of being a French spy. I proposed to submit my papers to the nearest Justice of Peace, who was immediately applied to, and came to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had lost all its pride and dignity, and seemed a poor, reeling, spiritless thing. The deck was deserted save for the little group about the hatch who strove with might and main to launch this last poor medium of rescue. The abrupt pitch of the deck made their frantic efforts seem all but hopeless, and walking, even standing, was quite out of the question. Tom could feel the ship heeling ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... There was no abrupt change even when they came into the inn, where near the open window a table had been set and two ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... removed from the material questions of profit and loss. The drama of life went on, and feeling, conviction, and love matured like the ripening fruits, although not so openly. As soon as his duties permitted, Burt took a rather abrupt departure for a hunting expedition in the northern woods, and a day or two later Amy received a note from Miss Hargrove, saying that she had accepted an invitation ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... employ of the Falconieri for a century, advanced as with the burden of their united years and opened the high gate to us and delivered us over to a mild boy. He bestowed on us, for a consideration, a bunch of wild violets, and then, as if to keep us from the too abrupt sight of the repairs and changes going on near the casino, led us first to the fish-pond, in the untouched seclusion of a wooded hill, and silently showed us the magnificent view which the top commanded, if commanded is not too proud a word for a place so pathetic in its endearing ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... somewhat anticipated the narrative of events. But it was a plan agreeable to the facts of the case, that narrative should pass into description at the point where the stream of our little history, after descending the rapid of alarms and difficulties, abrupt resolves and swift action, fell quietly again into the smooth channel of a new routine. Not that the story of the succeeding months was really uneventful. If our readers suppose that from this point onward we led a prosperous untroubled existence, it will be due to the illusion, ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... in the hope of a visit. All the time I was strongly tempted to throw myself at her feet, and tell her of my despair. I knew that she would not be insensible to it, and that she would at least express her pity; but her severity and the abrupt manner of her departure recalled me to my senses; I trembled lest I should lose her, and I would rather die than expose myself to ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... "Yes." The abrupt answer was as distinct a snub as saying: "If you want to discuss her you can do it with ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of Europe, shaken by an intellectual tempest of physical discovery, disturbed by an abrupt and undigested enlargement in the material world, in physical science, and in the knowledge of antiquity, was to be offered a fruit of which each might taste if it would, but the taste of which would lead, ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... and he was not true knight enough to resist the fear that he himself might be dragged down in the impending ruin. Saint-Aignan did not reply to the king's questions except by short, dry remarks, pronounced half-aloud; and by abrupt gestures, whose object was to make things worse, and bring about a misunderstanding, the result of which would be to free him from the annoyance of having to cross the courtyards in open day, in order to follow his illustrious companion to La Valliere's apartments. In the meantime ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Domitian A. viij. A bilingual Chronicle, Latin and Saxon, which, by internal evidence, is assigned to Christ Church, Canterbury. The abrupt ending at 1058 is no indication of the book's date: it was written late in the ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... when the attempt is made to fit individuals in advance for definite industrial callings, selected not on the basis of trained original capacities, but on that of the wealth or social status of parents. As a matter of fact, industry at the present time undergoes rapid and abrupt changes through the evolution of new inventions. New industries spring up, and old ones are revolutionized. Consequently an attempt to train for too specific a mode of efficiency defeats its own purpose. When the occupation changes its methods, such ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... always recurring each in its season. There were parties and receptions, horse rides, hunts, drives—and it was always thus! Alas, this was not the life she had dreamed of; she was born for more exciting pleasures. She yearned for unknown emotions and sensations, the unforeseen, abrupt transitions, passions, adventures. She had not liked Sauvresy from the first day she saw him, and her secret aversion to him increased in proportion as her influence over him grew more certain. She thought him common, vulgar, ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... up dully from his reading. The abrupt stoppage of his professional career—his life-work, one might almost say—had left Freddie at a very loose end: and so hollow did the world seem to him at the moment, so uniformly futile all its so-called allurements, that, to pass the time, ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... a rather abrupt dismissal of this theme, he returned to the mirror and, after a questioning scrutiny, nodded solemnly, forming with his lips the words, "The real thing—the real thing at last!" He meant that, after many ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... with agony, from each of these recurrent blows, his unquenchable exuberance had lived. And there was another thing quite as extraordinary. He had never done anything but work, and that sort of thing may kill the flame where an abrupt catastrophe fails. Work in the dark. Work, work, work! And accompanied by privation; an almost miserly scale of personal economy. Yes, indeed, he had "skinned his fingers," especially in the earlier years. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... the young man's opportunity. This was a likeable old sea-dog, and he determined not to impose upon him another moment. Some men, for the sake of the adventure, would have left the truth to be found out later, to the disillusion of all concerned. The abrupt manner in which Miss Killigrew had ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... this recommendation with such an extraordinarily abrupt, short, and loud utterance of the monosyllable 'Oh!' that even the unwieldy Patriarch moved his blue eyes in something of a hurry, to look at him. Mr Pancks, with a sniff of corresponding intensity, then ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Mrs. Buscot's alarm, it will be necessary to return to the receiving-room, and ascertain what occurred after Nizza's flight. Charles, who at first had been greatly annoyed by Parravicin's abrupt entrance, speedily recovered his temper, and laughed at the other's ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... said, with a resolute accent and abrupt movements; "let me be—I have a cartridge ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... and snow; the earth, of a dazzling whiteness in the centre of the landscape, but grey in the distance, nowhere offers a single object to arrest the gaze. The monotony of endless space is broken by no abrupt lines or vivid tints. The only contrast with the dull expanse of land is the everlasting azure sky, along which the sun creeps at a few degrees only above the horizon. In these intensely cold latitudes it rises and sets with hard outlines, unsoftened by the ruddy haze ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... and I then strolled along the edge of the jungle, hoping to find him again in some of the numerous nooks which the plain formed by running up the forest. We had walked quietly along for about half a mile, when we crossed an abrupt rocky promontory, which stretched from the jungle into the lake like a ruined pier. On the other side, the lake formed a small bay, shaded by the forest, which was separated from the water's edge by a gentle slope of ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... given any required curve, the formality and frequent emptiness of this subject is made to yield itself into good composition. When the subject rejects grace and demands a rugged form, the sinuous flow of line may be exchanged for an abrupt and forcible zigzag. In such an arrangement the eye is pulled sharply across spaces from one object to another, the space itself containing little of interest. In the short chapter on Getting out of the Picture, the use of ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... in which the decline in prices is abrupt—at the beginning at all events—and is precipitated by much forced liquidation of a character disastrous to the enterprises forced to undertake it. In short, when it is brought about by an industrial crisis or when an industrial crisis ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... imputation upon her constitution. At last, seeing that the debate had assumed the character of a cyclone or circular storm, going round and round and round and round till one could never say where it began nor where it ended, I made some apology for an abrupt departure and retired to ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... Italy. As you looked from Monfalcone across the dreamy blue of the empty gulf between, the town lay like a stone image, lifeless except for the white smoke curling gently from a single tall chimney into the quiet evening air. Much nearer along the coast was the Castle of Duina standing on an abrupt cliff. It belongs to the Grand Duchess of Thurn and Taxis, who used to gather parties of poets, painters, and writers there to stay in what was like a legendary palace looking down from its high headland upon the sunlit, sail-flecked ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... car slowed down. Those in the rear seat glanced ahead and the reason for the abrupt slackening of ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... on the cheek of Gelsomina at this abrupt question, for the tie between her and Jacopo had become too sacred for the ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the atmosphere as suddenly gave place to a vivid yellow light, a change which caused the skipper to spring to his feet and rush out on deck without even the pretence of an apology to his passengers for so abrupt a movement. On reaching the deck his first glance was to the eastward, the direction from which the light emanated, and he then saw that the heavy veil of black cloud—which now completely overspread the heavens—was in that ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... Isabella Thorpe) come to visit them. Mr. Stanley's son turns up unexpectedly and pays great attention to Catharine, much to the disgust of the aunt, who has a detestation of all young men. The tale comes to an abrupt conclusion with the departure of the guests. The story is at times amusing, but obviously immature, and we need not regret that it ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... and Tommy lounged together on the verandah after the lazy fashion of convalescents, he turned to the boy in his abrupt fashion. ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... Y.M.C.A. corner, the stillness of the park was most grateful. At this hour on Sunday, if he avoided the golf grounds, it was to all intents his own. His objective point was a rustic arbour hung with rose vines and clematis, where was to be had a view of the river as it made an abrupt turn around the opposite hills. Here he might read, or gaze and dream, as it pleased him, reasonably secure from ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... a scene to abide long with a man—a horrible nightmare, never to be forgotten. Above us, protected somewhat by the abrupt curve of the wide staircase, crouched the women. Two were sobbing, their heads buried in their hands, but Maria and Mrs. Brennan sat white of face and dry-eyed. I caught one quick glance at the fair face I loved,—my sweet lady ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... the streets, and it jarred on her to see the rows of well-dressed loungers in the hotels lolling in wooden chairs close against the great windows, a foot or two from the street. It gave her a hint of western characteristics; the people were abrupt, good-naturedly so, perhaps, ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... bell rang Dick and his companions went to the saloon. There were not many passengers, and the room was nearly empty, but as they entered Dick saw Kenwardine at the bottom of a table. He glanced up as he heard their footsteps, and with an abrupt movement turned his revolving chair partly round. Next moment, however, he looked at Dick coolly, and after a nod of recognition went on with his dinner. Don Sebastian indicated a table between Kenwardine and the ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... peep in the future," and she gave an abrupt laugh. "You don't any of you look as if you needed medical advice. My, I seldom see such rosy, good looking girls. Now, I'll tell you—it's a dollar if I go into a trance and see you inside, up and down and I can tell to a T whether there's anything the ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... certain that Crewne was absent from Hardhack, and it was evident that he had decided who was to be the lady of the cottage, so the season of festivity was brought to an abrupt close, and the digestions of Hardhack ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... of remaining for the Commencement, was at once abandoned; short visits, abrupt farewells, and a hasty preparation for the pilgrimage, were my portion for the few days still left me, and Saturday, the 19th, was determined upon as the day for leaving home. It would be evidence of gross ingratitude to forget the kind wishes, tender good-byes, and many other marks ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... forward, rear, turn round, and oppose all the resistance of a horse brought to a leap which he is afraid or unable to take. Whilst galloping down a rough and stony path, on one of whose sides was a high bank, and on the other an abrupt fall in the ground, Baltasar had come upon a deep trench or rivulet of considerable width, and this his horse obstinately refused to cross. Casting a hasty glance back at his pursuer, who was still far behind, Baltasar turned his charger, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... 'I had not meant to be abrupt. As you may see, I have had a long and wearisome journey and am—what you call—fagged. I must rest, Monsieur; then ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... really to have nothing else except exits and entrances. The trick is to so arrange the tale that the mere appearance of a person tells the important truth about him. Thus, supposing the drama to be about St. George let us say, the mere abrupt appearance of the dragon's head (if of a proper ferocity) will be enough to explain that he intends to eat people; and it will not be necessary for the dragon to explain at length, with animated gestures and playful conversation, that his nature is carnivorous and that he ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... made to speak of the quarrel with Maddox. He merely mentioned to Jewdwine in the most casual manner that he had left The Planet. As for his grounds for that abrupt departure Jewdwine was entirely in the dark. It ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... that the spirit of France lived always ahead of the time, was ever first to conceive the feeling of the coming century, and by its own struggles and sufferings—sometimes too abrupt and perilous—made easy the way for the rest ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... hoping to obtain some clue to his thoughts. To her the trouble at the Rectory was as her own, and she longed to know the outcome of the investigation. At first she dreaded the thought of having the Bishop to tea. Had she not often heard of his sharp, abrupt manner? Anxiously she scanned the tea-table, with its spotless linen, with everything so neatly arranged, and wondered what she had omitted. Her fears were soon dispelled, however, for the Bishop made himself perfectly at home. It was a pleasure to him to sit at the table with these two true, honest ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... more of a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde than most of us. Merely, his daily transition was a little more abrupt. And when all is said and done most of the devices invented by his fertile little brain to further the interests of his clients were no more worthy of condemnation than those put forward by far higher-priced ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... whose character was an inflexible integrity of purpose. Now, Lafayette is obnoxious to a great deal of similar vulgar feeling, without being permitted, by circumstances, to render the purity of his motives as manifest, as was the better fortune of his great model, Washington. The unhandsome and abrupt manner in which he was dismissed from the command of the National Guards, though probably a peace-offering to the allies, was also intended to rob him of the credit of a voluntary resignation.