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More "Bluff" Quotes from Famous Books



... the 10th French Army and extending thence to the north of Arras. Probably the Germans imagined that this extension had weakened our lines at Ypres; and on 8 February they began a bombardment which developed into a fierce struggle for Hooge and The Bluff on the Ypres-Commines Canal. The ground lost was mostly recovered by counter-attacks on 2 and 27 March and 3 April, but it could not all be held against further German attacks later in the month. Similarly some gains on the Vimy Ridge in the middle of May were lost again on the 21st, and early ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... is, Violet!" answered Peony, in his bluff tone, but a very sweet tone, too,—as he came floundering through the half-trodden drifts. "Here is the snow for her little bosom. O, Violet, how beau-ti-ful she ...
— The Snow-Image - A Childish Miracle • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... that broke the sheer face of the promontory, and he bounded once like a rubber ball, struck a second time, caught desperately at a solitary clump of ice-sheathed alders, crashed through the snow-crust just below them, and was held there like a mudlark in its cliff nest, halfway between bluff and river. ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... Dumont was just completing it when he died early in the previous spring. His widow went abroad to live with her daughter and her sister in Paris; so her son and his wife had taken it. It was a great rambling stone house that hung upon and in a lofty bluff. From its windows and verandas and balconies could be seen the panorama of Saint Christopher. To the left lay the town, its ugly part—its factories and railway yards—hidden by the jut of a hill. Beneath ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... pride, in his subtlety one, mocking England and God. Then tyranny's draught—once only—we drank to the dregs!—and the stain Went crimson and black through the soul of the land, for all time, not in vain! We bore the bluff many-wived king, rough rival and victor of Rome; We bore the stern despot-protector, whose dawning and sunset were gloom; For they temper'd the self of the tyrant with love of the land, Some touch of the heart, some remorse, refraining ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... for an hour, connecting and disconnecting, testing and listening and testing still again, before the right wire fell under his thumb. Then he listened intently, with a little start, for he knew he was reading an operator whose bluff, heavy, staccato "send" was as familiar to his long-practiced ear as a well-known face would be ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... old baggage will never be recovered after this war: that's certain. During a little after-dinner speech in a club not long ago I indulged in a pleasantry about excessive impedimenta. Lord Derby, Minister of War and a bluff and honest aristocrat, sat near me and he whispered to me—"That's me." "Yes," I said, "that's you," and the group about us made merry at the jest. The meaning of this is, they now joke about what was the most solemn thing in ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... Lords, Knights, 'Squires and Doctors, yet unborn; Or justly mad to Moloch's burning fane Devote the choicest children of his brain. 190 Judge for yourself; and as you find report. Of wit as freely as of beef or port. Zounds! shall a pert or bluff important wight, Whose brain is fanciless, whose blood is white; A mumbling ape of taste; prescribe us laws 195 To try the poets, for no better cause Than that he boasts per ann. ten thousand clear, Yelps in the House, or barely ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen

... women, came out the next morning with a three-quarter-page picture of a beautiful woman, labeled New Orleans, on a prancing steed named Progress, dashing over a chasm entitled Sanitary Neglect and Commercial Stagnation, to a bluff called A Greater City, while in one corner was a female angel with wings outspread, designated as Victory. The two-page ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... limitless prairie straight on in front of me. I walked for days, and slept at night wherever I could find a bluff. I could hear the little grasses whispering when I lay half-awake, and it was comforting to know that there were leagues and leagues of them between me and the city. I drove a team for a farmer most of that season. Then I went on to a track that they were strengthening and straightening ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... "Bluff!" Var read the words again, but he could make no other meaning from them. Did the fools expect him to believe their flippancy spelled confidence, or were they deceiving themselves? And the hint of surrender terms ...
— Victory • Lester del Rey

... us out of the sky. Suds, you know how he is. Strong bluff. Didn't bat an eye. Laughed at this Donnegan. Got a hold of an old pal of his, named Levine, and he is a mighty hot scrapper. From a knife to a toenail, they was nothing that Levine couldn't use in a fight. Suds sent him out ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand

... only in comparison with the stormy interview of the day before, when the Superintendent attacked me most fiercely. When I began the second interview by saying I wished to resign, he changed front altogether. It had been purely a game of bluff on his part. ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.

... more economical to do a thing well, he insisted from force of habit on having it scamped. Then he was almost happy, because he felt that he was doing someone down. If there were an architect superintending the work, Misery would square him or bluff him. If it were not possible to do either, at least he had a try; and in the intervals of watching, driving and bullying the hands, his vulture eye was ever on the look out for fresh jobs. His long red nose was thrust into every estate agent's office in the town in the ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... thought "the jig was up" then, for they had no intention whatever of harming Tato. It was all merely a bit of American "bluff," and it succeeded because the brigand was a coward, and dared not emulate his ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... on, in 1870, the country passed under the rule of Canada, and when the Government of Canada was established in the Province of Manitoba, which included the district of Assiniboia, the Sioux were found living quietly in tents, in the parishes of Poplar Point, High Bluff, and Portage la Prairie, in what became the new Province of Manitoba. Immigrants from Ontario, had begun to settle in that section of the Province, and ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris

... more reasons for an error in his conduct than one could well have imagined could have been rendered for anything done in life below. Another drawback in the case was, that one could never be very seriously angry with him. If more real than pretended at any time, his broad bright eye and bluff face, magnificently lifted up, like the sun on frost-work, melted down displeasure and threatened to betray all the policy depending on it; for in the main never a bit of ill heart had Colin, though doubtlessly he had in him, deeply established, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... the upper parts, paler on the sides, dusky grey, with a tinge of yellowish-rufous on the under-parts; muzzle, feet, and tail flesh-coloured; ears of the same, but rather darker; head short and bluff; muzzle broad and deep; eye moderately large; ears moderate, rounded, clad with minute hairs; fur soft and moderately long, of three kinds, viz. short under-fur, ordinary hairs, and mixed with them, especially on the back and rump, numerous long black hairs ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... you're right and there's no time for argument. But when you said political exigency you said a whole lot—and we'll let this particular skunk cabbage go under that name. Don't try that law-and-order and state-authority bluff with me in such a case as this is. You're right in with the bunch and you know just as well as I do what the game is this time. Probably those folks outside there don't know what they want, but they do know that something is wrong! Something ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... 1759.—Of all the younger generals James Wolfe was foremost. To him was given the task of capturing Quebec. Seated on a high bluff, Quebec could not be captured from the river. The only way to approach it was to gain the Plains of Abraham in its rear and besiege it on the land side. Again and again Wolfe sent his men to storm the bluffs below the town. Every time they ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing

... old Earth is making about as poor a bluff at being Christmasy as I am. The leaves are all on the trees, many flowers are in bloom, and the scarlet geraniums are warm enough to melt the ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... He was a big, bluff fellow, to whose pride all that befell him seemed to minister. He was proud of his length of limb, and his hundred and eighty pounds of weight, and yet his slim appearance. "Ye wouldn't believe it now, would ye?" he was wont to say when he stepped off the scales at the store of the hamlet down ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... too foxy for that. But the only story he told was so foolish that we laughed at him, and he ain't had the nerve to try to bluff us ever since. He says that he was sitting peaceable with Armstrong when all at once without no warning they was a shot from the window—the east window, I remember he was particular to say—and Armstrong dropped forward on the table, ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand

... got them. They went off in a wagon that Tate made for his master, Bill Keller. We come to Tupelo, Mississippi from Mobile when I was a little bit of a girl. Then we made one crop and come to Helena. Uncle Tate died there and mama died at Crocketts Bluff. My papa died back in Mobile, Alabama. He was breaking a young horse and got throwed up side a tree. He didn't live ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... ready to take one. It was a fatal mistake to be too candid even with those who were all right—not to look and to talk prosperous, not at least to pretend that one had beautiful sales. To listen to her you would have thought the profession of letters a wonderful game of bluff. Wherever one's idea began it ended somehow in inspired paragraphs in the newspapers. "I pretend, I assure you, that you are going off like wildfire—I can at least do that for you!" she often declared, prevented as she was from doing much else by Mr. Highmore's insurmountable ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... from next morning's breakfast the Meadowcrofts sat next to us. Hilda was on one side of me; Lady Meadowcroft on the other; and beyond her again, bluff Yorkshire Sir Ivor, with his cold, hard, honest blue North Country eyes, and his dignified, pompous English, breaking down at times into a North Country colloquialism. They talked chiefly to each other. Acting on Hilda's instructions, ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... onything better than ane of her own fried chickens," said Dannie. "And its no true about hunters. We've the river on ane side, and the bluff on the other. If we keep up our fishing signs, and add hunting to them, and juist shut the other fellows out, the birds will come here like everything wild gathers in National Park, out West. Ye bet things know where they are taken care ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter

... other Member of Parliament who had not bent the knee to its occult omnipotence was to be run out of public life without cause assigned. All this while there was rumour and counter-rumour about Mr O'Brien's return. The Dillonites up to the last moment believed we were playing a game of bluff and went on right merrily with their preparations for making a clean sweep of every man who was "suspect" of possessing an independent mind. Then on one winter's night, shortly before the election writs were issued, the doubters and the ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... it, too. Well, let me see. How was it? Oh, yes! Lunch-time to-day it was, and your papa was smoking his cigar and looking out to sea all by himself. It was very quiet, with all the donkey-engines stopped and the men eating inside the walls. On the bluff beyond the fort I was sitting, with my feet hanging over the edge, and the mango-tree I've told you so often about was shading me from the sun. The wind was blowing just a wee mite, and every time the wind would blow ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly

... finger stiffened to send a bullet into Reid's brain, for he considered only that such depravity was its own warrant of death. But Reid was unarmed, and there was something in his attitude that seemed to disclose that it was a bluff. Joan ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... The bluff doctor insisted that the whole party come ashore and lunch with him. He had arranged for Polly's tuition at the Denton Academy, had bought her text-books, and when the party left for home that day he thrust into Polly Jolly's hand a silver chain purse with more money in it ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe

... to King Henry the Eighth, whom it has been too much the fashion to call 'Bluff King Hal,' and 'Burly King Harry,' and other fine names; but whom I shall take the liberty to call, plainly, one of the most detestable villains that ever drew breath. You will be able to judge, long before we come to the end of his life, whether ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... who was not to be moved from a fixed purpose as ever I saw. It was in vain that we all three talked to him and endeavoured to persuade him; he listened with that gentleness which went so well with his bluff bearing, but was evidently no more shaken by our representations that ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... guest from the bar parlor; he could not do so without entering into an explanation with its other tenants, which he was not prepared for, or without devising some excuse far beyond his powers. Notwithstanding his bluff ways, he could tell a lie without moving a muscle; but he was incapable of any such ambitious flight of deceit as the present state of affairs demanded. He had, indeed, no aptitude for social diplomacy of any kind, and suffered his change of feeling toward the young ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... one hundred and twenty-five versts up the Vaga River from its junction with the Dvina River. It is by far one of the most substantial and prosperous in the province of Archangel. It differs very materially from all the surrounding country in that it is located on good sandy soil on a high bluff overlooking the river and is comparatively dry, even in wet weather. It is quite a summer resort town, has a number of well constructed brick buildings, half a dozen or more schools, a seminary, monastery, saw mill, and in many others respects ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... mouth; but I felt my only chance was bluff, and walked steadily towards him. He turned again, and vanished into the dusk. Once more I thought I caught the glint of his eyes, and that ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... with me. It was this last thought, improbable as it surely was, which put me on my mettle. If that was has little scheme, and to my suspicion it looked like it, I was not unwilling to play a hand in the game. I might not hold trumps, yet I could bluff ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... I wonder whether he is in earnest about the divorce this time, or whether the whole scene was just bluff, to ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... mishap in no wise hindering him from following the allurements of the next fair object that fluttered across his path. He had heard of the wit and beauty of Kate Anderton, only daughter to Justice Anderton of Lostock Hall, a bluff and honest squire who spent his mornings in the chase and his evenings in the revel incident thereto; a man well looked upon by his less distinguished neighbours, being of a benevolent disposition, and much given to hospitality. Kate's ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... certificate all ready but the date! Let him get wind of this business, and you mark my words, Uncle Masterman will die in two days and be buried in a week. But see here, Johnny; what Michael can do, I can do. If he plays a game of bluff, so can I. If his father is to live for ever, by God, so ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... her. Just when she felt that she could not endure the strain another minute, grinding brakes, the blast of a huge Klaxon, and the sound of a great voice arose from the street. Eileen rushed to the window. She took one look, caught up the suitcase and raced down the stairs. At the door she met a bluff, big man, gross from head to foot. It seemed to Eileen strange that she could see in him even a trace of her mother, and yet she could. Red veins crossed his cheeks and glowed on his nose. His tired eyes were watery; his thick lips had an inclination to sag; but there was heartiness ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... at Washington, but it had done nothing to efface the memory of the Bull Run defeat. On the contrary, a practical blockade of the Potomac by rebel batteries on the Virginia shore, and another small but irritating defeat at Ball's Bluff, greatly heightened public impatience. The necessary surrender of Mason and Slidell to England was exceedingly unpalatable. Government expenditures had risen to $2,000,000 a day, and a financial crisis was imminent. Buell would not move into East Tennessee, and Halleck seemed powerless ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... "A bluff! Some of my friends secured that old unused van and wished to make the attempt. But I considered it impractical without the concurrence of a number of unusual circumstances. However, I found it useful to carry out that attempted escape and give ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc

... hands, close to his mouth. Evidently the pitcher intended to use the spit ball. Nevertheless, something warned Bart that Dale had turned the ball over and grasped the dry side. His pretense of trying a spit ball was all a bluff. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish

... Far West made slow progress. The dead and broken snags, the "sawyers" of river parlance, fast in the sand-bars, seemed waiting to impale the steamboat. The lead-man called unceasingly from his position. One bluff yielded to another, a flat succeeded to a grove where wild roses burst into riotous bloom, and over all lay the enchantment of the gay, ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... fast descending. Delia Prince went out to the corner of the house and shaded her eyes to look at the sunset. The white clouds turned to a flaming red, and the reflection dyed to crimson the surface of the creeks; the sun descended toward the wooded bluff that flanked the bay, sent a thousand shattered, dazzling rays through ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin

... it then, man. That's what a bluff is for. And you don't need the money in the pocket. This house is yours; your cellars are always full of expensive liquors; there is money in your till and something in your safe yet, I'll bet my ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... that relentless spirit, no one who is blessed with the ordinary amount of reasoning power looks for mercy even if it be promised. And Uncle Billy Rhodes did well to run his bluff down there in the willows by ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt

... of Uncle Bobbie's, gladly welcomed the young man, of whom his old partner, Wicks, had written so highly. When Dick left the train at Armourdale, a little village in the lead and zinc field, he was greeted at once by his host, a bluff, pleasant-faced, elderly gentleman, whom he liked at first sight, and who was completely captivated by his guest before they had ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright

... bordering the flood-plain, which is many miles wide. Then they bend to the south-west, and, abutting upon the lower Tapajos, merge into the bluffs which form the terrace margin of that river valley. The next high land on the north side is Obidos, a bluff, 56 ft. above the river, backed by low hills. From Serpa, nearly opposite the river Madeira, to near the mouth of the Rio Negro, the banks are low, until approaching Manaos, they are rolling hills; but from the Negro, for 600 m. as far up as the village of Canaria, at the great ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... any, Miss Marian. What I said about Virginia was mere bluff,—merely made an excursion or two on the Virginia side of the ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... in the obscurity, the pioneers soon found a sheltered nook close under the bluff, and built their fire and made their camp very near the spot where a little wharf now lies, and where generation after generation of their children has stood to meditate, to dream, to drink in the glory of summer seas and skies, or beneath the August moon to whisper in each others ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... plantations were Conacanarra, Feltons, Looking Glass, Montrose, Polenta, and Barrows, besides a large body of land in the counties of Jones and Hyde. His residence was at Conacanarra, where the dwelling stood upon a bluff commanding a fine view of the Roanoke river, and, with the pretty house of the head overseer, the small church, and other minor buildings, looked like a small village beneath ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux

... am damned!" the politician remarked, with unwitting veracity. "Did the dern Dago bluff me, does he want more, er did he reely didn't un'erstand fer honest?" Then, as he took up his way, crossing the street at the warning of some red and green smallpox lanterns, "I'll git those seven votes, though, someway. I'm out fer a record this ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... occupations. As he passed the house, the negroes all suspended operations, and stared at him till he was out of sight. He soon reached the Gap; but he had advanced only a short distance before he discovered a battery of light artillery stationed on a kind of bluff, and whose guns commanded ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic

... of the Red Cross men had papers or passes. What was to be done? We were conniving at an almost unlawful expedition, and Jan was very doubtful if we could cross the Montenegrin frontier. But after a consultation we decided to bluff it into Montenegro if necessary, and then telegraph to Cettinje ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon

... in more leisurely fashion now, and soon reached the foot of a high grassy bluff on the left-hand side of the river. They climbed the steep slope here, and so weary were they that that night they did not put up the tents at all, but lay down, each wrapped in his blanket, as soon as they had completed ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough

... holding his seat by leaving a pile of chips at the place. When he cashed in his winnings and went downstairs it was still early. As a card-player he was not popular. He was too keen on the main chance and he nearly always won. In spite of his loud and frequent laugh, of the effect of bluff geniality, there was no genuine humor in the man, none of ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... native cheekiness faded into most unwonted humility. For he was increasingly conscious of being, to put it vulgarly "up against something pretty big." Conscious of a personality altogether too secure of its own power to spread itself or, in the smallest degree, bluff or brag. Sir Charles Verity struck him, indeed, as calm to the confines of cynicism. He gave, but gave of his abundance, royally indifferent to the cost. There was plenty more where all this came from, of knowledge, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... our way down past the intervening barriers of water and wood, and were walking on the fjord shore. Rounding a bluff, we had suddenly opened out a small cutter of some six-and-twenty or thirty tons, riding to her anchor in the mouth of the river. One concluded that she was a yacht, as she was flush-decked, and had a skylight instead of a cargo-hatch amidships; but her lines were a good deal ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... inspected by the new G.O.C. of the Division, Major-General Fanshawe, enjoyed the sun, and endured a violent thunderstorm. Thence returning to the wood we sampled White Lodge, the Warwick's home under the steep wooded bluff of Hill 63, where the rats made merry among the dirt and unburied food; also La Plus Douce, a pastoral but dangerous spot, where the Douve flowed muddily amidst neglected water-meadows stretching along to Wulverghem with its battered ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell

... of the bluff he took a survey of the great bay, a couple of figures crossing the strand in the distance arrested his attention; he reined in his horse behind a clump of bushes ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... this is a bluff game, intended to deceive me," said Vernon, showing symptoms of anger. "I can assure you that it will ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger

... as it rustled and roared through the dark woods lining the shore, and then it would pipe afar off as if a reserve were advancing to aid in holding the ground already occupied; anon the echo of a force would be heard close in by the bluff bordering the stream, and in a moment more, it was sweeping with all its strength and pride of power down the broad surface of the glittering ice, as if the rightfulness of its invasion scorned resistance. Sullen old winter with his frosty beard and snow-wreathed ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... Ben, my boy," said the bluff old fellow. "Sometimes not too much to eat either, except fish and biscuit, and not much room to sleep in when you turn in to your hard wooden bunk and pull a rough blanket over you to ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... really believe that Lupin is coming to-night?" said the Duke, with a sceptical laugh. "The whole thing is sheer bluff—he has no more intention of coming tonight to steal that ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson

... jungle of over-hanging willows and littered with a spoil of leaves; departing from these "points" she regularly crossed the river every five miles, avoiding the "bight" of the great binds and thus escaping the strong current; sometimes she went out and skirted a high "bluff" sand-bar in the middle of the stream, and occasionally followed it up a little too far and touched upon the shoal water at its head—and then the intelligent craft refused to run herself aground, but "smelt" the bar, ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... 'Poplar Avenue! That's a street to live on! It only runs two blocks and then falls off a bluff. You can throw a keg of nails the whole length of it. Don't talk to me ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... Yokohama for a week to visit Dr. and Mrs. Hepburn on the Bluff. Bishop and Mrs. Burdon of Hong Kong were also guests, and ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... Secretary, smiling, glanced at his watch. "A quarter to nine!" he said. "He has fifteen minutes in which to make good his bluff. But I do not ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer

... which contains 783/4 per cent, of silica, and l73/4 per cent, of alumina; from this clay is made the delicate, translucent eggshell ware, without the addition of any other matter. From an adjoining bluff a clay is taken which has 50 per cent, of silica, and 38 per cent, of alumina; from this ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... jutting spur of a bluff a horde of shadows sweep forth upon the open prairie towards the trail on which the solitary rider has disappeared. Here and there among them swift gleams, like silver streaks, are plainly seen, as the moonbeams glint on ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... twenty stalwarth natives and a priest, who had taken high orders, such an one being held necessary to the safety of the expedition. Well, they descried the island, and having landed, found the bones of the priest and Matura in a cave, on the side of a steep bluff. And when these were brought home, the people of Kalorama went into deep mourning, and had them buried with great ceremony in a grove of cocoanut trees, where all girls of tender years were taught to go at early morning and lay offerings of flowers ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... the wheel. "Get your anchor up, Han. Give him a hand, someone. Wink, open a box of those cartridges and load the revolvers, will you? But keep them out of Perry's way! All right now. Settle down, fellows, and we'll try a bluff." ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour

... Billy bade her a bluff and friendly farewell, and he was practically driven from the room by Isabel; who then returned to her charge, gathered her close in her arms, and sat with her so, rocking her gently till ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... a flight of wooden stairs, leading somewhere into the club. It was our last chance, or we should indeed be obliged to stay all night in some bin; for it would not be long before they searched the cellars. If this flight led into the kitchen, we were saved, for I could bluff the servants. We paused. Presently we ascended, side by side, with light but firm step. We reached the landing in front of the door without mishap. From somewhere came a puff of air which blew out the candle. I struck a match viciously against the wall—-and blundered into a string ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath

... falling behind. The train hooted its defiance as it swept down toward Woody Point. The girls shot in toward the shore, where the shadow of the high bluff lay ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr

... course he had adopted, the party and their adventurous leader on the 3rd of August, at 11 o'clock a.m., rounded a high bluff cape, which they called after the lady of Sir John Henry Pelly, Bart., Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. It is situated in latitude 67 deg. 28' 00" north; longitude, by ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... journey wherever chance might lead me. As confidence came, my enjoyment increased. I began to believe I could take care of myself. I reasoned out that, as the peaks were snow-capped, I should find water, and very likely game, up higher. Moreover, I might climb a foothill or bluff from which I could get ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey

... 'round, the sailors did vigorous Indian club exercises with their paddles. The grass in the little yard and the tall hollyhocks in the beds at its sides swayed and bowed and nodded. Beyond, seen over the edge of the bluff and stretching to the horizon, the blue and white waves leaped and danced and sparkled. As a picture of movement and color and joyful bustle the scene was inspiring; children, viewing it for the first time, almost invariably ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... Demorest, dryly; "but if people choose to believe this bluff gotten up by the petty thieves themselves to increase their importance and secure their immunity—they can. But here's Manuel to tell ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte

... June, 1769, the figure of a stalwart, broad shouldered man could have been seen standing on the wild and rugged promontory which rears its rocky bluff high above the Ohio river, at a point near the mouth of Wheeling Creek. He was alone save for the companionship of a deerhound that crouched at his feet. As he leaned on a long rifle, contemplating the glorious scene that stretched before him, a smile ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... be afraid! Nobody'll getcha here! I know how to bluff 'em. Even if a policeman should come after yeh, I'd get around him somehow, and I don't care what you've done or ain't done, I'll stand by yeh. I'm not one to turn against anybody in distress. My mother always taught me that. After you've et a bite and had a cup of my nice tea with cream and sugar ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill

... rushing torrents—drenched to the skin, on she passed toward the railroad to the well remembered foot-log, only to find the waters rushing along high above and beyond the place where it had been. Then she thought of the great bluff rising to the west of her home and extending southward toward the railroad track, and she determined to ascend it and reach the bridge over this barrier to the waters. Need I recount how she struggled on and up through the thick oak undergrowth, that, being storm-laden ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... instant, as they went on, they were face to face with the big bluff engine-driver, who ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn

... boldly into the light, and no more shots were fired at them. They ran up the slope to the crest of the bluff, leaped over a fresh earthwork, and fell among a crowd of soldiers in blue. Dick quickly raised himself to his feet, and saw soldiers about him, many of them wounded, all of them weary and drawn. Others were hard at work with pick and spade, and from ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... a very consequential speech, and, to tell the truth, it was what in the girl's own country would be termed pure "bluff," but to Captain Stewart it rang harsh and loud with evil significance, and he went out of that room cold at heart. What plans were they perfecting among them? What invisible nets for ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... July the Union forces were routed at Bull Run with terrific loss of life and many wounded. Two months later the battle of Ball's Bluff occurred, in which there were three Massachusetts regiments engaged, with many of Clara Barton's lifelong friends among them. By this time the hospitals and commissaries in Washington had been well ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... suggestions in regard to the different rivers along the coast, and gave vivid descriptions of the last previous trip up the St. Mary's undertaken by Captain Stevens, U.S.N., in the gunboat Ottawa, when he had to fight his way past batteries at every bluff in descending the narrow and rapid stream. I was warned that no resistance would be offered to the ascent, but only to our return; and was further cautioned against the mistake, then common, of underrating the courage of the Rebels. "It proved impossible to dislodge those fellows from the ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... it. To a few—very few—it matters—but in most cases unfaithfulness is not a psychological thing at all; it is simply a temporary excess like getting drunk—squalid, if you like—but not touching your real relationships. Women bluff a lot on the subject and many are fools. They believe in the same law for both sexes. It is a ridiculous fallacy. Only Edmond was different. He loved women—psychologically. He was therefore inconstant, which is the real sin against ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco

... BLUFF. But? Look you here, boy, here's your antidote, here's your Jesuits' powder for a shaking fit. But who hast thou got with thee? is he of mettle? [Laying his ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... in the morning of Sunday the 18th we made sail, and at noon, being about two miles from the shore, Cape Froward bore N. by E. a bluff point N.N.W. and Cape Holland W. 1/2 S. Our latitude at this place, by observation, was 54 deg. 3' S. and we found the streight to be about six miles wide. Soon after I sent a boat into Snug Bay, to lie at the anchoring-place, but the wind ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... had reached a higher spot of bluff than the rest, Wharton, who was an active rather than an athletic man, challenged me to follow him. He made the leap having little space to spare. I had not done such a thing for some years. But my boyhood had been one of daring. The school in which I had grown up had given ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... weather set fair, and but for the sea-mist the power of the sun would have been enough to dazzle all beholders. Already this vapour was beginning to clear off, coiling up in fleecy wisps above the glistening water, but clinging still to any bluff or cliff ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... He enters: a bluff stern warrior, in his undress, that is, without his panoply of armour and arms, in the long flowing robe affected by his Norman kindred at the festal board. She, with the comely robe which had superseded ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... foreigners, the hatred of all metaphysics as inconsistent with common sense, the desire to let things be on the ground that the effort after change is worse than the evil of which men complain. His Treatise on Civil Government (1781) is in many ways a delightful book, bluff, hardy, full of common sense, with, at times, a quaint humor that is all its own. He had really two objects in view; to deal, in the first place, faithfully with the American problem, and, in the second, ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... meagre information about the A. R. U. convention. One day there was a meeting in which a committee of the Pullman strikers set forth their case. At the close of that meeting the great boycott had been declared. "Mere bluff," said the newspapers. But the managers of the railroads "got together." Some of them had already cut the wage lists on their roads. They did not feel sure ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... High Bluff, Manitoba, in 1880. Two months later his father continued his journey west to Shoal Lake, Manitoba, where he took up a homestead. Received his education partly at the village school, partly from the Anglican clergyman who ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... opposed to the conclusions upon which it broadened. One secret of the belief in his love of his country was the readiness of Rockney's pen to support our nobler patriotic impulses, his relish of the bluff besides. His eye was on our commerce, on our courts of Law, on our streets and alleys, our army and navy, our colonies, the vaster than the island England, and still he would be busy picking up needles and threads ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... soon be around again," said the captain in his bluff, cheery way; "Ma'amselle Labesse has crossed with me many times, and though she usually succumbs for two or three days, she is a good sailor after that. She is passionately fond of music, too, and when she is about again ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells

... a creek which ran through a forest of scattered juniper trees. The plateau rose in two gentle slopes to a height of about five or six hundred feet above the valley level, and was thus half as high as the bluff to the westward, which formed the base of the semi-circle. Near the northern part of the plateau the rocks were elevated in a series of irregular broken peaks, like the jagged ice hummocks of the higher latitudes. The whole plateau was covered ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... may never have to re-live the horrors of the next hour. In spite of my bluff and hearty ways, in times of trouble I am as reticent as a clam. I was determined to hide my agony and anxiety from the well-meaning people of the Moose Hotel. I hurried to the railway station to send a telegram to the Professor's address in Brooklyn, but ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... fourteen years old, the Princess Woo was missing from the Nestorian mission-house, by the Yellow River. Her troubled guardian, in much anxiety, set out to find the truant; and, finally, in the course of his search, climbed the high bluff from which he saw the massive walls, the many gateways, the gleaming roofs, and porcelain towers of the Imperial city of ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks

... expected every man to do his duty. Forward the Light Brigade, and so on to where glory and an express train were waiting, or would be waiting, before you had time to knock a tenpenny nail on the head twice. The company on the platform comprised the elite of the sporting world. "Bluff" TOMMY POPPIN, the ever courteous host of "The Chequers," "BILL" TOOTWON, by his friends yclept the Masher, JAKE RUMBELO, the middle-weight World's Champion, were all there, wreathed in silvery smiles, and all on the nod, on the nod, on the nod, as the poet hath it, though why "hath it" ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various

... and threw two tons of rocks every day, and he has no idea how many tons the six families of Patmos heaved at and after the goats. When they weren't going headfirst into barrels of water they were chewing something not meant to be chewed. Casey asserts that it is all a bluff about goats eating tin cans. They don't. He says they never touched a can all the while he had them. He says devastated Patmos wished they would, and leave the two-dollar lace curtains alone, and clotheslines and water barrels and baggage. He says many a party ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... brakeman heard the leader tell his men to make for the south trail. That was either bluff—or a mistake. They sometimes make mistakes, and that's how we get our chances. The south trail is the road into Rocky Springs. Rocky Springs is twenty-two miles from White Point. They've probably had an hour's start with a heavily loaded ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... to resent Charlton's manner—bluff, unceremonious, candid, at times rude. He treated women exactly as he treated men, and he treated all men as intimates, free and easy fellow travelers afoot upon a dusty, vulgar highway. She had found charm in that manner, so natural to the man of no pretense, of splendid physical proportions, ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... frequently described is that known as the Basket trick, which is in my opinion the chef d'oeuvre of the Indian Jadoo-wallah. It is a wonderful bluff ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson

... Jove would cuff, He's so bluff, For a straw. Cowed deities, Like mice in cheese, To stir ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... was a fortress in Bessarabia, captured from the Turks by Suvorov in 1790, after a peculiarly bloody siege. (Byron chose this episode for treatment in Don Juan, cantos vii and viii.) Mickiewicz makes Rykov give the name as Izmailov; Rykov is a bluff soldier, not a ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... a prettier place than this as we beheld it by the morrow's light. The house stands on a high bluff, worthy the name of hill, which slopes steeply but greenly down to the South Prong of Black Creek, better deserving the name of river than many a stream which boasts the designation. We crossed it upon a boom, pausing midway in sudden astonishment ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... which you know nothing, learn to conduct the conversation so that you abstract the necessary enlightenment from the questioner himself (while appearing to be perfectly conversant with what he is talking about), and, if possible, get him to suggest the answer to his own conundrum. In other words, bluff as in poker (which I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various

... blue, heaving water, passes slowly round an open-hearted, good-tempered-looking pulley, five feet in diameter, aft past a vicious nipper, to bring all up should anything go wrong, through a gentle guide on to a huge bluff drum, who wraps him round his body, and says, "Come you must," as plain as drum can speak; the chattering pauls say, "I've got him, I've got him; he can't come back," whilst black cable, much slacker and easier in mind and body, is taken by a slim V-pulley and passed down into the huge ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... without a trace of the same sea-taste that had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front was in the likeness of a ship's bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... Reventlow and the other naval writers began to refer to everything President Wilson did as a "bluff." When Col. E. M. House came to Berlin early in 1916, he tried to impress the officials with the fact that Mr. Wilson was not only not bluffing, but that the American people would support him in whatever he did in dealing with ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman

... of rock and flashed away in a gleaming line of foam, a horseman appeared bending low in the saddle for better protection against the storm. He rode along the edge of the stream on the farther bank, opposite the steep bluff on the northern side, forcing his wounded and jaded horse to keep fetlock deep in the water which swirled and sucked about its legs. He was trying his hardest to hide his trail. Lower down the hard, rocky ground extended to the water's edge, and if he could delay his pursuers for ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... me," he said sternly. "Your bluff and bluster won't do you any good. I am going to hand you over to the authorities, and that is all there is to it. You've got to behave yourself and stop threatening me, or I'll give you something ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer

... live through it. They usually do, and don't lose many meals at that. I think he's running a bluff, myself." ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin

... fine, handsome young man, and—no offence, miss—it would not be a great honour for my little maid to have his love or the likelihood of it—and out of temptation is out of danger, miss, and if so be I do speak plain and bluff, you will not put it down against me, ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... afford to let his people think that he was afraid. The man who, dwelling alone among Malays in an unsettled country, shows the slightest trace of fear, signs his own death-warrant. No people are more susceptible to 'bluff,' and, given a truculent bearing, and a sufficiency of bravado, a coward may pass for a brave man ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... angrily, and old Neb, who had listened, stepped quickly up to him. "Marse Frank," he pleaded, "don' yo' let dat white-trash bluff yo'!" The old darkey's voice was tremulous, his eyes were moist with feeling for his humiliated master. A great resolve thrilled through him. "See heah, honey, I's be'n sabin' all mah life. I's got a pile o' money in de bank. Take ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... may well be significant. He was married to a wife who evidently lacked refinement, and who appears in the drama almost in the relation of a servant to Desdemona. His manner was that of a blunt, bluff soldier, who spoke his mind freely and plainly. He was often hearty, and could be thoroughly jovial; but he was not seldom rather rough and caustic of speech, and he was given to making remarks somewhat ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... in due time reached, and the procession of stages whirled along the narrow street beneath the bluff, swaying heavily with the irregularities of the road. The steamboats lay at India Point, just below the town, where immense quantities of wood were piled up, for each boat consumed between thirty and forty cords on a ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... before her mother. "Fifteen o' them every month! See the pictures that's on it, of the two grand old men. See the fine chin-whiskers on His Nibs here! Ain't it a pity he can't write his name, Ma, and him President of the Bank, and just has to make a bluff at it like this. Sure, and isn't that enough to drive any girl out to teach school, to see to it that bank presidents get a chance to learn to write. Bank presidents always come from the country; I'll be having a row of them at Purple Springs—I'm sure. They ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... church unwittingly on "Empire Day," and reported a sermon stuffed with militarism. He poured cold water on the idea. "Ireland won't have it; Canada won't have it; South Africa loathes it; India has an Empire Day of its own. Only Australia cares for it. It is a vulgar piece of Tory bluff, and a device for annoying ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... fifty years, off and on—ever since, in fact, the press-masters of bluff King Hal denuded the Dorset coast of fishermen and drove the starving women of that region to sea in quest of food [Footnote: State Papers Domestic, Henry VIII.: Lord Russell to the Privy Council, 22 Aug. 1545.]—the press-gang had been laboriously teaching ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... Bluff (Bigbee river) a freedman (named George) was ordered out of his cabin to be whipped; he started to run, when the men (three of them) set their dogs (five of them) on him, and one of the men rode up to George and struck him to the earth with ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz

... sent the bluff Olive-faced Frenchman (sure enough) Screaming and scouring like a plover, Must follow—him I mean who dash'd Into the water and then thrash'd The cullion past the ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor

... hands high to the stars, and then ran across the level to the foot of the bluff. It was high and very steep, but wings seemed his—his heart was on the summit, and his body must follow—must get there before the white flame sank into the west—must send his greeting to answer ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan

... he would go and buy a steak. I tell you, the thought of that steak was awfully nice and I had to put my handkerchief to my mouth to keep the water from flowing over. I offered to cook it for him, but he passed it up. I made one more desperate bluff and asked him if he would get some beer for us! And I reached for my purse, and for one wild moment I thought sure he had called my bluff and would really take my only nickel, my carfare home. I nearly ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... as if he had heard the warning of a rattlesnake at his feet. Turning like a flash, he saw Mr. Warmore standing at his elbow. Had he received but a few seconds' notice, he might have tried to bluff it out, by pretending he had come to look after some matters about which he was not fully satisfied. Holding the situation he did in the establishment, he could feel certain no one would suspect him of any ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis

... locomotive nation, this said vehicle, the canal-boat, is the most absolutely prosaic and inglorious. There is something picturesque, nay, almost sublime, in the lordly march of your well-built, high-bred steamboat. Go take your stand on some overhanging bluff, where the blue Ohio winds its thread of silver, or the sturdy Mississippi tears its path through unbroken forests, and it will do your heart good to see the gallant boat walking the waters with ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... thereafter, the English have everywhere had important losses to show at sea—some 200 ships lost since the beginning of the war, according to the latest statements of the Allies—so that even they themselves no longer dare to talk about the "German bluff." ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... sob and moan of the sea's dirge, Its plangor and surge; The awful biting sough Of drifted snows along some arctic bluff, That veer and luff, ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman

... intended to occupy a station at the mouth of the St. Peters, on the Mississippi, have established themselves there, and those who were ordered to the mouth of the Yellow Stone, on the Missouri, have ascended that river to the Council Bluff, where they will remain until the next spring, when they will proceed to the place of their destination. I have the satisfaction to state that this measure has been executed in amity with the Indian tribes, and that it promises to produce, in regard to them, all the advantages ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe

... instantaneous change in Horace Lansing's demeanour. From a blustering braggart, he became a pale and cringing coward. But with a desperate attempt to bluff it out, he exclaimed, "What do you mean?" but even as he spoke, he shivered and staggered backward, as ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... I know of any, save John Mason and Terry, the mate," said the man, shaking his head. He had a bluff, good-natured manner, which Angela did not dislike; but it seemed somewhat ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... beautiful royal castles owes more to the Loire than Amboise, whose magnificent round machiolated tower commands the approaches to the bridge, while the fine pointed windows and arched balcony give a fairyland lightness and grace to the adjoining facade which crowns a bluff high ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

... the whole business," said he. "Once or twice I asked Bill or Gabe about it, but I never could get any satisfaction. I sometimes think carrying that message was only a bluff, and that the Germans were merely trying to test out Bill and Gabe, to see if they could not get them to ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)

... as Illinois and Wisconsin; still my statement is true—I have never heard the western lark even in the bottoms and meadows of the broad valley east of the Missouri River, while, one spring morning, I did hear one of these birds fluting in the top of a cottonwood tree in my yard on the high western bluff of that stream. ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... other English Kings, not so well attested, are absent from Philidor's list. Henry I, John, two of the Edwards, I and IV, and Charles I are identified with the chess incidents. Accounts of Henry VII and Henry VIII, contain items of expense connected with the game. The bluff king it is said played chess, as Wolsey and Cranmer did, and as Pitt, and Wilberforce, and Sunderland, Bolingbroke and Sydney Smyth have in our generations. The vain and tyrant king, like the Ras of Abyssinia, who we hear of through Salt and Buckle much preferred winning, and ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird

... acres, 200 of which are Mohawk flats. A large portion of the flats was formerly of little value, in consequence of being kept wet by a shallow stream which ran through, it, and which, together with several springs that issue from the sandy bluff on the south side of the flats, kept the ground marshy, and unfit for cultivation. By deepening the channel of the stream, and conducting most of the springs into it, many acres, which were formerly almost ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... to his lack of training, had to be very carefully suited with a part before he shone as an actor. But when he was suited—his line was the bluff, hearty, kindly, soldier-like Englishman—he was better than many people who had twenty years' start of him in experience. This is absurdly faint praise. In such parts as Mr. Brown in "New Men and Old Acres," the ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... a brief dialogue between master and pupil, which gives us an amusing glimpse of the worthy d'Eterville, whom the boys called 'poor old Detterville.' In the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters of Lavengro he is pleasantly described by his pupil, who adds, with characteristic 'bluff,' that d'Eterville said 'on our arrival at the conclusion of Dante's Hell, "vous serez un jour ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... anchoring, but the weather being so bad, did not think it safe to stand into it. From the Friars the land trenches away about N. by E. four leagues: We had smooth water, and kept in shore, having regular soundings from twenty to fifteen fathoms water. At half-past six we hauled round a high bluff point, the rocks whereof were like so many fluted pillars, and had ten fathoms water, fine sand, within half a mile of the shore. At seven, being abreast of a fine bay, and having little wind, we came-to, with the small bower, in twenty-four fathoms, sandy bottom. Just after we anchored, ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... although I was no saint, I liked them not at all, especially the men with their scented hair, turned-up shoes, and party-coloured clothes. Nor as I thought, did Sir Robert Aleys like them, who, whatever his faults, was a bluff knight of the older sort, who had fought with credit in the French wars. Yet I noted that he seemed to be helpless in their hands, or rather in those of Deleroy, the King's favourite, who was the chief of all the gang. It was as though that gay and handsome young ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... plant their first cross on San Salvador. The contract for grading the new railway bed was in the hands of a stranger named Miller, who was said to have known better days, and in the time of his prosperity had been thought a proper person to be called Colonel. He was a bluff man of forty years, who appeared to have known both the ups and downs of life, and whose determination to wear a black beard was equaled only by its determination to be gray. Rumor said that he had been a railroad president, that he made and spent vast sums of money, and that his home ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... next he said, "I wonder what were his last words when he crashed through the ice? I expect he said, 'Damn.' Well, that was as good as any other word to say; after all, all swearing, taken in a certain sense, is a form of prayer—a bluff assertion of belief in ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... broke loose at Bluff Siding,—drunk—raiding the saloon. Can't get 'em on train again. Can guards or police be sent?" It was signed by ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... and February there were local artillery combats which terminated with the capture of Hill 60 and "The Bluff." On the 1st March there was a demonstration at 5 p.m., which consisted of artillery and infantry fire and cheering as if for an attack. The following morning at 4.32 a.m. the 3rd Division attacked and captured International and New Year ...
— The Story of the 6th Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry - France, April 1915-November 1918 • Unknown

... has no idea how many tons the six families of Patmos heaved at and after the goats. When they weren't going headfirst into barrels of water they were chewing something not meant to be chewed. Casey asserts that it is all a bluff about goats eating tin cans. They don't. He says they never touched a can all the while he had them. He says devastated Patmos wished they would, and leave the two-dollar lace curtains alone, and clotheslines and water barrels and ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... weird, bloody reflection. I crept painfully up to the port-hole and looked out. The strangest sight that man has ever looked upon met my eyes. The side of the wall had blown out into a gigantic cavern, and with it the rest of the cars had rolled down the bluff a tangled, twisted mass of steel. My car had almost passed by, and now it still stuck in the tube, even though the last port-hole through which I peered seemed to be suspended in air. But it was not the wrecked cars from which rose such wails of despair and agony that held my attention, but ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen

... hunters were threading their way through the outskirts of the wood at a rapid trot, in the opposite direction from the bluff, or wooded knoll, which they wished to reach. This they did lest prying eyes should have followed them. In quarter of an hour they turned at right angles to their track, and struck straight out into the prairie, and after a long run they edged round and ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... river's edge. The men, with the local band, were gathered at the steeply sloping foot of the main street, where the steamer came to her moorings. Groups of women and girls, white and brown, watched us from the low bluff; their skirts and bodices were red, blue, green, of all colors. Sigg had gone ahead with much of the baggage; he met us in an improvised motor-boat, consisting of a dugout to the side of which he had clamped our Evinrude motor; ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... and his companions gave expression to their deep gratitude, and Irons continued in his bluff, pleasant manner: ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... he warned her seriously, "not that name. Maitland is known here; they call me Maitland—the waiters. It seems I made a bad choice. But with your assistance and discretion we can bluff ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... spasm that shook his reedy frame—"sweat and cough. Bullets! No mistake about that hospital bark, is there?" When he had regained his breath he said: "See here! I'm going to take a chance with you, for I like your looks. My newspaper work is a bluff: I don't send enough stuff to keep me alive. I come here to cure my lungs, and—I want you to help me ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... thing Mrs. James had impressed upon him many times. You must watch what other people did, and practice by yourself, and then go in and do it as if you had never done anything else. All life was a gigantic bluff, and you encouraged yourself in your bluffing by the certainty that everybody else was bluffing just ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... his fellow naval officers felt differently. A court of inquiry held in 1901 found Schley to be at fault, but despite this decision he retained his public popularity, a tribute to his affability and bluff, hearty manner. ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor

... running through it, awarding apparent good and ill? I know: it is a story of To-Day. The Old Year is on us yet. Poor old Knowles will tell you it is a dark day; bewildered at the inexplicable failure of the cause for which his old blood ran like water that dull morning at Ball's Bluff. He doubts everything in the bitterness of wasted effort; doubts sometimes, even, if the very flag he fights for, be not the symbol of a gigantic selfishness: if the Wrong he calls his enemy, have not caught a certain ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis

... life now, and, our last chance gone, we stood riveted to the spot, watching him. On the bluff across the river stood his half-blood mother, the raw March wind whipping her skirts about her knees; but her strained, ashen face showed she never felt its chill. Below with his feet almost in the ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson

... cards, stolen from them. Your acquaintance with me has given them the opportunity. But now I've found you out. I refuse any longer to sacrifice my friends, my self-respect, my sense of decency." Angrily she continued: "You thought you could bluff me. You've adopted this coward's way of forcing me to receive you against my will. Well, you've failed. I will not sanction your robbing my friends. I will not allow you to sell them any more of your high-priced rubbish, or permit you ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... way. To make the picture quite complete, close to us—joined, indeed, by a subterranean passage, for the existence of which no one could account—stood the ruins of what had once been the real Abbey of Tayne—a fine old abbey that, in the time of "bluff King Hal," had been inhabited by the monks of St. Benedict. They were driven away, and the abbey and lands were given to the family of De Montford. The De Montfords did not prosper; after some generations the abbey fell into ruins, and then they sold the abbey to the Taynes, ...
— My Mother's Rival - Everyday Life Library No. 4 • Charlotte M. Braeme

... below thirty; many were married, and encumbered with families; not a few were already up in years; and this itself was out of tune with my imaginations, for the ideal emigrant should certainly be young. Again, I thought he should offer to the eye some bold type of humanity, with bluff or hawk-like features, and the stamp of an eager and pushing disposition. Now those around me were for the most part quiet, orderly, obedient citizens, family men broken by adversity, elderly youths who had failed to place themselves in life, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and started to walk up the beach; but she did not get far. There was a private dock running out beyond low-water mark just below the very first bungalow. She saw several men coming down the steps from the top of the bluff to the shore and the bathhouses; a big camera was set up on the sands. This must be Bozewell's bungalow, she decided; the one engaged ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... these institutions I should still have the equivalent of about twenty thousand a year English, and I considered that Nancy could have a pretty good time on that or less. Anyhow, we had a stiff set of arguments up at the Hurlbird mansion which stands on a bluff over the town. It may strike you, silent listener, as being funny if you happen to be European. But moral problems of that description and the giving of millions to institutions are immensely serious matters in my country. Indeed, they are the staple topics for consideration amongst the wealthy ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... the sort of man who would confound sharp practises of the crafty; or "call the bluff" of financial gamester; or walk unconcerned where physical danger calls for nerve of steel and lion's heart; or fling at affected fop rapier sentences that cut deep through the very quick ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... sailing vessels there were Russians, with no yards to their masts, British coasters of varying rig, Norwegians, and one solitary Dutch galliot. But the majority flew the Danish flag—your Dane is fond of flying his flag, and small blame to him!—and these exhibited round bluff bows and square-cut counters with white or varnished top-strakes and stern-davits of timber. To the right and seaward, the eye travelled past yet another tier, where a stumpy Swedish tramp lay cheek-by-jowl with two stately ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... age of twenty-five, took Alice Warren for his wife. He had been in the army—fought through from Bull's Bluff to Richmond—had come out with a captain's commission. He had come from the army with but little money; but he had a good trade, a stout pair of hands, and had borrowed no trouble for the future. Alice ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... dunes is confined to low shores, and this law is so universal, that when bluffs are surmounted by them, there is always cause to suspect upheaval, or the removal of a sloping beach in front of the bluff, after the dunes were formed. Bold shores are usually without a sufficient beach for the accumulation of large deposits; they are commonly washed by a sea too deep to bring up sand from its bottom; their ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... We colored folks had to make it here to Pine Bluff to the county band. If the Rebels ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... Dr. Seward, "Say, Jack, if that man wasn't attempting a bluff, he is about the sanest lunatic I ever saw. I'm not sure, but I believe that he had some serious purpose, and if he had, it was pretty rough on him ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... a district kadi, a venerable-looking and genial old gentleman whose acquaintance we had made in an official visit on the previous day, as he was then the acting caimacam (mayor). His house was situated in a neighboring valley in the shadow of a towering bluff. We were ushered into the selamluek, or guest apartment, in company with an Armenian friend who had been educated as a doctor in America, and who had consented to act as ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... more uncomfortable in that they defied analysis, Bob rode out to the last lookout and gazed abroad over the land. The pineclad bluff fell away nearly four thousand feet. Below him the country lay spread like a relief map—valley, lesser ranges, foothills, far-off plain, the green of trees, the brown of grass and harvest, the blue of glimpsed water, ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... trilingual inscription that gave the clew, as in the case of the Rosetta Stone, though with very striking difference withal. The trilingual inscription now in question, instead of being a small, portable monument, covers the surface of a massive bluff at Behistun in western Persia. Moreover, all three of its inscriptions are in cuneiform characters, and all three are in languages that at the beginning of our century were absolutely unknown. This inscription ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... intending no offence, but in a bluff, hearty way, which he meant to be genial. After a second or two, Eli not answering, he turned and saw to his amazement that the man was trembling from head ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... Morr, who stood near. He was a big man, with a round, florid face and a heavy but pleasant voice. "Think of trying to locate that lost mine! Is there anything you lads wouldn't try to do?" And the big man laughed in his bluff, hearty manner. ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer

... Chesapeake and Ohio Canal toward Harper's Ferry in order to afford an outlet for the fine wheat that had been harvested about Leesburg, Virginia, to the large flouring mills at Georgetown, adjoining Washington. This led to the battle of Ball's Bluff, or Leesburg, October 21st, the death of Colonel Edward D. Baker, of the Seventy-first Pennsylvania Infantry, and at the time a senator in Congress from the State of Oregon, and the subsequent arrest and close confinement of the unfortunate ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright

... now trying to spend our day at Council Bluff, a large junction of the Grand Pacific Railway, having come in here at 8 o'clock this morning, and our train to Denver not leaving till 7 o'clock this evening. The hotel is right on the station. ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall

... must have been hard places all along, for to learn every crook and turn and stump and snag and bluff and bar and sounding of that twelve hundred miles of mighty, shifting water was a gigantic task. Mark Twain tells us how, when he was getting along pretty well, his chief one day turned on him suddenly ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine

... it he looked, with his legs spread apart, and his short-tailed coat, and his general bluff sturdiness, almost as old English as he could have desired to look. Except that his face had paled somewhat. Mr Brindley thought that that transient pallor had been caused by legitimate pride in high-class revolver-shooting. But he was wrong. It had been caused by simple fear. The facts of ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... lake. To reach it the boys had to row around a point, which extended for quite a distance out into the water. On this point was a boathouse, which was part of the property on which stood an old and what at one time had been a handsome residence. This was on a bluff, overlooking the lake, and was known as ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster

... we have this small rock—Fate Island, I see the natives call it—away to the south-west; and that lofty bluff headland, north by west, now shining so white, as if formed of marble, is Fitfiel Head, or the White Mountain, I see by a note—not an unfit name either; and that high point to the south-east again is Sumburgh Head. What bleak and barren hills appear to the northward ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... effort of hers a failure. She walked aimlessly up street after street without any idea where she was going, entirely oblivious to her surroundings. Wandering thus, she discovered that she was in the park, and had come out on the high bluff of the lake. She stood moodily looking down at the vast field of ice that such a short time before had been tossing waves. The lake, to all appearances, was frozen solid out as far as the one-mile crib. There was a curious stillness ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey

... kind of strangled at this, too. He finally manages to say that he tried to read Shakespere once but it was too fine print. The old liar! He wouldn't read a line of Shakespere in letters a foot high. It just showed that he, too, was trying to bluff along with the rest of 'em on this ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... victim. Some hearts began even to feel pity; when the quarryman, seeing Goliath blinded with blood, groping before him with his hands, exclaimed in ferocious allusion to a well-known game: "Now for blind-man's-bluff." ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... hunting up the authorities whenever the authorities were hunting for him. For instance, in the prep school, after getting the cow into the chapel, he discovered her there and notified the principal and was the only boy who did not fall under suspicion. To assume a childlike innocence and to bluff magnificently,—these had been the twin rules that had saved him so often and would save him now, unless he should be confronted by the princess or the two guards, in which case—he ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade

... draught in the original, omitted here for substantial reasons already repeatedly stated, the coast at this southern extremity of Patagonia is represented as a high bluff flat on the top, and ending ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... water. Then he steamed slowly seawards, keeping the windmill full astern and the beacon on his port quarter. When the beacon was bearing southeast he rang the engine-room bell. The steamer, hardly moving before, stopped dead, its bluff nose turned to the wind and the rustling waves. Then Captain Petersen held up his hand to the first mate, who was on the high forecastle, and the anchor splashed over. The Olaf was anchored at the head of a submarine bay. She had shoal water all round her, and no vessel could ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... on the bluff at the end of Water street, was built in 1830, the lantern being one hundred and thirty-five feet above ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... Violet said, and was introducing me, but he said Johnnie had done him that honour. He has been talking of Captain Martindale (calling him Arthur), and telling curious things he has seen in Ireland. He is very amusing, bluff, and odd, but as if he was a distinguished person. Now I see that Violet is altered, and grown older—he seems to have such respect for, and confidence in her; and she so womanly and self-possessed, entering into his clever talk as Matilda would, yet ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... sorts of games, from tag and jumping rope, to blindman's bluff and hide-and-seek. Snap was made to do a number of tricks, much to the amusement of the teachers and children. Danny Rugg, and some of the older boys, got up a small baseball game, and then Danny, with one or two chums, ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope

... every moment seemed to bring them closer upon their heels. At every bend of the tortuous trail the leader's eye was strained to see the dust-cloud rising ahead. But jutting point and rolling shoulder of bluff or hill-side ever interposed. Drummond had just glanced at his watch for perhaps the twentieth time since daybreak and was replacing it in his pocket when an exclamation from ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King

... the Chancellor of the Exchequer stood in the Mansion House on a certain momentous day and hurled the defi at the War Lord. It called the Teuton bluff for a while at least. In the light of later events this speech became historic. Not only did Lloyd George declare that "national honour is no party question," but he affirmed that "the peace of the world is much more likely to ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson

... up leaped of a sudden the sun, deg.19 And against him the cattle stood black every one, 20 To stare through the mist at us galloping past, And I saw my stout galloper Roland, at last, With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray: ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... seem to you, but to me it appears to be the land. That is the bluff-like termination of the celebrated high lands of Navesink. By watching it for half an hour you will perceive its form and surface grow gradually ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... dine with a Sir Dixie Hickson, a stiff, bluff, beef-eating sort of man, who was under some obligation to me, or I to him, I don't know which. Well, I forgot name, residence all but the day—came home in a hurry, looked into the Court Guide, found a Sir Hicks Dixon, drove to his house, found a party ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various

... to be used in lowering the party down steep declivities which are too steep and smooth to be traversed in any other way. One must have a steel hook, on another rope—a very useful thing; for when one is ascending and comes to a low bluff which is yet too high for the ladder, he swings this rope aloft like a lasso, the hook catches at the top of the bluff, and then the tourist climbs the rope, hand over hand—being always particular to try and forget that if the hook gives way he will never stop ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... a great deal larger than the house, and built of stone. It stood against a high bluff, and there was an entrance on the level to the vast lower story, planned to accommodate Mr. Butterwood's herd of fine cattle. A little higher up, a wide causeway, supported by an arch, led into the second story, devoted to horses and all kinds of vehicles, and still higher, ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton

... windows, and ample piazzas. It stands half-way up a slope, near the top of which is a grove. A brook runs down through the woods on the other side of the road, and beyond that rises a steep little bluff crowned with scrub-oaks ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various

... bent the knee to its occult omnipotence was to be run out of public life without cause assigned. All this while there was rumour and counter-rumour about Mr O'Brien's return. The Dillonites up to the last moment believed we were playing a game of bluff and went on right merrily with their preparations for making a clean sweep of every man who was "suspect" of possessing an independent mind. Then on one winter's night, shortly before the election writs were ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... festa of San Triphilio, patron-saint of the city of Nikosia; the great church on the bluff beside the castle was filled with the sickly flames of paltry candles brought by the peasants from far and near. From the quaint tower on the castle-wall one might see them coming in little processions, winding ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... fired, it is not surprising that they should want to investigate my part in the affair rather closely. But there's no cause for alarm. This colonel is down on the list of events for a good dinner, with a dessert of American 'bluff' that will end ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... mountains which runs up through this narrow strip of country like a spinal column. About five miles south of Jerusalem a ridge or spur shoots off from the central range towards the east. On the terminal bluff of this ridge lies the town of Bethlehem. On the west it is shut in by the plateau, and on the east the ridge breaks steeply down into the plain. Vineyards cover the hillsides with green and purple, and wheatfields wave in the valleys. In the distant east, across the Dead Sea, ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden

... tossed up in columns and jets. There are sudden flashes overhead, explosions, and sulphurous clouds, and whirring of ragged pieces of iron. The uproar increases. The cannonade reverberates from the high bluff behind the city to the dark-green forest upon the Arkansas shore, and echoes from bend ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin

... you look'd so bluff, But now I'll secret keep your stuff; For know, prostration is enough to ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... the town they "hit it up" again; and half an hour later they came to a huge sign, "To the Hawk's Nest," and turned off. They ran up a hill, and came suddenly out of a pine-forest into view of a hostelry, perched upon the edge of a bluff overlooking the Sound. There was a broad yard in front, in which automobiles wheeled and sputtered, and a long shed that was lined ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... Owen in his bluff, cheery way when they had retired to the study for coffee and cigars, "I am in a difficulty, I must ask you some questions that may embarrass ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... place amongst the troops. In fact, the whole of the neighbouring district was devoted to Warwick, and many of the peasantry about had joined the former rising under Sir John Coniers. The franklin alone retreated not with the rest; he was a bluff, plain, bold fellow, with good English blood in his veins. And when the shout ceased, he said shortly, "We hereabouts know no king but King Henry. We fear you would impose upon us. We cannot believe that a great lord like him you call Edward IV. would land with ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... brash grew thinner, and jest as I was in hopes I might stumble on the bar tree, what shed I see afore me but the face o' a rocky bluff, that riz a consid'able height over the crik bottom. I begun to fear that the varmint had a cave, and so, cuss him! he had—a great black gulley in the rocks was right close by, and thar was his den, and no mistake. I could ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... very good to me, Roy Pell." The miser sank back on the grass, while Roy hurried to the edge of the bluff and making a trumpet of his hands, ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.