[9]—But, all this time, we are losing sight of what is passing in the ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to marry Mrs. Montague," was the somewhat abrupt communication which he made with pale lips and ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... problem, and of giving a geographical existence to Sardu, which appropriately means the 'Cold Country.' I found that there was a route which exactly fitted Marco's conditions, as at Sarbizan the Sardu plateau terminates in a high pass of 9200 feet, from which there is a most abrupt descent to the plain of Jiruft, Komadin being about 35 miles, or two days' journey from the top of the pass. Starting from Kerman, the stages would be as follows:—I. Jupar (small town); 2. Bahramjird (large village); 3. Gudar (village); 4. Rain (small town).... Thence to the Sarbizan pass is ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... certainly nice in Jean to say what he did to me about my being your friend," was Elfreda's abrupt comment when, after saying good-bye to Mrs. Gray, the two young women started down Chapel Hill toward home. "It was the highest compliment that he could pay me. If there had been time I'd have liked to tell him a few of the reasons for it. I guess he would have understood ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... brought his horse to an abrupt standstill. Had he heard a faint sound off there in the path? With a sudden spring, he dismounted. Over near the fence, he thought he had seen through the streak of light a human hand move upward and then sink into the snow. ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... said I. 'I had not meant to be abrupt. As you may see, I have had a long and wearisome journey and am—what you call—fagged. I must rest, ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... after tune until his breath failed him, and an exhausted grunt of the drone—in the middle of a coronach, followed by an abrupt pause, revealed the emptiness of both lungs and bag. Then first he remembered his object, forgotten the moment he had filled ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Abrupt, with eagle-speed she cut the sky; Instant invisible to mortal eye. Then first he recognized the ethereal guest; Wonder and joy alternate fire his breast; Heroic thoughts, infused, his heart dilate; ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... Katherine does not do herself justice; her manners are so abrupt. You do not mind my ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... deeds of blood, and never dealt death to his fellow man as he ploughed the deep, under the black flag of piracy, with the motto of "Rob, Kill, and Burn." After adjusting the rope, a signal was given. The body dropped heavily, and the harsh abrupt shock must have instantly deprived him of sensation, as there was no voluntary action of the hands afterwards. Thus terminated his career of crime in a foreign land without one friend to recognize or cheer him, or a single being to regret ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... Ferguson's abrupt departure and retrograde movement from Gilberttown, like that of Cornwallis from Charlotte two weeks later, clearly betrayed his apprehensions of formidable opposition by the enraged "hornets" of the mountains. Pursuit ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... face, and made a few solemn allusions to Methuselah. She had a peculiarly quick, even abrupt manner of speaking, saying a dozen words in the time most young ladies would take to drawl out three; and possessing, likewise, the rare feminine quality of never saying a word more ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... was nervous and abrupt in his movements, and that Mrs. Spillane seemed laboring under some strong anxiety. She was a thin, washed-out, worked-out woman, whose life of dreary and unending toil had stamped itself harshly upon her face. It was the same life that had bowed her husband's shoulders ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... that she took this view of his abrupt utterances. He thought the incident was ended. He was mistaken; Elsie was able to recall each word subsequently. At the moment she was recording impressions with uncomprehending accuracy, but her mind was quite incapable of analyzing ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... which seemed always to say to her son that she was preoccupied with her own affairs, and that her affairs were vastly more important than his youthful interests and problems, swam vaguely before his consciousness, veiled by the swift passing of events and the abrupt change from city ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... do not proceed with this abrupt logic: they love to bargain with necessity. M. Dupin (session of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, June 10, 1843) expresses the opinion that, "though competition may be useful within the nation, it must be prevented ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... the way was quite open and clear, and they were drawing near to the dwelling when Woot the Wanderer, who was then in the lead of the little party, halted with such an abrupt jerk that he stumbled over backward and lay flat on his back in the meadow. The Scarecrow stopped ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... him if he had ever seen Miss Havisham's adopted daughter, Mrs. Bentley Drummle. He said no. To avoid being too abrupt, I then spoke of the Aged and of Miss Skiffins. He looked rather sly when I mentioned Miss Skiffins, and stopped in the street to blow his nose, with a roll of the head, and a flourish not quite free from ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... world, with no other weapon than the knowledge of the people one should know, transfix me, silence me, transform me into a dull, bucolic boor. Penelope was annoyed. I knew that she was chagrined at my lack of savoir faire, for in one of the long pauses following an abrupt response of mine I caught a glance of mute despair. She seemed to accuse me of falling short of her expectations by my lamentable lack ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... Rickie, and wondered a little why the reply seemed not abrupt. "Would we see the Rings in the daytime ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... conscience, that Javert had but just gone through some great interior struggle. Javert had nothing in his soul which he had not also in his countenance. Like violent people in general, he was subject to abrupt changes of opinion. His physiognomy had never been more peculiar and startling. On entering he bowed to M. Madeleine with a look in which there was neither rancor, anger, nor distrust; he halted a few paces in the rear of the mayor's arm-chair, and there he stood, perfectly erect, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... blow may bring back a lost identity to the victim of amnesia the discovery electrified the man and he straightened into an abrupt erectness. His features lost their sleep-walking indefiniteness and his ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... returned, laughing: "I don't want your intercession. I only want you to find out from Miss Clare whether she knows how she has so mortally offended my husband. I believe she knows nothing about it. She has a rather abrupt manner sometimes, you know; but then my husband is not so silly as to have taken such deep offence at that. Help ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... am abrupt," he went on, "but the matter concerns me intimately. I am informed that you are engaged to my friend ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... point of application of the force. Such a twisting the rock appears to have suffered; but instead of the twist fading gradually and uniformly off, in passing from south to north, the want of uniformity in the material has produced lines of dislocation where there are abrupt changes in the amount of twist. Thus, at the northern end of the rock the dip to the west is nineteen degrees; in the Middle Hill, it is thirty-eight degrees; in the centre of the South hill, or Sugar Loaf, it is fifty-seven degrees. At the southern extremity of the Sugar ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... hat on his head with a certain abrupt fierceness, and strode angrily away, before she could answer or even grasp the full significance of what ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... grovelled most industriously during all his waking hours, until such time as his podgy legs had hardened sufficiently to bear his weight—with many falls, of course—and then he began to scurry about on his feet. His usual style of progression at this period was to take from two to four abrupt, jerky strides, rather with the air of a fussy and corpulent old gentleman who had to catch a train, and then to subside in a confused lump, on chest and nose, with tail waggling angrily in mid-air. ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... her as she arranged the table. Her abrupt entry into the room, while he was in bed, startled him. No woman, except his mother, had ever been in his bedroom before, and it horrified him to think that this strange young woman could see him sitting in his nightshirt in bed. He had never in his ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... Hallelujah Armies and small holdings and such-like. In ten years it'll be a scare-crow of a countryside. I wish one could clear them up and burn them in heaps as one does the dead leaves in autumn." Fatigue fell upon her. She seemed exhausted by the manufacture of so much malice. With an abrupt and listless gesture she pointed her stick at the Castle. "It isn't much, you see," she said apologetically. And indeed there was little enough. There were just the two towers on the summit and the two on the slope of the hill ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... archaic assemblage of Basque houses, the little square of the village with its kalsomined porches and its old plane-trees, then the old, massive belfry of the church, and, higher than everything, dominating everything, crushing everything, the abrupt mass of the Gizune from which comes so much shade, from which descends on this distant village so hasty an impression of night—Truly it encloses too much, that mountain, it imprisons, it impresses—And Ramuntcho, in his juvenile triumph, is troubled by the sentiment of this, by this ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... were characterised by their abrupt violence. Once dining with Lord Halifax he became so impatient of contradiction, that he rushed out of the room, overthrowing the sideboard. Inquiring on the next day how he had behaved, Moyle observed, "You went away like the devil, taking one corner ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... written for the people, and is therefore in a more popular tone than usual: portions strike as abrupt and unpolished, but many stanzas are all his own. I heard him repeat, and admired, ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... foreign countries with their correspondence, our Bretons did not run away on Thursday. It is true that when they saw the Saxons emerging from their holes and shouting hurrah, our Bretons were a little troubled by this abrupt and savage joke, but"—then follows the statement of several of the heroes themselves that they fought like lions. The fact is, as I have already stated in my letter of yesterday, the Mobiles fought only tolerably well, and some of their battalions ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... one in which she rode after those black ponies for many a day. The Doctor seemed more at leisure than usual, and in a much more talkative mood; so it was quite a merry ride, until he broke a moment's silence by an abrupt question: ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... my eyes went wandering up and down the rocky slope abrupt above me, reading on its face the record that down there, ages ago, rushed a cataract, filling the channels that had led me to its foot. My heart swelled at the thought of the splendid tumult, where the waves danced revelling in helpless fall, ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... his paper and put it into an envelope which he licked copiously, and closed the letter with a great deal of display. But then his industry coming to an abrupt end, as it often did, he tossed it to me saying, "You can address it, Mary;" so I enclosed it in my own letter to thank Mother for the book, and I fancy she did write to our gardener, for he gave us a good lot of things, and was much more good-natured ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... what I beheld was Robert's apparition, I determined to see the strange affair through to the bitter end, and entering the gate, I also went down into the area. The phantom had come to an abrupt halt by the side of a low wooden box, and as I foolishly made an abortive attempt to reach it with my hand, it vanished instantaneously. I searched the area thoroughly, and was assured that there was no outlet, save by the steps I had just descended, and no hole, nor nook, nor ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... Vancouver steered south-wards, sighted St. Paul's Island, and sailed towards New Holland, between the routes taken by Dampier and Marion, and through latitudes which had not yet been traversed. On the 27th September was sighted part of the coast of New Holland, ending in abrupt and precipitous cliffs, to which the name of Cape Chatham was given. As many of his crew were down with dysentery, Vancouver decided to anchor in the first harbour he came to, to get water, wood, and above all provisions, of which he stood sorely in need. Port George III. was the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... reading, lifted the Curtains of the Impossible that blind the mind, and looked out into the unknown. Amid stiff, abrupt sentences I wandered; and, presently, I had no fault to charge against their abrupt tellings; for, better far than my own ambitious phrasing, is this mutilated story capable of bringing home all that the old Recluse, of the vanished ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... this passage, there was an abrupt turn to the left, which brought the boy unexpectedly to a partially open door, where a scene so strange met his eyes that he ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... the bell would jam or a brake fail to act on a hill; or the seat-pillar would get loose, and the saddle drop three or four inches with a disconcerting bump; or the loose and rattling chain would jump the cogs of the chain-wheel as the machine ran downhill, and so bring the mechanism to an abrupt and disastrous stop without at the same time arresting the forward momentum of the rider; or a tyre would bang, or sigh quietly, and give up ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... told him. She described the coming of the messenger, her journey to the Pension Malfait, and she repeated, as far as was possible, the exact words of her friend's curiously-worded, abrupt letter ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... historic value mark the career of Loudoun since the days of Reconstruction, and the seemingly abrupt conclusion to which the reader has now arrived is not thought incompatible with the plan of this work, which in no single instance has contemplated the inclusion of any but the most momentous events. Besides, existing conditions ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... Mr. Tollmidge's formidable assertions relating to herself for the second time, Lady Lydiard's meditations came to an abrupt end. She rose, took the letters in both hands to tear them up, hesitated, and threw them back in the cabinet drawer in which she had discovered them, among other papers that had not been arranged ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... did it matter to me—what did anything matter to me?—Lord Robert had met us in the hall again, as we were coming out of the opera; he looked very pale, and he apologized to Lady Ver for his abrupt departure. He had got a chill, he said, and had gone to have a glass of brandy, and was all right now, and would we not come to supper, and various other empresse things, looking at her with the greatest devotion. I ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... ravenously hungry; but food there was none, so I had made up my mind to lie down, famished as I was. Just then I came across some sleeping men, who to my joy turned out to be Dighton Probyn and the officers of the 2nd Punjab Cavalry, who were magnanimous enough to forgive the abrupt interruption to their slumbers, and to supply me with some cold mutton, bread, and a bottle of beer. Never was man more grateful for a meal, and never was a meal more thoroughly enjoyed. I lay down beside my friends and was soon fast asleep, in spite of the bitter cold and being ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... the course of this vehement and angry declamation, he spoke of publishing his correspondence with the officers of government, together with a narrative of his proceedings; and said that, although the existing causes would warrant an abrupt departure, his regard for the people of America would induce him to remain here, amidst the insults and disgusts that he daily suffered in his official character from the public officers, until the meeting of congress; and if that body should agree in the opinions and support ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... of filling the vacancy in his affections caused by the abrupt departure of Lola Montez, Fraeulein Schroder, a young actress at the Hof Theatre, endeavoured to comfort Ludwig in his retirement. He, however, was beyond ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... the spot. To reach the edge of the stream was by no means an easy undertaking, so many abrupt points and gloomy hollows were interposed. I had frequently skirted and penetrated this tract, but had never been so completely entangled in the maze as now: hence I had remained unacquainted with a narrow pass, which, at the distance of an hundred yards from the river, would conduct ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... case is that in which the decline in prices is abrupt—at the beginning at all events—and is precipitated by much forced liquidation of a character disastrous to the enterprises forced to undertake it. In short, when it is brought about by an industrial crisis or when an industrial crisis is actively threatened. ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... was the abrupt remark of the small person as her plate of drum-sticks was removed and the pudding appeared, ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... Petrovitch, with exaggerated courtesy. He was beginning to feel a secret irritation. His aristocratic nature was revolted by Bazarov's absolute nonchalance. This surgeon's son was not only not overawed, he even gave abrupt and indifferent answers, and in the tone of his voice there was something ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... uncomfortable in ordinary company. The man, Val sometimes thought privately, lived, ate, slept books. Save when they were the subject of conversation, he was as out of his element as a coal-miner at the ballet. "We should explain the reason for this—this rather abrupt call." He fingered his brief-case, which he ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... Gentiles of every description. Think of his dealing with the Syrophoenician woman. She was a Canaanite of the old race, and, though at first he seemed to turn her away, yet ultimately he gave her all she asked and more: and even his apparently abrupt treatment of her in the beginning, if I read the history aright, was meant to be an exposure and condemnation of the feelings commonly cherished toward those of her nation by the Jews of his day. No doubt it tested and strengthened her own faith. But ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... that he had not been too abrupt with the waiter, "poor cuss." But he lay awake to think of Theresa's hair and hand-clasp; of polished desks and florid gentlemen who curtly summoned bank-presidents and who had—he tossed the bedclothes about in his struggle to get the ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... Thirlwater, and Windermere. The principal phenomena are rounded hummocks of rock on the skirts of the hills, and in the middle of the valleys; and as these hummocks, whatever may be the direction of the valleys, invariably present a smoothed side up, and an abrupt side downwards (stoss-seite and lee-seite of the Scandinavian geologists), it becomes certain that the glaciers proceeding from the mountains at the upper extremities were local to the several valleys. The smoothed hummocks are very noticeable in Derwentwater or Borrowdale, the celebrated ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... heed of passing hours. Even her father, the abstracted man of affairs, nodded to dusty people along the road; to a jolly old man whose bulk rolled and shook in a tiny, rhythmically creaking buggy, to women in the small abrupt towns with their huge red elevators ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... and the abrupt announcement of the second marriage. The anguish and despair of the repudiated wife were portrayed with a vividness, a marvellous eloquence and passionate fervour that surpassed all former exhibitions of her genius, and the people rose, and applauded, as audiences ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... remorse without any intermediate stage of feeling, changing abruptly and decisively." The closing words of the first scene: "My salvation lies in Mary!" are the real turning point of the drama. As abrupt as his desertion of Venus for Mary, is his return to her in the third act. By the side of Mary is placed the more human, the more earthly but yet idealised form of Elizabeth, a figure closely resembling Beatrice ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... into the foothills, one of our equestriennes narrowly escaped a fall. Her horse dropped a foot into a prairie-dog's hole, and came to an abrupt stop. The foot was extricated, and I was instructed in the dangers that beset the prairie voyager in these blind ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... this cast of features, you might as well attempt to soften or convince a brick wall. Margaret Van Eyck tried, but all in vain. So then, not being herself used to be thwarted, she got provoked, and at last went out hastily with an abrupt and mutilated curtsey, which Catherine, returned with an air rather of defiance than obeisance. Outside the door Margaret Van Eyck found Reicht conversing with a pale girl on crutches. Margaret Van Eyck was pushing by them with heightened colour, and a scornful toss intended for the whole family, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Milvain's name in conversation, and he wished to have an end of this. Hitherto he had felt a troublesome uncertainty regarding his position in the matter. From what his wife had told him it seemed pretty certain that Marian was disappointed by the abrupt closing of her brief acquaintance with the young man, and Yule's affection for his daughter caused him to feel uneasy in the thought that perhaps he had deprived her of a chance of happiness. His conscience ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... upon a bald face of rock, which stood out storm-battered where a rift went through the backbone of the ridge. This point of vantage commanded the other valley. From its edge, a white oak, dwarfed, but patriarchal, leaned out over an abrupt drop. No more sweeping or splendid view could be had within miles, but it was not for any reason so general that Sally had made her pilgrimage. Down below, across the treetops, were a roof and a chimney from which a thread of smoke rose in an ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... is something very impressive in the abrupt bursting in of this second voice, all unnamed. It is the reverberation, as it were, of the former, giving the preparation on the side of man for the coming of Jehovah. Israel in bondage in Egypt had ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... took out his watch with an abrupt movement. "When did you say the British Museum ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... a somewhat abrupt manner, he was genial and kindly in his feelings, with warm affections ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... at her intently, presaging another disclosure. "Me, my father a white man too," she said in her abrupt way. "It ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... too abrupt. The nun turned deadly pale, and clung to the bars of the grate for support; but the emotion was momentary. "Go on," said she, in a ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... with you men; you don't understand us, you cannot. When you have made up your minds, after thinking of this one and that one, Choosing, selecting, rejecting, comparing one with another, Then you make known your desire, with abrupt and sudden avowal, And are offended and hurt, and indignant perhaps, that a woman Does not respond at once to a love that she never suspected, Does not attain at a bound the height to which you have been climbing. This is not right nor just: for surely a woman's affection ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... 210.] The crown of the dike, however, for the last three or four feet of its height, is much steeper, being intended rather as a protection against the spray than against the waves, and the inner slope is always comparatively abrupt. ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... mysteries of the toilet which required attention before the arrival of her expected guests—brought the performance to an abrupt termination, Damaris felt a little taken aback, a little put about, as though someone should be guilty of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... accidental; it was true that Cressy had accepted his attention with lazy amusement; it was true that she had suddenly and audaciously left him on the borders of the McKinstry woods in a way that might have seemed rude and abrupt to any escort less invincibly good-humored than Uncle Ben, but none of these things marred his fatuous felicity. It is even probable that in his gratuitous belief that his timid attentions had been too marked ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... never knew. I awoke at once with that abrupt start which we all know well, and which carries us in a second from utter unconsciousness to the full use of our faculties. The fire was still burning, but was very low, and half the room or more was in deep shadow. I knew, I felt, that some person or thing was in the room, although nothing unusual ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... She had her own description of it: it was the attitude of waiting for the carriage. If they didn't go out it was not that Mrs. Tramore was not ready in time, and Rose had even an alarmed prevision of their some day always arriving first. Mrs. Tramore's conversation at such moments was abrupt, inconsequent and personal. She sat on the edge of sofas and chairs and glanced occasionally at the fit of her gloves (she was perpetually gloved, and the fit was a thing it was melancholy to see wasted), as people do who are expecting guests ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... to her wishes, "I thought I saw you glide in here, and my guests being now all arrived, I ave ventured to steal away for a moment, just to satisfy the craving which has been torturing me for the last hour. Irene, you are pale; you tremble like an aspen. Have I frightened you by my words—too abrupt, perhaps, considering the reserve that has always been between us until now. Didn't you know that I loved you? that for the last month—ever since I have known you, indeed—I have had but the one wish, to ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... to read them, but to live them, to see the people coming and going: the gentlemen courteous and in top-boots, the ladies demure and piquant; we can almost hear them talking to one another. No retrospects; no abrupt flights; as in real life days and events follow one another. Last Tuesday does not suddenly start into existence all out of place; nor does 1790 appear upon the scene when we are well on in '21. Countries and continents ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... "The March of the Pilgrims" came to an abrupt end. John Lansing Birch laid down his viola and bow, whirled about, and flung out his arms in despair. "Oh, this crowd is hopeless!" he groaned. "Never mind any other instrument, providing yours is heard. This march is supposed to die away in the distance! You murder ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... seemed abrupt," he apologised. "You've been very good to us and I'm sure we are uncommonly obliged to you, Jim. The only reason I asked the question was that I saw a face in the door there and it gave me a start. For a moment I thought it was Craig ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... but did not hide. He was kept smiling in this quizzical way by the nervous chatter of the girl beside him. His profile, which was the view Allen had of him, was striking. His strong, straight nose and abrupt forehead formed a marked contrast to the rather characterless nose and retreating forehead ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... I knew her. My own long residence in Paris has made me more critical than I used to be in such matters; but I do not remember having met any woman in society with manners more nearly perfect than Mrs. Courtney's. Ethel Leigh used to be, upon occasion, painfully abrupt and disconcerting; and her movements and attitudes, though there was abundant native grace in them, were often careless and unconventional. Of course, I do not forget that niceties of deportment, without ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... and the Ny are narrow little streams, but deep, with abrupt banks, and bordered by heavily wooded and marshy bottoms—at the time we were there—and difficult to cross except where bridged. The country about was generally heavily timbered, but with occasional clearings. It was ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... situations and emotional states which are exploited, promulgated, and dwelt upon in the set music pieces. Its purpose is to maintain the play in an artificial atmosphere, so that the transition from dialogue to song may not be so abrupt as to disturb the mood of the listener. Of all the factors in an opera, the dry recitative is the most monotonous. It is not music, but speech about to break into music. Unless one is familiar with Italian ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... his formal sanction to present at the bank, as without this the transaction would not have the necessary official character. Li agreed readily enough when the matter was presented in this light; what he had objected to was Lay's abrupt demand to pay so many thousand taels out of ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... a compact body. In quarter column, therefore, the Brigade advanced and approached the foot of the hill. I have noticed several times that when you get rather close to the hill the rise comes to look more gradual and the ridge itself does not stand up in the abrupt and salient way that it does from a distance. Whether it was this, or simply that the darkness of the night hid the outline, at any rate the column approached the hill and the trench which runs at the foot of the hill much too closely before the order to extend was given. When ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... the futility, the obviousness of the lie, yet somehow unable to help speaking it, Marie answered in abrupt confusion. Yes, she had been gardening; it—it was a favourite ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... is compressed into a very narrow channel against the right-hand cliff, and falls 15 feet in 10 yards. At the second we have a broad sheet of water tumbling down 20 feet over a group of rocks that thrust their dark heads through the foam. The third is a broken fall, or short, abrupt rapid, where the water makes a descent of more than 20 feet among huge, fallen fragments of the cliff. We name the group Triplet Falls. We make a portage around the first; past the second and the third we let down ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... reflections, Trirodov did not hear the noise of the departing carriage; the unexpected call of the dark-faced, fascinating visitor, with his flaming speech and his fiery eyes, stirred his memory like a midday dream, like an abrupt hallucination. ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... with reference to these Mimika songs that he was forcibly struck by the resemblance of the termination of most of the songs to the common cry of the greater bird of paradise, and said: "They finished with the same abrupt note, repeated three times (like the birds)." Dr. Haddon has been good enough to lend me the manuscript of his notes on the dances performed in the islands of Torres Straits, which will probably have appeared in Vol. ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... two lines I could get no clearer rendering than that "he just came in full through these people for diversion and for fun to himself." Then the ballad continues at once—for its method is terse and its transitions abrupt throughout—to give us the words of the men who meet Connlaoch ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... what love is now," was the abrupt way in which the young man opened the subject on ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... British pwll]. A deep hole of water, generally beneath a cataract or any abrupt waterfall. Also, ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... not been engaged in aiding the rebel cause, they were not further molested. The steamers of the mortar flotilla ascended the river about thirteen miles above Pearlington, when the stream became quite narrow, and the turns so abrupt, that further progress for the larger boats seemed to be impracticable. Captains Renshaw and Baldwin therefore anchored their vessels, and went on board of the Sachem, which, on account of her lighter draught and less beam, could ascend higher, and was ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the most abrupt change. I had never seen her furiously angry. She's a typical high echelon Washington secretary, cool, extremely well-mannered, cheerful without being bumptious. But this time she was ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... climatic conditions. In general, each plantation consists of about 100 trees, 50 U.S.D.A. hybrids and 50 Connecticut hybrids. The trees are planted at a 10' by 10' spacing, and the overstory is girdled at the time of planting in order to give the plants better light conditions without causing an abrupt change in the microclimate of the forest floor—a method developed by Dr. J. D. Diller of the Division of Forest Pathology (1). Ten plantations at 9 locations have been established since 1947. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... and other seafarers in their eager search for new lands worth colonizing. Nor was it easy for explorers to penetrate into the interior. In its surface Africa has been compared to an inverted saucer,—the high plateaus occupying most of the interior descending to the sea by short, abrupt, and steep slopes, so that the wide and peaceful rivers of the plateaus are lashed into foam as they approach the ocean by many series of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... man are you, then, pray?" resumed the Little Countess in her brief and abrupt tone; "I cannot understand it very well. By what right, on what ground, do you despise me? Suppose I am really guilty of all the intrigues which are attributed to me; what is that to you? Are you a saint yourself? a reformer? ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... perfect time, occasionally exchanging brief sentences in which compliment played no insignificant part. To Brant, as he marked the heightened color flushing her fair cheeks, the experience brought back fond memories of his last cadet ball at the Point, and he hesitated to break the mystic spell with abrupt questioning. Curiosity, however, ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... Chief Justice appears to recoil from this abrupt dismissal of the clear and present danger formula for the more serious cases, and he makes a last moment effort to rescue the babe that he has tossed out with the bathwater. He says: "As articulated by Chief Judge Hand, it is as ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... cause for complaint before our National Government, was received with sympathy and respect. The President in his reply reserved our decision in the affair. It was the only course he could take without an abrupt departure from our most treasured traditions of non-interference in Old World disputes. But the sympathy of America went out to the Belgians in the heroic tragedy, and from every section of our land money contributions and supplies of food and clothing poured over to the Commission ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... over her as she turned and saw her brother Ezra behind her, smiling at her fright. In his arms he held a small white lamb, and it was this little animal's nose that had been pressed to Naomi's neck, and that had brought her day-dreaming to such an abrupt close. ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... With an abrupt, restless movement she turned and walked on till her way along the path was barred by a curious obstacle. This was a small red-brick tower, built within a few feet of the edge of the cliff. It was an ugly blot on the beautiful stretch of down, all the uglier that the ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... the little open ledgy space on three sides; toward the very verge of the mountain the rocks grew shelving and precipitous, and beyond the furthest which she could see, the gray edge of which cut sharply against the base of a distant dun-tinted range, she knew the descent was abrupt to the depths of the valley. Looking up, she beheld the trembling lucid whiteness of a star; now and again the great rustling boughs of an oak-tree swayed beneath it, and then its glister was broken ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... I was in the office of M. Henry, I saw one of those little abrupt, brisk men enter, who, at the first glance, we are convinced are interested and distrustful: it was M. Senard, who briefly related his mishap, and concluded by saying, that he had strong suspicions of Moiselet. M. Henry thought also that he was the author of the robbery, and I agreed with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... table came to rather an abrupt end, brought on by a difference of opinion between the Field-marshal and Mr Whipcord on some point connected with a deal. It was a slight matter, but in the sharp words that ensued my companions came out in a strangely new light. Whipcord, especially, ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... uttered these words before the reason for the Maria's abrupt departure became apparent. The anchorage of the yacht had been at a spot whence nearly the whole south of the lake towards Far Harbor was open, whilst a high tongue of land hid that part from us on the shore. As he spoke, there shot before our eyes a steaming ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... watched him idly for a moment or two, and then with an abrupt swing of his whole figure, eloquent of defiant resolution, he stared the Major in the face, and said in a ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... a movement for the purpose of seizing the letter and snatching it away from him. This abrupt action convinced Mederic that some important secret was at stake and made him resolve to do his duty, cost what ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... perfect as the whole. Studying the details, it seems as if Nature were a series of costly fragments with no coherency,—as if she would never encourage us to do anything systematically, would tolerate no method but her own, and yet had none of her own,—were as abrupt in her transitions from oak to maple as the heroine who went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie; while yet there is no conceivable human logic so close and inexorable as her connections. How rigid, how flexible are, for instance, the laws of perspective! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... be seen in the previous chapter, that the formal ceremony of a fashionable introduction, such as—"Mr. Sparkle, my friend Mr. Robert Tallyho, of Belville Hall; Mr. Tallyho, Mr. Charles Sparkle," was altogether omitted; indeed, the abrupt entrance of the latter rendered it utterly impossible, for although Sparkle was really a well-bred man, he had heard from Lady Jane of Tom's arrival with his young friend from the country. Etiquette between themselves, was at all ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... when Romayne would have asked for some explanation of this abrupt notice of removal. Now, he passively accepted the advice of his spiritual director. Father Benwell made the necessary communication to the authorities, and Romayne took leave of his friends in The Retreat. The great Jesuit and ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... the abrupt edge of a little hill in a Southern Japanese city. There, in a great tree hanging out over the edge, had hung the bell that called together the faithful retainers of the lord of the province, when they were needed. There, nearly thirty years ago, a little band of Japanese youth, of noble ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... It was not until the next day that she could find any pleasure in him, or even in the prospect of Lloyd's visit; and when these interests began to revive, sudden gusts of rage would tear her, and she would fall into abrupt reveries, declaring to herself that she would tell Lloyd how she had been insulted! But she reminded herself that she must choose just the right moment to enlist his sympathy for the affront; she must decide with just what caress she would tell him that she meant ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... sought it, worked as he walked, and was marked down as a 'pot-hunter.' He 'worked while he ate, he cut down his sleep, and for him the penalty came, not in a palpable, definable illness, but in an abrupt, incongruous reaction and collapse.' With rage he looked back on these insensate years of study which had weakened him just when he should have been carefully fortifying ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... to Milan was, after all, put off, and Messer Galeazzo was called away to more arduous duties in camp and field. The debate, which had been prolonged with so much wit and ingenuity on both sides, came to an abrupt ending. It was left to the Florentine poet, Bellincioni, in whose verses the smallest incidents that took place at court were faithfully reflected, to celebrate this "praiseworthy and memorable duel of intellect between these two august personages." At Beatrice's command Bellincioni wrote three ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... these abrupt stops, outside the large towns, and nowhere do they tax you on your oil or essence except at Paris—where you pay (alas!) nearly as ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... which the Round Tower stands may or may not be pre-historic. The slopes of the hill were inhabited, like nearly all our English sites, by the Romans, and by the savages before and after the Romans; but the welter of the Saxon dark ages did not use this abrupt elevation for a stronghold. What military reasoning led William of Falaise to discern it at once and there to build ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... an upright position with an effort. Very curiously she did not feel in the least afraid. By an abrupt intuition, wholly inexplicable, she knew that the man had something to ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... really had been, and was not the fact of her marriage enough to remove any suspicion that Mutimer might formerly have entertained? But the manner of his question was so singular, the introduction of Eldon's name so abrupt, that she could not but discern in a measure what was in ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... the waters one by one! Slumber wraps the silent city, and the droning mills are dumb; One lone whippowil's shrill ditty calls her mate that ne'er will come. Sadly moans the mighty river, foaming down the fettered falls, Where of old he thundered ever o'er abrupt and lofty walls. Great Unktehee [69]—god of waters—lifts no more his mighty head;— Fled he with the timid otters?—lies he in the ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... secluded places on the coast of Florida, Georgia and Texas, for the purpose of concealing their stock until it could be sold out. Without specifying other places, let me draw your attention to a deep and abrupt pocket or indentation in the coast of Texas, about thirty miles from Brazos Santiago. Into this pocket a slaver could run at any hour of the night, because there was no hindrance at the entrance, and here she could ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... they meet next morning at eight o'clock in front of the hotel, when the two boys will go to the place where the old man so strangely disappeared. Leaving the new assistant in full view of this turn, facing toward the street from which the stranger made the abrupt exit, the other boy is to quickly come ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... cast about for some less abrupt way of broaching the subject uppermost in his mind than he now found himself obliged to use. With a husky voice that trembled as he ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to an abrupt stop after that one word. He would not tell the dreadful news to this spirited young ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... one of these excursions she was returning when she brought the automobile to such an abrupt stop, that Clay, who had yielded her the wheel at her request and was not noticing just then at all, was almost thrown ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... as the uniform consequences of loyalty or disobedience to the covenant. When the anonymous prophet who, in the insertion in the last redaction (chap. vi. 7-10), makes his appearance as suddenly as his withdrawal is abrupt, improves the visitation of the Midianites as the text for a penitential discourse, the matter is nevertheless looked at immediately thereafter with quite different eyes. For to the greeting of the angel, "Jehovah is with thee, thou mighty ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... as a manufacturing nation, and advance materially that great object of all honest men, the abolition of the accursed traffic in human beings. It is the latter object that chiefly occupies my mind, but I shall not attempt to bring it before the native princes in too abrupt a manner. In some cases, indeed, to allude to it at all would be disastrous. The promotion of legitimate traffic must, after all, be our ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... girl?" asked Count von Breitstein, in his usual abrupt manner, as the arm of Leopold girdled the slim waist of the Princess, and the eyes of Leopold drank light from another pair of eyes lifted ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... "I'm stating simple facts." Then, with abrupt change to earnestness, "Do you suppose, if I were to break the engagement, she'd take it seriously ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... stood on the shore some way up the stream, but the crashing down of a couple of trees into the water told very clearly that some were there industriously at work. Thus for a couple of hours the boys and Indians watched with great interest these clever animals, and then there was an abrupt ending. It was not caused by any of our party, as the Indians, having abundance of food, had no desire to now kill the beaver. Then, in addition, the skins, so valuable in winter, were ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... velvet, and ferns in plumy profusion. . . . Dan Burnett leads on, and presently we emerge on the largest and most beautiful of the little prairies through which we have passed. This stretch of open ground lies at the foot of the highest peak, the abrupt sides of which rise in conical shape before us. It is here, Mr. Burnett tells us, that the mountaineers who were searching for Professor Mitchell found the first trace of the way he ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... were fond of indulging in it at the expense of the less fortunate. Even Lois Willoughby had not escaped that taint of class. Fearing to wound her by some impatient word, he made zeal in his round of duties the excuse for an abrupt good-by. ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... and thinks them equal to anything he had seen in the finest parts of Europe. For my own part, I think there is somewhat peculiarly sweet and amusing in the shapely-figured aspect of the chalk hills in preference to those of stone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, and shapeless. Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, and not so happy as to convey to you the same idea; but I never contemplate these mountains without thinking I perceive somewhat analogous to growth in their gentle swellings and smooth fungus-like protuberances, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... long, lazy, rolling swell of the Pacific had changed during the day to an abrupt and tumultuous upheaval that tossed the Doric like a cork and made locomotion a problem. The rising wind and sea sent the spray whirling from her bows, and Mildred's young man, casting about for a dry corner, had deposited ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
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