... 1873, on the Yellowstone River, while attached to the Stanley Expedition. The Indians had again concentrated after their first repulse by General Custer, and taken possession of the woods and bluffs on the opposite side of the river. As the column came up, one Indian was seen upon a high bluff to ride rapidly round in a circle, occasionally firing off his revolver. The signal announced the discovery of the advancing force, which had been expected, and he could be distinctly seen from the surrounding region. As many of the enemy were still scattered over ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery

... drawn with pain, tried to laugh—tried to "bluff it out" so Jeb would not suspect the truth, "I'm thinkin' thot life's wan domn hole after anither! First, mind ye, 'tis the swimmin' hole, thin the shell hole, thin a hole in me leg, an' next we know 'tis a stay-for-keeps hole in the ground! W'ot a divil av a hole ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris

... twittering. Mr. Tubbs wore a look of suppressed astonishment, almost of perturbation. What's his game? was the question in the sophisticated eye of Mr. Tubbs. But the Scotchman had when he chose a perfect poker face. The great game of bluff would have suited him to a nicety. Mr. Tubbs interrogated that inexpressive ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... in at eight. At nine-thirty it left the wharf, and, a mile down the Channel, stopped at the little safety station to take on oil and gasoline. Tom Bluff, a half-breed, had the place in charge, and later that evening he put the finishing touch ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... realizin' that the stranger's bluff arises from cur'osity rather than any notion of what booksports calls ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis

... overtaken and killed by hostile Indians. Day after day the woods were scoured in the hope of finding the missing companion, but it seemed vain. A fort was erected for the protection of the party on a high bluff, and named for the lost hunter, Prudhomme. At last they met some Chickasaw Indians, and messages of amity were exchanged through them with the people of their village, not far distant. Soon afterwards Prudhomme was discovered, half-dead from exposure, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... Turks in overwhelming force, and lost a large number in their retreat to the Beach and then to their boats. This was afterwards retaken by the Gurkhas, who pushed through from W. Beach, and the high cliff on the north side is now known as Gurkha Bluff. The Indian Brigade have their H.Q. here, and this morning there were about 2000 Gurkhas and Sikhs about. I was toiling up the "bloody cliff" when some Gurkhas passed me, thinking nothing of the steep ascent; while I straightened my knees slowly at each ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... the end of the year, La Touche received orders to join Mr McDonald, a factor, with several other men, to assist in establishing a fort on one of the streams which run into the Fraser River. The spot selected was on a high bluff, with the river flowing at its base. The fort was of a simple construction. It was surrounded by a palisade of stout timbers, fixed deeply in the ground, and united by cross-bars, further strengthened by buttresses, and loop-holed for musketry, with a few light guns to sweep the fort should the enemy ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston

... Natchez, has not yet been determined; but it may possibly belong to the glacial period. Natchez is about 80 miles in a straight line south of Vicksburg, on the same left bank of the Mississippi. Here there is a bluff, the upper 60 feet of which consists of a continuous portion of the same calcareous loam as at Vicksburg, equally resembling the Rhenish loess in mineral character and in being sometimes barren of fossils, sometimes so full of them that ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... surrendered their wealth was precisely what our Brutus did.—Then there was Anthony, the rough brave soldier,—a kind of man of the unfittest when the giants Pompey and Caesar had been in; Anthony, master of Rome for awhile,—and truly, God knows Rome will do with bluff Mark Anthony for her master!—It is a very interesting list; most of them queer lobsided creatures, fighting with own hands or for nothing in particular; most with some virtues: Then that might have saved Rome, if, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... the foreman very well. He was a carpenter and joiner in whose shop he had often played—a big, bluff, good-hearted man whom any public speaking appalled, and who stammered badly as he read from a little slip of paper: "Guilty of assault with intent to commit great bodily injury, but recommended to the mercy ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland

... T. Littler, passed away. If I visited Springfield during the heat of Summer, when every one else was gone, I was always sure that Dave Littler would be there to greet me. Littler was a unique character. His manners and speech were bluff and frank; he never was afraid of any one, and never was afraid to speak just exactly what he thought. Senator Littler, Colonel Bluford Wilson, a particularly devoted friend, and I travelled through Europe together, and ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... he could live through it. They usually do, and don't lose many meals at that. I think he's running a bluff, myself." ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin

... authorities stood on land leased from the services. At the time of Secretary Wilson's order this category of schools included three with 75-year leases, those at Fort Meade, Maryland, and Fort Bliss and Biggs Air Force Base, Texas, and one with a 25-year lease at Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas.[19-80] The Air Force's general counsel believed the lease could be broken in light of the Wilson order, but the possibility developed that some extensions might be granted to these schools because of the lease complication.[19-81] ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... I should still have the equivalent of about twenty thousand a year English, and I considered that Nancy could have a pretty good time on that or less. Anyhow, we had a stiff set of arguments up at the Hurlbird mansion which stands on a bluff over the town. It may strike you, silent listener, as being funny if you happen to be European. But moral problems of that description and the giving of millions to institutions are immensely serious ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... room, where all the sports were setting, and said he was going into town to see some friends; and as he starts off he laughs an' says, 'This don't look as if I was afraid of seeing people, does it?' but Dad says it was just bluff that made him do it, and Dad thinks that if he hadn't said what he did, this Mr. Carleton wouldn't have left ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... and a gradual slope to the East, where high sand-ridges run right up to the foot. From the summit a high tableland [Probably Musgrave Range (Warburton)] and range can be seen to the North, to the East a bluff-ended tableland, [Probably Philipson Range (Warburton)] but the horizon from South-East to South-West ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... in the drama. Miles Standish had been a soldier in the Netherlands before joining the Pilgrims, and to him they gave the military guardianship of the colony, with the title of captain. He was then about thirty-six years of age, a bluff, straightforward soldier, whom a life of hardship had made older than his years. He had known little of women's society, but during the long voyage he came to love Priscilla Mullens, and when the spring came to the survivors at Plymouth, he wished to marry her. But he would not trust, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... in his bluff, cheery way when they had retired to the study for coffee and cigars, "I am in a difficulty, I must ask you some questions that may embarrass you—it's ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... of that big bluff just west of town. Oh, that's some story. The hermit lived there until about ten years ago. Some said he was a Jesuit priest who lived a hermit's life to become more holy, and others that he was an Italian Noble who had fled from Italy to escape punishment for a crime. Nobody ever really knew much ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... either; for if his comrades did sometimes treat him so, why then there were other times when he and they were as great friends as could be, and used to go a-swimming together in the most amicable fashion where there was a bit of sandy strand below the little bluff along the East River ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle

... and drew his breath in and puffed it out between his sentences, in his bluff way; but his eyes were kind, as he sat looking at the young girl ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... which ran through a forest of scattered juniper trees. The plateau rose in two gentle slopes to a height of about five or six hundred feet above the valley level, and was thus half as high as the bluff to the westward, which formed the base of the semi-circle. Near the northern part of the plateau the rocks were elevated in a series of irregular broken peaks, like the jagged ice hummocks of the higher latitudes. The whole plateau ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... hindering him from following the allurements of the next fair object that fluttered across his path. He had heard of the wit and beauty of Kate Anderton, only daughter to Justice Anderton of Lostock Hall, a bluff and honest squire who spent his mornings in the chase and his evenings in the revel incident thereto; a man well looked upon by his less distinguished neighbours, being of a benevolent disposition, and much given to hospitality. Kate's disposition was fiery ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... answered Peony, in his bluff tone, but a very sweet tone, too,—as he came floundering through the half-trodden drifts. "Here is the snow for her little bosom. O, Violet, how beau-ti-ful she begins ...
— The Snow-Image - A Childish Miracle • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... for any kind of civilization rather than a continuance of the eternal snows, wondered if this were any better. Jim pitched the tent under some spruce-trees and high up on a bluff beyond the city. ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... he was bluffing; still it was possible he wasnt. In such a delicate situation there was nothing I could do but bluff in turn. If you are a good salesman, I always say, you must have psychology at your fingertips. "Very well, Mr Gootes; perhaps I shall see you ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... lovely a picture as it is possible to find in a journey round the world. The winding river, dotted all over with islands and fringed along its shores with forest-trees, expanding now into some miniature lake, then lost and broken by some intervening bluff, to the right or left of which stretches the distant prairie; the whole forming a panoramic view unrivalled in interest and beauty by any we ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

... warrior, pleases well, With its storm clouds, the mighty citadel,— Restoring it to life. The lightning flash Strikes like a thief and flies; the winds that crash Sound like a clarion, for the Tempest bluff Is Battle's sister. And when wild and rough, The north wind blows, the tower exultant cries "Behold me!" When hail-hurling gales arise Of blustering Equinox, to fan the strife, It stands erect, with martial ardor rife, A joyous soldier! ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... Lensch might show the Germans where to get through. I do not think we are going to attack for a long time; but I am pretty sure that Germany is going to fling every man against us. That is the talk of my friends, and it is not bluff.' ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... the Indian agent's face was too genuine to be mistaken. Talpers realized that he had been betrayed into overshooting his mark. The agent had been engaged in a little game of bluff, and Talpers had ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman

... more piece of pie, and another cruller." Never before had he felt so important. He was the guest being treated with such respect. When holding the tiller that morning he had longed for Sammie Dunker and the rest of the boys to see him. So now, sitting near the bluff old captain and his wife, he desired the same thing. He felt quite sure that no other boy in the whole parish had been so honoured, and if his schoolmates ever heard of it, they would be sure to look upon him as a person of ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody

... just at dusk, a magnificent clump of large pine-trees on the right bank of the river. During the afternoon the temperature had fallen below zero; a keen wind blew along-the frozen river, and the dogs and men were glad to clamber up the steep clayey bank into the thick shelter of the pine bluff', amidst whose dark-green recesses a huge fire was quickly alight. While here we sit in the ruddy blaze: of immense dry pine logs it will be well to say a few words on dogs ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... noon the two were to the north of the valley, where lay the ranche. On rounding a bluff they came unexpectedly upon three Indians in sleighs, who had evidently ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie

... Philadelphia, I found in the same car with our party Dr. William Hunt of Philadelphia, who had most kindly and faithfully attended the Captain, then the Lieutenant, after a wound received at Ball's Bluff, which came very near being mortal. He was going upon an errand of mercy to the wounded, and found he had in his memorandum-book the name of our lady's husband, the Colonel, who had been commended ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... Wilsons at Beverly Farms was on a bluff overlooking the sea. It was reached by a long avenue winding through pines mingled with birches and rowan trees; and stood in a clearing where all the day and all the night the sound of the waves on the cliff answered the whispering ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... it. But it was Scott's soldiers that I was talking of, and I was saying that there is nothing theatrical, no posing, no heroics (the thing of all others which the hero abominates), but just the short bluff word and the simple manly ways, with every expression and metaphor drawn from within his natural range of thought. What a pity it is that he, with his keen appreciation of the soldier, gave us so little of those soldiers who were his own contemporaries—the finest, perhaps, that ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... into the torrent more than a thousand feet below. How musical the roar of the stream, and how cool its waters look! As the trail passes some especially dizzy spot the Indian women lean away from the sheer edge in fear. For miles the trail traverses the bluff. At times the river is out of sight and hearing, then it emerges again and both eye and ear receive its greeting. At the hour when the pinon trees stretch their long shadows across the land the Indians urge their horses down a steep, winding trail and arrive at ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis

... said, adequately represent Dr. Muir, it cannot fail very grievously to misrepresent Dr. Bryce; and if the vehicle be adapted to give public airings to the thoughts and opinions of the bluff old Moderates, those of Dr. Leishman and the Forty must travel out into the wind and the sunlight by an opposition conveyance. One organ or one vehicle will be no more competent to serve a deliberative ecclesiastical body, diverse in its components, than one organ ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... hanging down her head, and refusing to answer the questions he put in his kind, bluff way. Some great sorrow evidently weighed upon her, and she refused to be comforted. When, however, Kariades presented her to his wife, and said, 'This shall be our daughter,' the child opened her mouth and cried, 'Wherefore, oh father, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... I reminds her. "We're just to help out the pleasure-cruisin' bluff. Who there is to put it over on I don't quite catch, though. Ain't there any population in this part of ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... Indians retraced their course up the river, and being joined by other bands, a concerted and deliberate attack was next made on Fort Ridgely. Like too many of our frontier forts, it is a fort only in name. Situated on a projecting spur of the river bluff, it is almost completely encircled by deep and wooded ravines, the edges of which are within a stone's throw of the buildings. A long, two story stone building with an ell, standing in the centre, and a number of log and frame houses ranged around it in an irregular circle, with several barns ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... leagues in circuit, and makes the N.E. point of Bougainville's Passage. At noon the breeze began to slacken. We were at this time between two and three miles from the land, and observed in latitude 15 deg. 23' the Isle of Lepers bearing from E. by N. to S., distance seven leagues; and a high bluff-head, at which the coast we were upon seemed to terminate, N.N.W. 1/2 W., distant ten or eleven leagues; but from the mast-head we could see land to the east. This we judged to be an island, and it bore ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook

... will be plentiful supply of half-breeds, like Moose there, and other gentry with nothing particular to do, come hanging round us, who will gladly carry any message or letter for you across the hills—for a leetle consideration, of course!" added Mr Rawlings, with his bluff, hearty laugh. ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... spreads, Wherein it stands home-like, but desolate, 'Midst crowded and uneven-statured sheds, Alike by rain and sunshine sadly stained. A quiet country-road before the door Runs, gathering close its ruts to scale the hill— A sudden bluff on the New Hampshire coast, That rises rough against the sea, and hangs Crested above the bowlder-sprinkled beach. And on the road white houses small are strung Like threaded beads, with intervals. The church Tops the rough hill; then comes the ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... Hill, at St. Johns, Newfoundland—a bold bluff overlooking the sea—a group of men worked for several days, first in the little stone house at the brink of the bluff, setting up some electric apparatus; and later, on the flat ground nearby, the same men were very busy flying a great kite and raising a balloon. There was no doubt ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday

... vegetation, and the silver sheen of the stream half hidden behind the fringe of cottonwoods lining its banks. This was a sight Keith had often looked upon, but always with appreciation, and for the moment his eyes swept across from bluff to bluff without thought except for its wild beauty. Then he perceived something which instantly startled him into attention—yonder, close beside the river, just beyond that ragged bunch of cottonwoods, slender spirals ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... facing about towards me. "How do you excuse yourself for your ignorance in matters where you're always professionally making such a bluff of knowledge? After all the marriages you have brought about in literature, can you say positively and specifically how they are brought about ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells

... relieve him of his own tediousness; but there was little luxury and no refinement where there was almost no culture. Of course there were a few homes and families of another order, where the women were refined and the men educated; but these were the exceptions. Society generally, with its bluff, loud, self-confident but ignorant planters, its numerous poor whites destitute of lands and of slaves, and its mass of slaves whose aim in life was to avoid work and escape the whip, was necessarily ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... around a projecting bluff brought us within sight of what appeared to me a magnificent palace of alabaster. This palace I soon learned was a hotel, or place of ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn

... to bluff you. Go whichever way you like; and the one who gets to Christiania first is the best fellow. That's all I have ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic

... when, if anything like a proper lookout was being kept on board her, we might be discovered at any instant. But minute after minute passed, and she still came steadily on, heeling slightly to the steady trade wind, and bowing solemnly over the undulating swell, with a curl of white foam under her bluff bows that made her appear to be travelling at about three times her actual speed. We had by this time fore-reached athwart her fore-foot, and were edging along at a pace that promised to place us about half a mile to windward of her by the time that she would be crossing ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... that Jethro had enemies was very painful to Cynthia, and she wanted to know who they were that she might show them a proper contempt if she met them. Lem Hallowell brushed aside the subject with his usual bluff humor, and pinched her cheek and told her not to trouble her head; Amanda Hatch dwelt upon the inherent weakness in the human race, and the Rev. Mr. Satterlee faced the question once, during a history lesson. The nation's ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... fifty houses, a few of them lodgings or humble cafes, but the greater part staid little whitewashed summer-dwellings with green verandas and occasional roof-balconies; set down irregularly, without street or system, along the sunny slopes of the bluff. Murray's Handbook for 1848 gives it passing notice, and disrespectfully styles it the dullest place upon earth for one having no resources of friends upon the spot. But in the modern edition of forty years later, the same manual has come to describe the place in a very different strain; assigns ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... strives to keep up an appearance of being well-to-do, and would be highly indignant if anyone suggested that he was really in a condition of abject, miserable poverty. Although he knows that his children are often not so well fed as are the pet dogs and cats of his 'betters', he tries to bluff his neighbours into thinking that he has some mysterious private means of which they know nothing, and conceals his poverty as if it were a crime. Most of this class of men would rather starve than beg. Consequently not more than a quarter of the men in the procession ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... Victor Emmanuel as a bluff, easy-going monarch is mistaken. Very few princes have had a keener sense of the royal dignity, or a more deeply-rooted family pride, or, when he thought fit to resort to it, a more decisive method of preventing people from taking liberties with him. But he knew that, in nearly all ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... New "On to Richmond.". Joe Johnston's Strategy. From Manassas to Richmond. Magruder's Lively Tactics. The Defenders Come. Scenes of the March Through. A Young Veteran. Public Feeling. Williamsburg's Echo. The Army of Specters. Ready! Drewry's Bluff. The Geese ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... and no one knew why he stayed away. It could not be that he was afraid, for he had shown the utmost fearlessness in bringing to justice and transportation the four ringleaders in the attack on the mill. He had now returned, and one day as he rode over Rushedge Moore from Stilbro' market with a bluff neighbour, he unbosomed himself of the reason why he had ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... like a buck, and all round him whipped and whined the bullets among the rocks. Twice he went headlong, twisting his ankle badly once as the stones turned underfoot; but he reached the bottom untouched and the shelter of the bluff where he had left his pony, jumped on and dashed out into the plain and under the Boer fire again, and got clean away without a scratch, him and his pony. ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... Mr. Mertzheimer flashed. All through the glowing praise of the County Superintendent the schemer had sat with head cast down and face flushed in mortification and anger. Now his head was erect. Good! That praise was just a bluff! That red-head would get a good hard knock now! Good enough for her! Now she'd wish she had not turned down the son of the leading director of Crow Hill school! Perhaps now she'd be glad to accept the attentions of Lyman. Marriage would be a welcome solution ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers

... isn't he a coon? Bill Allen? I wish I had a dime for every horn, and game of bluff, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... House, situated four or five miles from the centre of the city, is a favorite pleasure resort of the population. It stands on a bluff of the Pacific shore, affording an ocean view limited only by the power of the human vision. As we look due west from this spot, no land intervenes between us and the far-away shore of Japan. Opposite the Cliff ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... that side of the island. Beyond it are sandy flats and shallow, salt-water lagoons, shut in by a dense growth of leather-leaved bushes and low, scrubby China-berry, sea-grape, and Jamaica-apple trees. The highest part of the Key is occupied by the city, and the highest part of the city is the low bluff on its western side, where the slender shaft of the lighthouse stands at a height of fifteen or eighteen feet above the level of tide-water. Owing to its geographical position in a semi-tropical sea, just north of ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan

... from him angrily, and old Neb, who had listened, stepped quickly up to him. "Marse Frank," he pleaded, "don' yo' let dat white-trash bluff yo'!" The old darkey's voice was tremulous, his eyes were moist with feeling for his humiliated master. A great resolve thrilled through him. "See heah, honey, I's be'n sabin' all mah life. I's got a pile o' money in de bank. Take it all, now, honey, an' bet ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... without self confidence, lacks the truthfulness of the strong, his voice does not resound and compel, he dances and fidgets, grins and is grave in the same instant. If the men's attitude be sullen, he tries to be bluff and hearty, "my-boys" them, claps them heartily on the shoulder, or lapses into whining and gushing. It is all of worse than no avail with these undeceivable readers of character. It is a curious effect of the working ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... So saying, the bluff captain shook hands all around, declined to listen to further thanks, and ducked ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... apparent reason for this excess of caution. It was, however, maintained for hours, until they had reached a bay, nigh the northern termination of the lake. Here the canoe was driven upon the beach, and the whole party landed. Hawkeye and Heyward ascended an adjacent bluff, where the former, after considering the expanse of water beneath him, pointed out to the latter a small black object, hovering under a headland, at the ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... very peak of the ridge now, and the hill sloped smoothly down before them to the bluff which bounded Quitter Creek. Far down, a tiny black speck in the coulee-bottom, they could see Wooden Shoes riding along the creek-bank, scouting for water. From the way he rode, and from the fact that camp was nowhere ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower

... occurrence I had directed my party to proceed to the village, as I had discovered a smoke ascending from a hollow in the bluff, and wished to go alone to the place from whence the smoke proceeded, to see who was there. I approached the spot, and when I came in view of the fire, I saw an old man sitting in sorrow beneath a mat which he had stretched over ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk

... filled my head with musty stuff; because I've tried to get what I believe to be the broadest knowledge and experience; because I've associated with the best men, the fellows that come from the good families. You accept the bluff the faculty puts up of pretending the A fellows are really the A fellows, when, in fact, everybody there and all the graduates and everyone everywhere who knows the world knows that the fellows in our set are ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... questions and spent the Government's money in carousing about Europe; Madame Albert, the lady doctor from Lyons whose unique combination of magic and massage (a family secret) had brought the expiring Prince of Philippopolis to life again; an Italian senator with his two pretty daughters; a bluff hilarious Scotchman, Mr. Jameson, who, as a matter of fact, had done seven years for forgery but did not like to have it brought up against him; some sisters of charity; a grizzled sea-captain who was making discreet enquiries about a safe place for a shipwreck, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... the boys had to row around a point, which extended for quite a distance out into the water. On this point was a boathouse, which was part of the property on which stood an old and what at one time had been a handsome residence. This was on a bluff, overlooking the lake, and was known as the ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster

... to open the drifts. The President 'climbed down' and opened them! He has several advantages which other leaders of men have not, and among them is that of having little or no pride. He will bluster and bluff and bully when occasion seems to warrant it; but when his judgment warns him that he has gone as far as he prudently can, he will alter his tactics as promptly and dispassionately as one changes one's coat to suit the varying conditions of the weather. ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... parson's pet antipathy. The bluff old minister, with his brusque manner and big heart, would have no truck with the man who never went to church, was perpetually in liquor, and never spoke good of his neighbors. Yet he entered upon the interview fully resolved not to be betrayed into an unworthy expression of feeling; ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... the mystery craft had disappeared over what is now the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, the stories of people in other northern California towns began to come in on the telegraph wires. The citizens of Santa Rosa, Sacramento, Chico, and Red Bluff...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... brevier copy—from an eye-witness, too? No; it's a square enough fight as it stands. We must look out for the woman, and not let Tournelli get an unfair drop on Hays. That is, if the whole thing isn't a bluff." ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... before and thereafter, the English have everywhere had important losses to show at sea—some 200 ships lost since the beginning of the war, according to the latest statements of the Allies—so that even they themselves no longer dare to talk about the "German bluff." ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... patriotism in two wars, and at the sound of the signal gun of the rebellion its sons—"brave sons of noble sires"—young men, and middle-aged, and boys, sprang to arms. Its regiments were among the first to answer the call of the country and to offer themselves for its defense. Let Ball's Bluff and the Wilderness, the Chickahominy, and the deadly swamps and bayous of the Southwest, tell to the listening world the story of their bravery, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... Riddle; a big bluff chap with a promising moustache, encouraged by private, tuition. "Come along there, Haviland," he exclaimed, "a nob like you should be one of the 'boys!'" These fellows don't know what life is—but to think of a man of muscle going ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... flood, the gale having, by this time quite abated, but still continuing contrary; so that we plied up till near seven o'clock, when the tide being done, we anchored in nineteen fathoms, under the same shore as before. The N.W. part of it, forming a bluff point, bore N., 20 deg. E., two leagues distant; a point on the other shore opposite to it, and nearly of the same height, bore N., 36 deg. W.; our latitude, by observation, 60 ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... spirit of fun in the contest, even to Slivers, who strove, however, to see it through in a bluff, ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various

... through which we were to find our way home. There I saw a vast extent of open downs and could trace their undulations to where they joined a range of mountains which, judging by their outlines, appeared to be of easy access. Our straightest way homewards passed just under a bluff head about fifty miles distant, and so far I could easily perceive a most favourable line of route by avoiding several large reedy lakes. Between that open country and these lakes on one side and the coast on the ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... pressed her face to his shoulder, "they make a bluff at caring for us and defending us and all the rest—but we understand, we understand! I think women mother men always even when they rely upon them most, as I do upon you! It's so splendid to think, when we go home, of the great things ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock

... it is bounded end abruptly on the coast. To the north a long chain of lofty rugged cliffs mark the bearing of the shore in that direction, and turning southwards, the spectator beholds, seven or eight miles distant, the spacious harbour of Botany Bay, beyond which a high bluff range of hills extends along to the south in the direction towards Illawarra. Westward one vast forest is to be seen, varied only by occasional openings which cultivation and the axe have made on the tops of some of the ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... fashion. A little simple drunkenness, a little frank love-making, to conclude ... poor dear Lady Wondershoot—she didn't like these Innovations. Very conservative, poor dear lady! A touch of the eighteenth century about her, I always Said. Her language for example ... Bluff vigour ... ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells

... idea how many tons the six families of Patmos heaved at and after the goats. When they weren't going headfirst into barrels of water they were chewing something not meant to be chewed. Casey asserts that it is all a bluff about goats eating tin cans. They don't. He says they never touched a can all the while he had them. He says devastated Patmos wished they would, and leave the two-dollar lace curtains alone, and clotheslines and ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... and quiet pools that lay along the stream were dreamful; there was not a mighty rock nor bold surprising bluff to startle one with its grandeur, but at the end of every view was the promise of a resting place and never was the fancy led to disappointment. Now gurgle and drip, now perfect calm, the elm leaf motionless, the bird dreaming. ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read

... an off-hand, bluff, hearty way, which made my father fully believe that he had fallen in with a prize—indeed, that he was supremely fortunate in having secured so kind a protector for me. It was finally arranged that he was to pay Captain Elihu Swales the sum of fifteen pounds; ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... and there was Kenny, grinning contemptuously at us. He'd called our bluff and won out. Now the shoe was on ...
— The Man the Martians Made • Frank Belknap Long

... can see that," said the bluff skipper. "It'd do him good to be six months aboard my vessel under me. I'd make another man of him. Ah, you may laugh, my young sharper. You think I'm a quiet, good-tempered sort of an old chap, but a ship's captain has to be a bit of a Tartar too. Do you know what he is aboard his ship? ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn

... that for a while his greatest asset would be bluff, but there was something about Mason Compton that had inspired in the young man a vast respect and another sentiment that he realized upon better acquaintance might ripen into affection. Compton reminded him in many ways of his father, and with the realization of that resemblance ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the pass at length we found a considerable change of level, and having advanced a little way turned back and obtained a splendid view of the walls of the plateau, which stretched on both sides above the plain, and thrust out lofty bluff promontories, as into the sea. The upper lines of some of them were perfectly straight, as if levelled by artificial means. We came to a solitary rock on the plain, containing excavations that seemed to be the work of men. Here, we were ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... He's a grouch, but just don't let him bluff you. Yes, the cook tent's about ready. I'll sneak in and hook something before breakfast; then mebby I'll come back and ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... good; no bluff. Won't compromise inside limit set. Have seen paper and wish another interview before following original instructions. Party will wait forty-eight hours before acting. Where can you be ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... of bluff had succeeded. Now the boys knew for certain that the man was lying—that he had not been commissioned by either of their parents, and ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby

... Peter's rivers—built in 1819, and named after the gallant Colonel Snelling, of the army, by whom the work was erected. It is constructed of stone; is one of the strongest Indian forts in the United States; and being placed on a commanding bluff, has somewhat the appearance of an old German castle, or one of the strongholds on ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman

... here and there interspersed with a rack for drying copra, or a tumble-down hut for storing it. Every here and there the stroller had a glimpse of the Casco tossing in the narrow anchorage below; and beyond he had ever before him the dark amphitheatre of the Atuona mountains and the cliffy bluff that closes it to seaward. The trade-wind moving in the fans made a ceaseless noise of summer rain; and from time to time, with the sound of a sudden and distant drum-beat, the surf would burst ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... in the afternoon, and time to look about for a camping-ground, on which to spend the night. Paddling slowly up the lake, trolling for fish as they went, they soon found a spot which answered their purpose admirably. It was a bluff near the lake, wooded with Norway pines, and sloping rather abruptly towards the water. By this time they had caught half a dozen fine pickerel, and, disembarking, soon had their fire built, tents ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... reached by a carefully planned, fatiguing flight of steps to the top of a bluff, where three churches at the back beckon so many recording angels to swell the purgatory lists. As you advance to the abrupt edge, everything is spread before you; nothing is concealed. In the first plane, the entangling branches of a score of apple-trees ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson

... root that had been planted in fat, loamy ground, to look at him. There was a healthy, liberal, lazy life for you! Yet the winter sky looked gray and dumb when he passed the window, and the fire-light broke fiercest against his bluff figure going to and fro. No matter; something there that would have warmed your heart to him: something genial, careless, big-natured, from the loose red hair to the indolent, portly stride. "Who knows? A comfortable, true-hearted, merry clergyman,—a jolly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... do not like to employ a fellow who wears gloves and looks afraid of soiling his hands. Dudley had his mother to support, and looked about bravely for work. But no work was to be had. He tried everything, as it seemed, until at last he asked stern old Mr. Bluff, who owned half a ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston

... to make a bluff at playing poker, unless my butting in with you causes a row," said Pepper, as he walked along. Presently he came to a door upon which he knocked several times. But before it was opened footsteps and voices sounded down the hall in the opposite direction ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... down here," he confided to Avery. "That would call the bluff. But we can get some letters that maybe will perk us up ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... merciless savage. In the first and second weeks of July large forces of Indians penetrated to the outlying settlements; and in two days thirty-seven persons were killed along the Catawba River. On July 13th, the bluff old soldier of Rowan, General Griffith Rutherford, reported to the council of North Carolina that "three of our Captains are killed and one wounded"; and that he was setting out that day with what men he could muster to relieve Colonel McDowell, ten men, and one hundred and twenty women and ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson

... Only half the regulars could be spared to defend Natal, and no reinforcements could reach them in less than a month from the outbreak of hostilities. If Mr. Chamberlain was really playing a game of bluff, it must be confessed that he was bluffing ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Saarlouis by post to the young widow. I never knew whether she received it, for all the address I had was Saarlouis. Eckenstein I saw buried with two officers in a soldier's grave under the hawthorn. Any one taking the ascent up the fourth ravine Forbach-ward from the bluff of the Spicheren, may easily find it about halfway up. It may be recognised by the wooden cross bearing the rude inscription: "Hier ruhen in Gott 2 Officiere, 1 Feldwebel, 40ste Hohenzol. ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... mile, this morning we reached a bluff, on the north, being the first highlands, which approach the river on that side, since we left the Nadawa. Above this, is an island and a creek, about fifteen yards wide, which, as it has no name, we called Indian Knob creek, from a number of round knobs bare of timber, on the highlands, to the ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... of man who would confound sharp practises of the crafty; or "call the bluff" of financial gamester; or walk unconcerned where physical danger calls for nerve of steel and lion's heart; or fling at affected fop rapier sentences that cut deep through the ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... by the rising sun. Great fissures and gorges in the hills, which at other times lay concealed in the blue haze of distance, were revealed by the mists and the slanting rays of the sun, and the incumbent cliffs, bluff promontories, and capes, were in some places sharply defined, in others luminously softened, so that the mountains displayed at once that appearance of solid reality, mingled with melting mystery, which is seen at no period of the day but early morning. The whole scene—water, earth, ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... thousand feet. Along the road which ran almost parallel with the wall was the remnant of what had once been a great woods; yearly the county authorities determined to cut away its thick undergrowth—and yearly left it alone. On the left the road was bare for some distance along the bluff; then, bending, it again sought the shelter of the trees and meandered along until it lost itself in the main street of Sihasset, a village large enough to support three banks and, after a fashion, eight small churches. In front, had the ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach

... had tried to soothe the anger of the Archbishop, for all liked the Count of Winneburg, a bluff and generous-hearted giant, who would stand by his friends against all comers, was the quarrel his own or no. In truth little cared the stalwart Count of Winneburg whose quarrel it was so long as his arm got opportunity of wielding a blow in it. His ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... which the viaduct crosses from bluff to bluff, is composed mainly of blue clay to a depth of over 150 feet below the river level. No attempt is made to carry the foundation to the rock. White oak piles from 50 to 60 feet in length and 10 inches in diameter at small end are driven for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various

... she had a beau in Sweden; but I gathered from her manner of telling it that his intentions were somewhat vague yet. Eliza had already admitted that she had a "fellow," and had shown me his picture. Helene made a bluff at having one, too, though she did not seem able to give names or dates. Then Lena, being the spokeswoman, told me she could get a girl for me, and that the young lady was going to come out to the potato digging. "She ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung

... trip as much as his companions. Away pulled the squadron of boats. When daylight dawned they were coasting along the shore of an island fringed with cocoa-nut trees, and hills rising in the centre. There were numerous deep indentations, bays, and gulfs, with bluff cliffs here here there, and high rocks scattered about, capital spots in which whole fleets of prahus might lie hid without much chance of being discovered. The weather was very hot, as it is apt to be within a few miles of the equator; ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... Zephyr's request for the keys to the safe. There was a clatter as Firmstone dropped them into his open hand. Hartwell straightened up with flushed cheeks. Pierre's words again came to him. The whole thing might be a bluff, after all. The safe might be empty. Here was a possible avenue of escape. With the same blind energy with which he had entered other paths, he entered this. He leaned back in his chair ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason

... dare interfere! I want the gown, but I know she'll come down,—if she doesn't, I'll make a bluff at going. Then if she sticks to her price, I'll come ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch

... light across the rippling shallows among the sand bars of the Platte; but still we saw no signs of newcomers. Evening was approaching when we heard the sound of a distant shot, and turning saw our horse-guard, who had been stationed at the top of a bluff near by, start down the slope, running toward the camp. As he approached he pointed, and we looked down the ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... and dreary, rough, and hard, and bare of beauty, the cottage of the late lieutenant, standing on the shallow bluff, beaten by the wind, and blinded of its windows from within, of all things looked the most forlorn, most desolate, and freezing. The windward side was piled with snow, on the crest of which foam pellets lay, looking yellow by comparison, and melting small holes ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... and a half-caste clerk he was able to administer the island more competently than Upolu, the island of which Apia is the chief town, was administered with its army of functionaries. He had a few native policemen to sustain his authority, but he made no use of them. He governed by bluff ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham

... to the ways of the Avenue and all that kind of thing, where would I be now, trying to run in the right kind of bluff with the trade?" ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... the high cliffs on our left. For nearly an hour we advanced in the direction from which the reports of the guns seemed to proceed. Nothing could we see, however, but the frowning rocks and cliffs, and the waves beating restlessly at their base. Cape Pug-Nose was reached, and we began to round the bluff old point. In a moment all our doubts were dispelled, and joy and gratitude to the Great Giver of all good filled our hearts. There, in the little sheltered cove beyond the cape, her sails furled, her anchor dropped, lay a ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... equal to those of all the towns we have seen put together, begin with the palm-orchard on the left bank. The Jebel el-Safr shows the foundations of what may have been the arx. It is a double quoin, the taller to the south, the lower to the north, and both bluff in the latter direction. The dip is about 45 degrees; the upper parts of the dorsa are scatters of white on brown-yellow stone; and below it, where the surface has given way, appear mauve-coloured strata, as if stained by manganese. Viewed in ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... agreements that divide you when you fight And let the bosses bluff you with the contract's "sacred right?" Why stay at work when other crafts are battling with the foe, You all must stick together, don't you know. The day when you begin to see the classes waging war You can join the biggest ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... Cape Gata, Carthagena. Cape Palos—all were gone. The sea was rolling over the southern extent of the peninsula, so that the yacht advanced to the latitude of Seville before it sighted any land at all, and then, not shores such as the shores of Andalusia, but a bluff and precipitous cliff, in its geological features resembling exactly the stern and barren rock that she had coasted beyond the site of Malta. Here the sea made a decided indentation on the coast; it ran up in an acute-angled triangle ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... like Hammon; he hasn't GOT a family-and Lorelei won't back us up, either. We've got to bluff ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... convicted—might yet come true. The autocrat was living on in the hearts of his followers as a martyr to the cause of the people, and a granite shaft was to rise in the little cemetery on the river bluff to commemorate his deeds and his name. His death had gratified the blood-lust of his foes, his young Democratic successor would amend that "infamous election law" and was plainly striving for a just administration, ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... mind. It was the first, and her heart stood still for a moment. But as she slowly canvassed the idea, it accounted for much otherwise impossible to comprehend: his evident poverty and his efforts toward the purchase of lands; his illness and his bluff insistence on his strength; his wild talk of enterprise and his mysterious intimations of phenomenal opportunities. Confirmations of the suspicion crowded upon her; above all, the mad boast that with a match he could set the waters ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... saw that now, and I could have kicked myself for not seeing it sooner. Of course I had no idea of the proper answer, but I might at least have replied with some equally cryptic sentence and tried to bluff him into thinking I was using a different code. As it was, I had made it perfectly obvious that I had missed ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston

... on the upper parts, paler on the sides, dusky grey, with a tinge of yellowish-rufous on the under-parts; muzzle, feet, and tail flesh-coloured; ears of the same, but rather darker; head short and bluff; muzzle broad and deep; eye moderately large; ears moderate, rounded, clad with minute hairs; fur soft and moderately long, of three kinds, viz. short under-fur, ordinary hairs, and mixed with them, especially on the back and rump, numerous long ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... disaster was in their hearts, though they might deny it to themselves. They could think of nothing but France. Now they realized that the best way to help France was by going on with their work at home. Paris was trying to be normal, but no Parisian was making the bluff that Paris was normal. The Gallic lucidity of mind prevented ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... This message was just bluff on Sawkins's part, but having heard that the Bishop of Santa Martha was in the city, Sawkins sent him two loaves of sugar as a present, and reminded the prelate that he had been his prisoner five years before, when Sawkins took that town. Further ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... seams of the deck-planks. In other seasons we were driven by storm and stress. But at length, in spite of every obstacle, an unbroken coast stretched before us far as the eye could reach. For three days we sailed past verdure-covered hills, white, sandy beaches, and bluff headlands, until Hartog felt assured the Great South Continent was at last in ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes

... Hardman outfit. It can't be avoided. I'd have to bluff them out or fight them down, right off. Dick is a yellow skunk. Jard Hardman is a bad man in any pinch. But not on an even break. I don't mean that. If that were all. But he's treacherous. And his henchman, this two bit of a sheriff, he's no man ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... many praises for his dinner and a promise to call to see them in the near future. "Old pill! Now we'll never dare to come here again as long as he's around. Bother him. I wish I'd told him to go to thunder. We don't want him. He lives right up here over that bluff. His wife's dead, and his sister or aunt or something keeps house for him. She looks like a bottle of pickles! Say, Cloudy, we'll just be out evenings for a while ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... off. 'Twas a beautiful sight for a ruction, on the high banks over the river, but I was like water from the sickness. I fought to get at their priest where he lay, to stamp out his grinning face before they downed me, but I was beat back to the bluff and I battled with my heels over the edge. I broke a pole from the fish-rack and a good many went down. Then I heard Metla calling softly ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach

... suggested southern Europe. Some parts of the great stone walls had been stuccoed, and some had been whitewashed. Here and there vines climbed up the walls and stretched themselves under the eaves. As the house stood on a wide bluff, there was a lawn from which one could see over the tree tops the winding river sparkling far below. There were gardens and fields on the open slopes, and beyond these the forests rose to the top ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton

... I'll take it!" Then he added; and his face went hot as her own: "As to the freebooters of the Western Wilderness ripping the bowels out of public property out here, I'll accept that challenge, too! We'll put up a bluff of ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... The dwellings of this unfortunate people were visible in clusters upon the sides and tops of the hills which tower above the Mandingo capital. "The fires which were visible in the different nests of these unfortunates, threw a glare upon the bold peaks and bluff promontories of granite rock by which they were surrounded, and produced a picturesque and somewhat awful appearance." The inhabitants of these wild regions were clothed in the spoils of the chace, and subsisted chiefly on wild fruits, honey, and ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... five-and-forty—his coat trimmed with silver lace, a little old-fashioned, and even a little shabby in such company, his Mechlin tie rather out of date and already disordered, and his cocked-hat crushed below his arm. His face is bluff and ruddy among his pinched and sallow brethren: that of a big English gentleman, who hunted, shot, or fished, or walked after his whistling ploughman every morning, and on occasions daringly dashed in amongst the poachers ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... things settled between 'em he'll be around the house and to meals most any time, won't he? You don't hardly expect to put on style all the time, I guess. Well, he'll see then that this kind of thing was all show-off, and bluff, won't ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington

... December, 1868, it was destroyed by fire, and the Government is now rebuilding it upon a more formidable scale. The Staten Island shore is lined with guns. At the water's edge is a powerful casemated battery, known as Fort Tompkins, mounting forty heavy guns. The bluff above is crowned with a large and formidable looking work, also of granite, known as Fort Richmond, mounting one hundred and forty guns. To the right and left of the fort, are Batteries Hudson, Morton, North Cliff, and South Cliff; mounting ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... happening on the Tagus. On all three ships, the officers knew that the men were only awaiting a signal to mutiny; but the signal did not come. At this juncture, and while it seemed that the Republican cause was lost, a piece of heroic bluff on the part of a single officer saved the situation. Lieutenant Tito de Moraes put off in a small boat from the naval barracks at Alcantara, rowed to the San Raphael, boarded it, and calmly took possession of it in the name of the Republic! He gave the officers a written guaranty ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... mounts, there being a valley between them and the hill I was on, and meandering along through this valley from the west I could trace the course of the Finke by its timber for some miles. To the east a mass of high and jumbled hills appeared, and one bluff-faced mount was more conspicuous than the rest. Nearer to me, and almost under my feet, was the gorge through which the river passes, and it appears to be the only pass through this chain. I approached the precipice overlooking ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... insisted from force of habit on having it scamped. Then he was almost happy, because he felt that he was doing someone down. If there were an architect superintending the work, Misery would square him or bluff him. If it were not possible to do either, at least he had a try; and in the intervals of watching, driving and bullying the hands, his vulture eye was ever on the look out for fresh jobs. His long red nose was thrust into every ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... induced me to join them was a mere lieutenant, yet he never consulted anyone about taking me in. Was I not an American? Each day some officer was told off to arrange matters with the station masters. They moved their trains without bluff or bluster. Sometimes the Soviets hindered them in order to get what guns and supplies they could. But not till weeks after they started did any Soviet have the temerity to try to stop or disarm the men. The Russian masses were quickly won to friendship ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... frank, amiably autocratic in his home, apt to be peppery with inferiors who missed the line of perfect respect, candid and reasonable with equals or superiors. For his boy he reserved a store of manly affection, seldom expressing itself save in bluff fashion; his sister he patronised with much kindness, though he despised her judgment. One had now and then a feeling that his material circumstances aided greatly in making him the genial man he was, that with beef and claret of inferior quality ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... an intermittent rain is a run of about a mile up to the "hennery," which buds and blossoms with the dearest little ducks of ducks, broad-billed, downy, toddling, tumbling in and out of a trough of water, and getting continually lost on the bluff outside; little chickens and turkeys, and great turkeys, not pleasant to the eye, but good for food, and turkey-gobblers, stiffest-mannered of all the feathered creation; and geese, sailing in the creek majestic, or waddling ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... something more weighty—the art of handling people, in the two aspects thereof—bluffing, and backing up the bluff with force and originality. He came to the commonplace people along the road as something novel and admirable, a man who had taken his wife and his poverty and gone seeing the world. When he smiled in a superior way and said nothing, people immediately believed that he ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis

... used to the ways of the Avenue and all that kind of thing, where would I be now, trying to run in the right kind of bluff with ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... what a nice boy you are!" cried Kitty, impulsively, laying a hand a moment on his shoulder. And then, as though his filial instinct had awakened hers, she added, with hasty falsehood: "Maman, of course, knows nothing about her. That was just bluff what she said. But Donna Laura oughtn't to ask such people. There—that's ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... damned!" the politician remarked, with unwitting veracity. "Did the dern Dago bluff me, does he want more, er did he reely didn't un'erstand fer honest?" Then, as he took up his way, crossing the street at the warning of some red and green smallpox lanterns, "I'll git those seven votes, though, someway. I'm out fer a record this ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... long-sought one. Failure after failure was reported, but the search only grew the keener. The adventurers were determined to beat every mile of the coast if necessary. At length came the joyous forenoon when Nick gave a frantic hurrah from his lofty perch. Ho had sighted the bare bluff, the wooded background, and the narrow, winding inlet. His brother was quickly beside him, and almost immediately shouted his reassuring opinion to the expectant company. The goal was reached ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... Mulready stopped. Abruptly the fat adventurer's smoldering resentment leaped in flame. "That'll be about all, Mr. Mulready! 'Bout face, you hound, and get into that boat! D'you think I'll temporize with you till Doomsday? Then forget it. You're wrong, dead wrong. Your bluff's called, and"—with an evil chuckle—"I hold a full house, Mulready,—every chamber taken." He lifted meaningly the hand in the coat pocket. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... hard, bluff soldier, who has as much iron in his composition as any man of his time sprang one of those human surprises that even war fails to emulate—when he listened time after time to the record that he loved better than most music, "I know that my Redeemer ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... emigrating, with all his goods and gods, to that wonderfully winning region, in the estimation of this people, the valley of the Mississippi. The emigrant was a stout, burly, bluff old fellow, with full round cheeks, a quick, twinkling eye, and limbs rather Herculean than human. He might have been fifty-five years or so; and his two sons, one of them a man grown, the other a tall ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... one bound cleared the pis'kun walls and came toward her. "Come," he said, taking hold of her arm. "No, no!" she replied pulling back. "But you said if the buffalo would jump over, you would marry one; see, the pis'kun is filled." And without more talk he led her up over the bluff, and ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell

... about midway of its width the inlet formed a forked strait, one branch finding its way to the north, between a low succession of sandy hummocks, where the water was too shallow to float a duck, and the other finding an outlet, scarcely a biscuit-toss wide, between two bluff rocks. With the trade wind this passage was safe and accessible; but on the change of the moon, with a breeze and swell from the south, the sea came bowling in, in boiling eddies and whirlpools, and it required a nerve of iron to attempt an entrance. Just ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... at the other side of the Magic Door. You can't pull one out without a dozen being entangled with it. But it was Scott's soldiers that I was talking of, and I was saying that there is nothing theatrical, no posing, no heroics (the thing of all others which the hero abominates), but just the short bluff word and the simple manly ways, with every expression and metaphor drawn from within his natural range of thought. What a pity it is that he, with his keen appreciation of the soldier, gave us so little of those soldiers who were his own contemporaries—the ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... a very serious accident which befell me just at that time. Spying a herd of elk, we started in pursuit of them, and creeping up towards them as slyly as possible, while going around the bend of a sharp bluff or bank of the creek I slipped and broke my leg just above the ankle. Notwithstanding the great pain I was suffering, Harrington could not help laughing when I urged him to shoot me, as he had the ox, and thus end my misery. He told me to "brace up," ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody

... round from the south to the northwest, and we went to High Bluff, a point on the north edge, where some rocks are piled up above the evergreens, to get a view of the sunset. In every direction the mountains were clear, and a view was obtained of the vast horizon and the hills and lowlands of several States—a continental prospect, scarcely anywhere ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... His bluff manner and ruddy healthy face seemed to be a positive insult to me in my present condition. Had I been a courageous or a muscular man I could have struck him. As it was, I treated the honest sailor ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... not very high hills; Saul's Hills are the highest; then there are bluffs south of 'Sconset known as Sunset Heights; indeed, the village itself stands on a bluff high above the sandy beach, where the great waves come rolling in. And there is 'Tom Never's Head.' Also Nantucket Town is on high ground sloping gradually up from the harbor; and just out of the town, to the north-west, ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley

... spot where the road hugged close the concave outline of a bushy bluff, Bud slowed and turned out behind a ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... work," he said in a bluff tone, "to set a business going; and it wouldn't do to commence over ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... afternoon, and I was hunting with an old Chinese when we discovered three pigs—a huge boar, a sow, and a shote—crossing an open hill. Crawling on my face, I reached a rock not seventy yards from the animals. At the first shot the boar pitched over the bluff into a tangle of thorns, squealing wildly. My second bullet broke the shoulder of the sow, and I had a mad chase through a patch of scrub, but ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... to Bluff Point; and the shore was so elevated here, that the skipper stood farther out into the lake so that he might not lose the wind. The Goldwing behaved so well, that Dory was beginning to have a great deal of confidence in her, so that he ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic

... Magruder at the close of an Autumn day. He thought he had never known such dry sweet air. Just as the sun was sinking, he strolled to the bluff around which flowed the turbid waters of the Rio Grande, and looked across at the ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... The child can't live. It is one of the worst cases of croup I have had this year, why didn't you send for me sooner? Where is his father? It is now just twelve o'clock, time for all respectable men to be in the house," said the bluff but kind hearted family doctor looking tenderly upon Jeanette's little boy who lay gasping for breath in the last ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... the table in ungovernable excitement; in listening to this extraordinary duel half a thought had come into my head. "Your Grace," I cried, "I call your bluff. Take off that wig or I will ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... the seven male members of "The Rose of America" ensemble lined up self-consciously before his gleaming eyes, when Mr Goble repented of his brave words. An uncomfortable feeling passed across his mind that Fate had called his bluff and that he would not be able to make good. All chorus-men are exactly alike, and they are like nothing else on earth. Even Mr Goble, anxious as he was to overlook their deficiencies, could not persuade himself that in their ranks stood even an adequate Lord ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... used an old trick, and I fell into the trap like a tenderfoot. A few of them came hollering and shooting out of Flower Prairie, stampeding the boys. I figured it to be a raid on the camp, and I hollered for Blease and we ran for the tents. They played the bluff strong. Steamboat Bill got it through the head while he was running for cover—you remember him, the big, black fellow with earrings. Then they threw some lead into the tents, and Blease and I had quite a time holding 'em off. Blease got one of 'em; saw ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen

... trail. There was limitless prairie straight on in front of me. I walked for days, and slept at night wherever I could find a bluff. I could hear the little grasses whispering when I lay half-awake, and it was comforting to know that there were leagues and leagues of them between me and the city. I drove a team for a farmer most of that season. Then I went on to a track ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... all sorts of games, from tag and jumping rope, to blindman's bluff and hide-and-seek. Snap was made to do a number of tricks, much to the amusement of the teachers and children. Danny Rugg, and some of the older boys, got up a small baseball game, and then Danny, with one or two chums, went off in a deeper part ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope

... much.—Now, take in the slack, afore she jibes;" and the master ducked under the main boom and took his station on the other side of the deck. "Steady as you go now.—Newton, take the helm.—D'ye see that bluff? keep her right for it. Tom, you and the boy rouse the cable up— get about ten fathoms on deck, and bend it.—You'll find a bit of seizing and a marline-spike in the locker abaft."—The sloop scudded before the gale, and in less than two ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... the medicos," he had said to Dr. Surtaine in outlining his great idea. "They're mean to handle. You can always buy or bluff a newspaper, but a doctor is different. Some of 'em you can grease, but they're the scrubs. The real fellers won't touch money, and the worst of 'em just seem to love trouble. Merritt's that kind. But we can fix Merritt by ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... amazing chair behaved in a manner wholly unusual and startling; relieved of strain, the springs snapped and whined, there was a violent oscillation of the back, a shudder convulsed the thing, and it sprang after him, much as a tame rabbit thumps its feet upon the ground in an effort to bluff a kitten. ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... devil-may-care, lovable person enshrined in our hearts as Thomas Atkins. Before he had learned from reading stories about himself that he, as an individual, also possessed the above attributes, he was mostly ignorant of the fact. My early recollections of the British soldier are of a bluff, rather surly person, never the least jocose or light-hearted except perhaps when he had ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... Her learned professors (followed by a few servile American imitators) had poured ridicule and scorn upon it in unreadable books. Her actions in the West Indies and South America showed her contempt for it as a "bit of American bluff." Gradually it dawned upon us that if France were crushed and England crippled our dear old Monroe Doctrine would stand a poor chance against a victorious and supercilious Imperial German Government. As I wrote to Washington in August, 1914, their ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke

... is it difficult to see how German statesmen regarded the situation? Russia, in their eyes, was playing a game of bluff, and strong measures against her were in the interest of Germany. But, though under no illusion as to German preparations, M. Sazonof offered on July 30 to stop all military preparations if Austria 'would ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History

... at this interesting juncture that the door opened and a footman stood in the August afternoon sunshine, touching his cap and staring fixedly down the platform. On a station lamp was 'Whinnerley Bluff'. ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... to propitiate the vulgar. This idea (in the main) was agreed to by Woolston, although his violent "Discourses," which were addressed to the unlearned, contained within them the germ of their intrinsic popularity. Yet even Woolston's works, notwithstanding their bluff exterior, had something more within them than what the people could appreciate, or even the present race of Freethinkers can always understand; for underneath that unrivalled vein of sarcasm, there was in every instance an esoteric view, which comprehended the meaning ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... or five miles from the centre of the city, is a favorite pleasure resort of the population. It stands on a bluff of the Pacific shore, affording an ocean view limited only by the power of the human vision. As we look due west from this spot, no land intervenes between us and the far-away shore of Japan. Opposite the Cliff House, three hundred yards from the shore, ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... a system of secret service peculiar to these traders, the amount of the last offer is easily discovered, and the new bidder "sees that" (if I may be permitted to amuse myself with the phraseology of the Mississippi bluff-player) and "goes" a few ticals "better." There are always several enterprising Stars of the Harem ready to vary the monotony by engaging in this unromantic business; and the agitation among the "sealed" sisterhood, though by no means boisterous, is lively, though all have tact ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... descends from the north-western flank of Hermon, and runs nearly parallel with the great gorge of the Litany, having a direction from north-east to south-west. The water wells forth in abundance from the foot of a volcanic bluff, called Eas-el-Anjah, lying directly north of Hasbeiya, and is immediately used to turn a mill. The course of the streamlet is very slightly west of south down the Wady to the Huleh plain, where it is joined, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson

... explained Sylvia. "Even now, I can hardly talk of it—but you were a dear friend of Dick's. We had to burn wood; the nearest bluff where it could be cut was several miles away; and Dick didn't keep a hired man through the winter. It was often very cold, and I got frightened when he drove off if there was any wind. It was trying to wait in the quiet house, wondering ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... who can do the trick for one novel can do it for all—and there's a thousand dollars waiting to be earned, and a blessing also. It's a bald "bluff," of course, because it can't be done as we all know. I might offer a million with safety. If it ever could have been done the noble intellectual aristocracy of novel-readers would have been reduced to a condition of penury and distress ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison

... incident of the stray cat at "Chez Nous" is never likely to get into the newspapers. On the other hand, lots of incidents which do get in never deserve to. It's all a question of head-lining, which is the bluff by which the public is induced to read ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various

... another cruller." Never before had he felt so important. He was the guest being treated with such respect. When holding the tiller that morning he had longed for Sammie Dunker and the rest of the boys to see him. So now, sitting near the bluff old captain and his wife, he desired the same thing. He felt quite sure that no other boy in the whole parish had been so honoured, and if his schoolmates ever heard of it, they would be sure to look upon him as ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody

... two miles inland, when they were attacked by the Turks in overwhelming force, and lost a large number in their retreat to the Beach and then to their boats. This was afterwards retaken by the Gurkhas, who pushed through from W. Beach, and the high cliff on the north side is now known as Gurkha Bluff. The Indian Brigade have their H.Q. here, and this morning there were about 2000 Gurkhas and Sikhs about. I was toiling up the "bloody cliff" when some Gurkhas passed me, thinking nothing of the steep ascent; while I straightened my knees slowly at each step, I noticed they brought their ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... did their best for mutual consolation, while Albinia undertook to preside over her niece and a still smaller partner in red velvet, in a quadrille. It was amusing to watch the puzzled downright motions of the sturdy little bluff King Hal, and the earnest precision of the prim little damsel, and Albinia hovering round, now handing one, now pointing to the other, keeping lightly out of every one's way, and far more playful than either of the small performers in this solemn undertaking. As it ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... rolled over and stared curiously at its stone jetties and clustered shipping. There were a couple of schooners used in the china-clay trade lying at the quayside; at anchor was a barquentine, a big bluff-bellied tramp of a creature, black with coaldust, and beyond her again what was still a rare sight in those parts—a steamer. She was a side-wheeler, with a thin raking funnel, and was square-rigged on her fore-mast, fore-and-aft on her mizzen. A little crowd stood on the end of ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... of the type which for many years we have striven to present to the contemplation of the outside world as the perfect Englishman. He is a bluff, hearty fellow, without serious vices, without, also, serious virtues; he has, of course, a perfect self-satisfaction, and a deep and unconscious selfishness, tempered by an easy good-nature and ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland

... his eye encountered a head and shoulders portrait of his father, Sir George Sinclair: an honest, bluff, unimaginative face: yet suddenly, arrestingly, it commanded his attention. Checking his walk, he stood regarding it: and his heart went out to the kindly old man in a quite unusual wave of sympathetic understanding. He saw himself—the "damned unsatisfactory son," Bohemian and dilettante, frankly ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... us the town at the bottom of its deep bay, we set out to explore a bluff-headed parallelogramical promontory, bounded by Thurso Bay on the one hand, and Murkle Bay on the other, and which presents to the open sea, in the space that stretches between, an undulating line of iron-bound coast, exposed to the roll of the northern ocean. We pass two stations in ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... said. "I give you my word of honor that I have broken no law, nor engaged in any criminal action whatever since I came to Paris. This game of having me watched is simply a piece of bluff. I have done nothing except make inquiries in different quarters respecting those two young English people who are still missing. In doing this I seem to have run up against what is nothing more nor less than a disgraceful conspiracy. Every hand is against me. Instead of helping ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... they were forcing over the side of the vessel into a boat. The two principal persons among our enemies appeared to be a man of a tall, thin figure, with a high-crowned hat and long neck band, and short-cropped head of hair, accompanied by a bluff, open-looking elderly man in a naval uniform. 'Yarely! yarely! pull away, my hearts,' said the latter, and the boat bearing the unlucky young man soon carried him on board the frigate. Perhaps you will blame me for mentioning this circumstance; but ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... tailed my traps, and there were good signs, too, by t' boiling brooks," said Malcolm the first evening they arrived home. "A fox following t' landwash from t' rattle must surely take t' path there, for t' cliff fair shoulders him off t' land, and t' ice isn't fast more'n a foot or so from t' bluff. 'T would be a pity to lose a good skin, and us ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... nobody ever tell us that there were no flies in Germany? Why did no traveller ever put it in his book? When your stewardess said so on the steamer, I remember that you regarded it as a bluff." He turned to Burnamy, who was listening with the deference of a contributor: "Isn't Lili rather long? I mean for such a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... trapper and Bunco, having cut off the best parts of the animals they had killed, made their encampment on the highest bluff they could find near the lake, and prepared supper; looking out now and then for their absent comrades. As the evening wore on they became anxious, and went out to search for them, but it was not till the following morning that they were discovered, almost falling out of their saddles from ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne

... just as well, too, for I'd got half way through the soup before I notices anything the matter with it. My guess was that it tasted scorchy. I glances around at Vee, and finds she's just makin' a bluff at eatin' hers. Doris and Westy ain't even doin' that, and when I drops my spoon Doris signals to take it away. Which Cyril does, movin' as solemn and dignified as if he was usherin' at a funeral. Then there's ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... had stood out to sea, and coasted the whole south side of the island. They then put the boat before the wind, and soon ran past the east coast, which was very narrow—in fact, a sort of bluff-head—and got on the north side of the island. Here the water was comparatively smooth, and the air warm and balmy. They ranged along the coast at about a mile's distance, looking out ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... A bluff projection, bearing South 65 degrees East seven miles, bounded our view to the southward, and a range of sugarloaf hills, the highest being 350 feet, rose about eight miles in the ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... of lynching them. But fortunately, the objects of their vengeance had escaped from town. Foiled in their purpose, the rioters repaired to the shantee where the murder was committed, and precipitated it over the bluff. The military of the city were ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... their reach. The bank of the river, for miles a high craggy wall, bristled with cannon at every landing-place. For months Wolfe lingered before the city, vainly seeking some feasible point of attack. Carefully reconnoitering the precipitous bluff above the city, his sharp eyes at length discovered a narrow path winding among the rocks to the top, and he determined to lead ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... turtle—was immediately killed. To us, after the transit of the Andes and the dangers and hardships of the wilderness and the river, it seemed as if we had reached the end of our journey, though we were over two thousand miles from the Atlantic. Pebas is situated on a high clay bluff beside the Ambiyacu, a mile above its entrance into the Maranon. Excepting Mr. Hauxwell, the Peruvian governor, and two or three other whites, the inhabitants are Indians of the Orejones and Yagua ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... I have quite as snug a cove, near the creek bluff at Clawbonny, and will build a house for you there, you shall not tell from a ship's cabin; that would ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... uphill. The meadow through which we were passing sloped to an oaken fence, stoutly constructed to save the cattle from a perilous fall. For on its farther side the ground fell away sheer, so that at this point a bluff formed one high wall of the sunken road for which we were making. The Thatcher, I remembered, stood immediately opposite to the rough grass-grown steps, hewn years ago for the convenience of such passengers as we. There was a stile set in ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... back until to-morrow, but I promised to pitch the bags into his granary," he said. "If I hump them up the trail here it will save us driving round through the bluff." ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... up on the bally wood-pile at the back of the barracks yard; "A damned disgrace to the force, sir", with a comrade standing guard; Making the bluff I'm busy, doing ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service

... Lowell: "In the privately printed edition of the poem the names of eight of the poet's kindred are given. The nearest in blood are the nephews, General Charles Russell Lowell, killed at Winchester, Lieutenant James Jackson Lowell, at Seven Pines, and Captain William Lowell Putnam, at Ball's Bluff. Another relative was the heroic Colonel Robert G. Shaw, who fell in the ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... expressions as 'O law!' are out of order, especially when they're only so much bluff.... I must now approach a subject which may have sordid recollections for you, but in the interest of the law I am bound to allude to it. Were you whacked—ahem!—chastised a few days ago by the aforesaid ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... however, did it happen that some charters and grants were obtained by politicians and lawyers who, at best, were impecunious sharpers. Their greatest asset was a devious knowledge of how to get something for nothing. With a grandiloquent front and a superb bluff they would organize a company to build a railroad from this to that point; an undertaking costing millions, while perhaps they could not pay their board bill. An arrangement with a printer to turn out stock issues on credit was easy; with the promise of batches of this ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... shortly. The subject was difficult. So far, I had not thrashed it out even in thought. Mr Thorold shot a quick, keen glance. Instinctively, I knew where his thoughts were wandering. He was thinking of the bluff country Squire who had been so kind to his own little girls, remembering that he came from the same neighbourhood; that Evelyn Wastneys and ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... too sure," said "Stump." "There's many a slip between the muzzle and the target. Maybe we won't do much after all. Just to make it interesting I'll bet you a dinner at Del's that we will only chuck a bluff. What d'ye say?" ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... consideration, his heart failed him. He could not, he said, communicate the details of a tragedy so appalling and he begged to be excused. Another, formed it was thought of sterner stuff, was then fixed upon: but he too, rough and bluff as he was in his ordinary manners, possessed the heart of a generous and sympathetic human being, and also respectfully declined. A third made a like objection, and at last a female friend of the family was with much difficulty ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... Dyer's Hollow at its best, the visitor should enter it at the western end, and follow its windings till he stands upon the bluff looking out upon the Atlantic. If his sensations at all resemble mine, he will feel, long before the last curve is rounded, as if he were ascending a mountain; and an odd feeling it is, the road being ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... Morris said to Dr. Seward, "Say, Jack, if that man wasn't attempting a bluff, he is about the sanest lunatic I ever saw. I'm not sure, but I believe that he had some serious purpose, and if he had, it was pretty rough on him ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... of doubt. I could see that these words, by lifting the accusation from the wholly absurd to the somewhat plausible, had impressed him. Once again I was gripped by the uneasy feeling that Sam had an unsuspected card to play. This might be bluff, but it had ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... her alone for weeks at a time. The baby's name was Eloise, and she was a great pet with Richard who was fond of children. At last, one day in autumn, the little Eloise, who had just learned to run alone, wandered off by herself to a bluff, or rock, or something, from which she fell into the river. The mother, Petrea, was close by, and her terrific shrieks brought Richard to the spot in time to save the child. He had not been well for several days, and the frightful cold he took induced a fever, ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... down quite to the bottom of the cliff, and make his way, as best he could, over rocks and shingle round the bluff which shut in one side of the little bay on which he stood, and along the narrow line of beach, to Saint Winifred's head. This was possible sometimes, and he fancied that the tide was sufficiently far out to enable him to do it now. At any rate herein ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... new path in the pine land, I crossed Pike Bluff, and breaking my way all through the burnt district, returned home by Jones's. In the afternoon, we paid a long visit to Mr. C——. It is extremely interesting to me to talk with him about the negroes; he has spent so much of his life among them, has managed them so humanely, ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... consequence of which many members of the expedition were killed in battle and others died through sickness and deprivation. Nevertheless, they pushed on still further westward towards the Rocky Mountains, and in May, 1541, discovered and crossed the Mississippi River near Lower Chickasaw Bluff, a little north of the thirty-fourth parallel of latitude, in Tunica County, in what is now the State of Mississippi. On again reaching the Mississippi on the return march, De Soto, in consequence of the exposure and hardships to which he had been subjected, sank ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro

... when the heavy squalls swooped down on her from the cliffs. The rest of the squadron was keeping some distance out, presenting a fine sight as the ships lay over, sending the spray flying high into the air from their bluff bows, and plunging deeply ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... and flourishing rejuvenated land, stopping at the towns of Willows, Red Bluff and Redding, crossing the counties of Colusa, Glenn, Tehama, and Shasta, went the spruce wagon drawn by the dappled chestnuts with cream-colored manes and tails. Billy picked up only three horses for shipment, although he visited many farms; and Saxon talked with the women while he ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... years as Agent of Lawrence University, and then entered upon the project of founding an Institution of learning at Point Bluff. The selection of a location, however, was unfortunate, and his expectations were only partially realized. After this disaster he addressed ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller

... was in a high corner of the Alaska building, where the western windows, overtopping other stone and brick blocks of the business center, commanded the harbor, caught like a faceted jewel between Duwamish Head and Magnolia Bluff, and a far sweep of the outer Sound set in wooded islands and the lofty snow peaks of the Olympic peninsula. Next to his summer camp in the open he liked this eyrie, and particularly he liked it at this hour of the night tide. He drew his chair forward ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... of the Go Ahead boys to the post at Sacket's Harbor. On a bluff above the lake the barracks and other buildings of the place were plainly visible. Even the soldiers stationed there could be plainly seen as they moved ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay

... were at South Mountain, or Shiloh, or Ball's Bluff, or Gettysburg, and I ask you if there is any sadder sight than a battle-field after the guns have stopped firing? I walked across the field of Antietam just after the conflict. The scene was so sickening I shall ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... as the State of Kansas is one of the most favored spots, and here, embedded in the earth, have been found the remains of these huge forms. The bones were first seen projecting from a bluff, and, gradually worked out, proved to be those of a gigantic turtle that must have measured across its back from flipper to flipper fifteen feet, while its entire length must have been twenty feet ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... fictitious size, and clothed him with imaginary qualities. Col's idea of him was equally extravagant, though very different: he told us, he was quite a Don Quixote; and said, he would give a great deal to see him and Dr Johnson together. The truth is, that Lochbuy proved to be only a bluff, comely, noisy old gentleman, proud of his hereditary consequence, and a very hearty and hospitable landlord. Lady Lochbuy was sister to Sir Allan M'Lean, but much older. He said to me, 'They are quite Antediluvians.' Being told that Dr Johnson ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... occasional swing at his elusive opponent, but it was more of an attempt to cover up his real intention rather than to land effectively. Well he knew that his best and quickest chance to end the fight lay in his ability to kick the other man insensible, and so he tried to fool and disarm Max by a bluff attack. ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... them on a bluff overlooking the river, a courtly pile of colonial Georgian architecture whose balustraded and hipped roof seemed to rear itself above the neighboring woodland, so as to command a magnificent broad view of the Schuylkill River and valley for ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... bellicose articles, you are perpetually reminded of the favorite national game of "Poker." In this, a player holding a very bad hand against a good one, may possibly "bluff" his adversary down, and win the stakes, if he only has confidence enough to go on piling up the money, so as to make his own weakness appear strength. That audacity answers often happily enough, especially with the timid and inexperienced, but the professional gamblers tell you ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... filibuster received what appeared formidable reinforcement from the Louisiana delegation. This was in reality merely a bluff, intended to induce the Hayes people to make certain concessions touching their State government. It had the desired effect. Satisfactory assurances having been given, the count proceeded to the end—a very bitter end indeed for ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... there. He's a grouch, but just don't let him bluff you. Yes, the cook tent's about ready. I'll sneak in and hook something before breakfast; then mebby I'll come back and ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... they returned, Hannah saw a queer looking figure digging roots in the woods. Her waistcoat and petticoat were red; her old apron green. She wore a black hat over a white linen hood tied under her chin. It was Goody Walford. Friendly Old Bluff darted to her side, while Hannah seized Jacob's hand and ran for home. Her haste and fright moved the little fellow to ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster

... been more happily chosen for this beautiful congress-hall of flowers. It occupies a bluff that overlooks the Schuylkill a hundred feet below to the eastward, and is bounded by the deep channels of a pair of brooks equidistant on the north and south sides. Up the banks of these clamber the sturdy arboreal natives as though to shelter in warm embrace their delicate ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... considerable quantity of wood piled up, intended for making paddles. Soon afterwards, we passed the entrance of a river, which, out of compliment to myself, Captain Owen named Holman River. A remarkably large stone lay on the beach near its mouth. At noon, we were off a bluff cape, which received the name of Cape Eden. At this time our previously fine weather disappeared, and we had, throughout the remainder of the day, a very hazy atmosphere, with ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... at dawn pursuing a south-south-east direction, and at the end of one mile rounded a bluff point; the limestone hills to the eastward gradually decreased in elevation and we ascended one of them to gain a view of the surrounding country. I found that the summit of this range consisted of a terrace about half a mile wide, richly grassed and ornamented with ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... trident, and a long two-edged sword with a hemispherical knob on the hilt, which dangles from his belt, while an antelope or goat wearing a pointed tiara prances beside him. This deity is identical with bluff, impetuous Thor of northern Europe, Indra of the Himalayas, Tarku of Phrygia, and Teshup or Teshub of Armenia and northern Mesopotamia, Sandan, the Hercules of Cilicia, Adad or Hadad of Amurru and Assyria, and Ramman, who at an early period penetrated Akkad and ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... over the face of Silent, and then Hardy went hot with terror and anger. The long rider had known nothing. The gun play had been a mere bluff, but he had played into the hands of Silent, and now his life ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... coasting steamers laden with coal or flour, and heavy brigantines or topsail schooners which have felt their way from distant English ports round a wildly inhospitable stretch of coast. Here, almost always, are the bluff-bowed hookers from the outer islands, seeking cargoes of flour and yellow Indian meal, bringing in exchange fish, dried or fresh, and sometimes turf for winter fuel. Here are smaller boats from nearer islands ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham

... Palaeozoic rocks. The age of this underlying drift, which is 140 feet thick at Natchez, has not yet been determined; but it may possibly belong to the glacial period. Natchez is about 80 miles in a straight line south of Vicksburg, on the same left bank of the Mississippi. Here there is a bluff, the upper 60 feet of which consists of a continuous portion of the same calcareous loam as at Vicksburg, equally resembling the Rhenish loess in mineral character and in being sometimes barren of fossils, sometimes ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... that the play isn't mine, of course I'll help you, and—" Miss Adair agreed, with the tears dried by the anger and a degree of sanity returning at Mr. Vandeford's skilful appeal to her generosity, which he made when he saw that his attempt to bluff her about calling off the play had failed. Mr. William Rooney came into the box. His hat was tilted on the back of his head and in the corner of his mouth was a large cigar, which he was chewing and not smoking. ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... sobered Little Joe and he shrugged his massive shoulders significantly. Shorty's laugh was shrill with contempt. "Oh, you're big enough," he sneered. "But what does beef count agin a lightning flash?" He grew reminiscent. "I seen him bluff down the Wyoming ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... man of moderate stature, who had lost the sight of one eye. The other, being covered with a green shade, gave him an ill look. His manner, however, was hearty, and showed a bluff, off-hand cordiality, as he welcomed the party to the hospitalities of the Travellers' Rest. He was familiarly called "Larry," by Fletcher, who greeted him like ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger

... in the bluff at the same moment as a horseman reined up at his door. The man in the saddle leant over, peering into the face of the Inspector. The ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... obstinate memory had carried him home to his old stable,—also the remaining events in Vance's brief, but brilliant career. That ornament of the Utah and Yo-Semite expeditions had entered Mariposa on Clark's horse,—lost our eighty golden dollars at a single session of bluff,—departed gayly for Coulterville, where he sold Clark's horse at auction for forty dollars, including saddle and bridle, and immediately at another game of bluff lost the entire purchase-money ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... went to St. Louis, they used to drink and gamble away their hard-won dollars, few of these men caring for anything beyond the indulgence of immediate fancies. But Pierre was ambitious, and thought that money might be made subservient to his aspirations in a better way than speculating with it upon "bluff" or squandering ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... be sure to find it when she went the rounds with her candle to close up. That was a gang of the kind I have reference to, headed straight for Albany. And what is more, it will get there, unless things change greatly. The gunpowder was just a "bluff" to frighten the housekeeper, an instalment of the kind of politics it meant to play when it ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... the day's journey wherever chance might lead me. As confidence came, my enjoyment increased. I began to believe I could take care of myself. I reasoned out that, as the peaks were snow-capped, I should find water, and very likely game, up higher. Moreover, I might climb a foothill or bluff from which I could ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey

... to me that he had forgotten the incident so soon, simply because to help had become the habit of his life. He may read this, and he may not. There he was—big, bold, bluff and bronzed, his hair just touched with the frost of years, and beneath his brass buttons a heart beating with a desire to bless and benefit. I do not know his name, but the sight of the man, carrying a child on each arm, their arms encircling his neck in perfect faith, their long journey done, ...
— The Mintage • Elbert Hubbard

... extending seaward, the the bony finger of a skeleton, marking a reef clothed with fuzzy breakers. A rocky ledge ran down to where the reef began and a big gray stone stood up abruptly, giving the island the appearance of a bluff-bowed vessel, and under it, a triangular patch of beach. Near the rock were four palm trees. One bent over at a sharp angle, as if it had been partly uprooted, and its moppy fronds almost trailed in the still water of a pool formed by a second reef, not so clearly ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore

... Bremer ranch the way to the Lava Beds leads down the Bremer Meadows past many a smooth grassy knoll and jutting cliff, along the shore of Lower Klamath Lake, and thence across a few miles of sage plain to the brow of the wall-like bluff of lava four hundred and fifty feet above Tule Lake. Here you are looking southeastward, and the Modoc landscape, which at once takes possession of you, lies revealed in front. It is composed of three principal parts; on your left lies the bright expanse of Tule Lake, ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir

... interrupted by Zephyr's request for the keys to the safe. There was a clatter as Firmstone dropped them into his open hand. Hartwell straightened up with flushed cheeks. Pierre's words again came to him. The whole thing might be a bluff, after all. The safe might be empty. Here was a possible avenue of escape. With the same blind energy with which he had entered other paths, he entered this. He leaned back in his ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason

... in, big and bluff and easy-going. "Hittin' the trail, boys? Good enough. Hope you find the thieves. If you do, play yore cards close. They're treacherous devils. Don't take no chances with 'em. I left an order at the store for you to draw on me for another pair of boots in place of those you lost ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine

... other gentry with nothing particular to do, come hanging round us, who will gladly carry any message or letter for you across the hills—for a leetle consideration, of course!" added Mr Rawlings, with his bluff, hearty laugh. ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... cut off from communication with a great part of my own command during this time —resulted in Sherman's moving from Memphis before McClernand could arrive, for my dispatch of the 18th did not reach McClernand. Pemberton got back to Vicksburg before Sherman got there. The rebel positions were on a bluff on the Yazoo River, some miles above its mouth. The waters were high so that the bottoms were generally overflowed, leaving only narrow causeways of dry land between points of debarkation and the high bluffs. These were fortified ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... coupled with other insinuations already brought forward in our conversation, confirmed me in the idea already half formed, that my apparent arrest at the hotel, my strange and mysterious journey through the night, and the threat of Siberia, were all in the nature of what we Americans call a "bluff"; were only intended to conceal the real purpose of this enforced interview. During that moment of hesitation, which was so short that it would not have been noticeable to a disinterested party, I decided that the perfectly frank and open course ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman

... fol-de-rols. Then with frosty bells a-chime, Slidin' down the hills o' time, Right amidst the fun an' din Christmas come a-bustlin' in, Raised his cheery voice to call Out a welcome to us all; Hale and hearty, strong an' bluff, That was Christmas, sure enough. Snow knee-deep an' coastin' fine, Frozen mill-ponds all ashine, Seemin' jest to lay in wait, Beggin' you to come an' skate. An' you 'd git your gal an' go Stumpin' cheerily thro' the snow, Feelin' ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... be the worst type for the Teacher until the right boy comes along; there is no use in the Teacher worrying himself until he does, because of the bully's bluster and bluff. Usually the normal boy will accept him at his face value, and it is only when a lad with self-assertion comes along that the sparks will fly. Then the bully will have to back down or take his medicine. A fight between boys is usually ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander

... or graymarie, he can, on a spring night, just as the moon has entered her last quarter, and the first note from the belfry of the chapel in the frith has proclaimed the arrival of midnight, take his stand upon Blentford's Bluff and peer into the dark and sombre depths of Kinder, when he will hear the hooting of the barn owl on Anna rocks, the unearthly screech of the landrail as he ploughs his way through the unmown grass in search of his mate, the scream of the curlew and chatter ...
— Buxton and its Medicinal Waters • Robert Ottiwell Gifford-Bennet

... prepared for was close upon them—only in an unexpected form, hugely complicated and threatening. They must have realized the great danger of the situation, but they very likely may have thought that by another piece of bluff similar to that of 1908-9 they might intimidate Russia a second time; and they believed that Russia was behindhand in her military preparations. They also, it appears, thought that England would not fight, being too much preoccupied with Ireland, India, and other troubles. And so it may have ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter

... who, fortunately, could speak both English and Flemish. He took me to the captain of the river barge, a low craft that looked a cross between a tugboat and a Hudson River scow. In less than three minutes my case was disposed of. Verdict: "C'est absolument defendu." It was time for a little "bluff." An hour later I returned with a new proposition, having in the mean time telegraphed Mr. Diederick either to meet me at the pier at Antwerp or to send a military permit. Displaying a copy of this telegram I suggested ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green

... found to his joy that he had attained such physical proportions as would secure his acceptance in a cavalry regiment forming in his vicinity. His uncle, who was also guardian, for reasons already known, made slight opposition, and he at once donned the blue with its bluff trimmings. In camp and field he quickly learned the routine of duty, and then his daring, active temperament led him gradually into the scouting service. Now, although so young, he was a veteran in experience, frank to friends, but secretive and ready to deceive the very elect among ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... indeed, are often days in traversing the distance between one port and another, for they wait for the wind to blow abaft, and being heavy, deeply laden, built broad and flat-bottomed for shallows, and bluff at the bows, they drift like logs of timber. In canoes the hunters, indeed, sometimes pass swiftly from one place to another, venturing farther out to sea than the ships. They could pass yet more quickly were it not for the inquisition of the authorities at every city ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies

... her sharply. This was the kind of thing that she had expected; of course the young person would bluff and stand out for a tall price, which must, if ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole

... to water like a fleet of white schooners. He ascended the rise beyond the bridge, and looked over to see if Meshach might have taken a walk down the road. Then returning, he swept the back view of Princess Anne, from the low bluff of cedars on another inhabited cape on the right, which bordered the Manokin marshes, to the vale of the little river at the left, as it descended between Meshach's storehouse and the ancient Presbyterian church of the Head of Manokin, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... little ones play blind-man's-bluff, or hunt-the-slipper. Sometimes Jack Frost steals down from the North, and pinches them. But he does not stay long. He likes his ...
— The Nursery, No. 109, January, 1876, Vol. XIX. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Unknown

... she had progressed about two miles up the bight, while Dick had hugged the eastern shore of the island of Baru as closely as the depth of water would permit; and when at length the wind failed he took advantage of its last expiring breath to run the boat in behind a small rocky, tree-crowned bluff, where she was not only completely hidden from sight, but where her crew enjoyed the further advantage of being sheltered from the too ardent rays of the sun. Here, having lowered their sails and ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... antiquarians. They may be found, almost all of them, in Professor Rafn's "Antiquitates Americanae." The action in them stands out often so clear and dramatic, that the internal evidence of historic truth is irresistible. Thorvald, who, when he saw what seems to be, they say, the bluff head of Alderton at the south-east end of Boston Bay, said, "Here should I like to dwell," and, shot by an Esquimaux arrow, bade bury him on that place, with a cross at his head and a cross at his feet, ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... The battle of Ball's Bluff resulted disastrously to the Union forces, and two thousand men were mostly driven into the Potomac, some drowned and others shot. Colonel Baker, United States ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... swept the prairie, which was now bare of snow. Larry rode down the trail that led through the Cedar Bluff. He was freely sprinkled with mire, for spring had come suddenly, and the frost-bleached sod was soft with the thaw; and when he pulled up on the wooden bridge to wait until Breckenridge, who appeared ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... spring of 1830 the roving spirit of Thomas Lincoln felt the call of the West and they set out for Illinois. John Hanks met them five miles northwest of Decatur in Macon County, where on a bluff overlooking the muddy Sangamon they built a cabin, split rails, fenced fifteen acres and broke the prairie. Young Lincoln was twenty-one and free, but he remained at home during the summer, helping ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers

... then in the black waters of the Rio Negro, near rather a high bluff covered with cecropias with buds of reddish-brown, and palisaded with stiff-stalked reeds called "froxas," of which the Indians make some ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... South Mountain, or Shiloh, or Ball's Bluff, or Gettysburg, and I ask you if there is any sadder sight than a battle-field after the guns have stopped firing? I walked across the field of Antietam just after the conflict. The scene was so sickening I shall not describe it. Every valuable thing had been taken from the bodies ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... hold the glance of old and young. Unlike the natives she was tall and fair; masses of golden hair encircled her oval face and clustered over her blue eyes. Who was she? Whence came she? None could answer. By degrees some of the boldest of the youths approached, but their bluff manners seemed to displease her; though unaccustomed to rebuffs they retired. One, however, among them fared differently. Jean Letocq, a member of the family to which the hero belonged who near this very spot discovered the sleeping troops of the Grand Sarrazin, ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous

... no authority. Do you think you can bluff us because we are young? You will find you have ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish

... possession, my father was obliged to accept. From that time forward his success met with no check. By no means a master of his art, Sir John supplied with assurance what he lacked in knowledge, and atoned for his mistakes by the readiness of a bluff and old-fashioned sympathy ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard

... had everything their own way. From the right and the left their gray masses converged into the gap, pushed through, and then, spreading, turned our men out of the works so hardly held against the attack in their front. From our viewpoint on the bluff we could mark the constant widening of the gap, the steady encroachment of that blazing and smoking mass against its ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... Philadelphia, the coal dealer; Henry Tanner, the artist; John W. Terry, foreman of the iron and fitting department of the Chicago West Division Street Car Company; J. D. Baltimore, engineer, machinist, and inventor, of Washington, D. C.; Wiley Jones, of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the owner of a street car railroad, race track and park; Richard Hancock, foreman of the pattern shops of the Eagle Works and Manufacturing Company, and draughtsman; John Beack, the inventor, whose inventions are ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... de Silver Bluff Baptist Church, and I been goin' to Sunday School dar nearly ever since I can 'member. You know dey say dat's de oldest Nigger church in de country. At fust a white man come from Savannah and de church wuz built for his family and dey slaves. Later dere ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... her and demanded tea, and asked her to state a case. "Bit thick on the old man, isn't it?" said Roddy, who had developed a bluff, straightforward style in the ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... hellish!" Somers protested presently, as Seth remained silent, gazing hard at a rather large bluff on the river bank, some three hundred yards ahead. Then he added bitterly, "But it ain't no use. We're too late. The fire's finished everything. Maybe we'll find their bodies. I ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... grumbled Willett, who played bluff fathers in musical comedy. "A few years ago, they would have been scared to death of putting on a show with a crook as hero. Now, it seems to me the public doesn't want anything else. Not that they know what they DO want," ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... the assailing tempest's strength and fury. The lightning now came not only in ragged blazes and long ripping lines of light, but in bursts and shocks, and in bomb-like balls, exploding with elemental detonations. Balls of this tense surcharged essence rolled out over the comb of the bluff, fell upon the shadows of the water, and seemed to bound from crest to white-capped crest, till at last they split and burst asunder like some ominous missiles from engines of wrath ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... kitchen after depositing the pitchfork and its burden by the shed. Grateful Mrs. Alec cried and held little David closer when Priscilla, fortified by Hannah's cider, told the story. Alec, who came in a few minutes later, was grateful, too, in his bluff Scotch way. The snake, he said, was a whopper. He had rarely seen a larger, and Miss Priscilla was a trump—the very bravest ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase

... the boat to Bluff Point; and the shore was so elevated here, that the skipper stood farther out into the lake so that he might not lose the wind. The Goldwing behaved so well, that Dory was beginning to have a great deal of confidence in her, so that he ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic

... order to form the Lake of Thun. Near the west end of that lake it receives on the left the Kander, which has just before been joined by the Simme; on flowing out of the lake it passes Thun, and then circles the lofty bluff on which the town of Bern is built. It soon changes its north-westerly for a due westerly direction, but after receiving the Saane or Sarine (left) turns N. till near Aarberg its stream is diverted W. by the Hagneck Canal into ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... the batteries on the James River, to watch the progress made. Upon one occasion Vincent accompanied his mother and sisters, and a party of ladies and gentlemen from the neighboring plantations, to Drury's Bluff, where an intrenched position named Fort Darling had been erected, and preparations made to sink vessels across the river, and close it against the advance of the enemy's fleet, should any misfortune happen ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... ridge she rode out to the edge and made the peace-sign to Luck as a signal that she was ready to do his bidding. Incidentally, while she held her hand high over her head, her eyes swept keenly the bowlder-strewn bluff beneath her. A little to one side was a narrow backbone of smoother soil than the rest, and here were printed deep the marks of Jean's horse. Even there it was steep, and there was a bank, down there by the big flat rock which Jean had mentioned. Annie-Many-Ponies ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower

... Mr. Reginald Middleheath, the eminent criminal counsel, who depended as much upon his portly imposing stage presence to bluff juries into an acquittal as upon his legal attainments, which were also considerable. Mr. Middleheath's cardinal article of legal faith was that all juries were fools, and should be treated as such, because ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees

... East Range, the Stirling. The wind has changed again to the south-east. I have named this creek the Stirling, after the Honourable Edward Stirling, M.L.C. Followed it into the range on the same course towards a bluff, where I think I shall find an easy crossing. At one mile from the camp the hills commenced on the south-east side of the creek, but on the north-west side they commenced three miles further back. There was abundance of water in the creek for thirteen miles; at ten miles ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart

... going to say I thought it might be some sort of an improvement on a moving picture camera," Joe answered. "This may be only a bluff of his—wanting to learn how to take moving pictures. He may know how all along, and only be working on a certain improvement that he can't perfect until he gets just the right conditions. That's what ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton

... Digby runs close to the water. The bluff is crowned by a grassy sward and a row of well-grown trees, with a driveway between these and the buildings ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond

... shouted Strong, thrusting his head in at the tent; and we all cheered and waved our caps like mad. You see, Big Bethel and Bull Run and Ball's Bluff (the Bloody B's, as we used to call them,) hadn't ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various

... memoirs that the moment Castlereagh stood up and adjusted his waistcoat, there was a thrill in the House of Commons, and his followers bellowed their exultation and delight. In a more recent day, Lord Althorpe was able to bear down the hostility of some of the most powerful orators of his time by a bluff manliness which no rhetoric could withstand. And so also with Jimmy—his sheer audacity carries him along the slow, dull, inept, muddy ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... a high bluff, covered with wood, contiguous to the college, I observed a monument or obelisk, which I ascertained to have been erected to the memory of Kosciusko, a Polish patriot, who took a prominent part in the annihilation of British rule in America. It had a very picturesque ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... letters, and was again interrupted, this time by Markham, Breede's confidential secretary. Markham's approach to Bean was emphatically footed, as that of a man unable to imagine ice being thin under his feet. He was bluff and open, where Tully lurked behind his "not impossibles." He was even jovial now. He smiled down ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... top of the bluff and he made her sit down to rest. A pale moon suffused the country, and in that stage set to lowered lights her pallor was accented. From the colorless face shadowy, troubled eyes spoke the misery through which she was passing. The man divined that her ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... atmosphere of suspense the long afternoon dragged into evening. Every effort to free the vessel had been tried, but to no avail. Evening mess was served amid an oppressive silence varied only by the valiant efforts of bluff Bill Witt to stir a bit of confidence in his mates. Another and final effort to get away was to be tried at midnight with high tide. And then—-if nothing availed—-the boys knew full well that with the morning Lieutenant McClure would resort to ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll

... chalk. The only sort of person I could think of who would carry a piece of chalk loose in his pocket and use a blue pencil continuously was a schoolmaster. So I stated definitely—there's nothing like bluff—that the knife belonged to the left-handed man, who quite obviously had red hair, who appeared to wear the insignia of the married state, and who—again according to the law of averages—had at least one child. I naturally ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux

... for four days we were free of fatigues, were inspected by the new G.O.C. of the Division, Major-General Fanshawe, enjoyed the sun, and endured a violent thunderstorm. Thence returning to the wood we sampled White Lodge, the Warwick's home under the steep wooded bluff of Hill 63, where the rats made merry among the dirt and unburied food; also La Plus Douce, a pastoral but dangerous spot, where the Douve flowed muddily amidst neglected water-meadows stretching along to Wulverghem with its battered church tower ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell

... below Vicksburg, to the south. With the aid of the fleet, which ran the batteries successfully, he moved his army down the west bank until he reached a point beyond the possibility of attack, while a diversion by Sherman at Haines' Bluff, above Vicksburg, kept Pemberton in his fortifications. On April 26, Grant began to move his men over the river and landed them at Bruinsburg. "When this was effected," he writes, "I felt a degree of relief scarcely ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt

... insist upon it. Well, you know the feeling of an officer up against mutiny. No matter what the provocation, he must put the mutiny down; so, when the men came aft, they found me with the mate, and dead against them. We called their bluff, drove them forward at the muzzles of our guns, and promised them relief from all work except handling sail if they would take the ship to Queenstown. They agreed, because they could not do anything else, and the mutiny was over. But my conscience bothered me later on; for ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... also the gallery of Bronzes: it contains, among other master-pieces, the aerial Mercury of John of Bologna, of which we see such a multiplicity of copies. There is a conceit in perching him upon the bluff cheeks of a little Eolus: but what exquisite lightness in the figure!—how it mounts, how it floats, disdaining the earth! On leaving the gallery, I sauntered about; visited some churches, and then returned home depressed and wearied: and in this melancholy ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... his new life was the friendship of the bluff, cantankerous, but kind-hearted contractor, his sunny daughter, the manly foreman, and the talkative Murphy. Of Tressa he had so many glowing things to write in his letters to his wife that Helen threatened ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan

... be elevated several feet above the level of the sea,—at one end having a bold bluff-like termination, at the other shelving off in a gentle ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... manner of questions, and so did Inspector Date; but all attempts to incriminate Quass were vain. He was bluff and straightforward, and told—so far as could be judged—everything he knew. There was nothing for it but to dismiss him, and Eliza Flight was ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... the savages from straying from the reservation. We weren't under instructions to riddle them if they attempted to pass our guard posts, but were authorized to tickle them up to any reasonable extent, short of maiming them, with our bayonets, if any of them attempted to bluff past us. Well, the men of my troop had all colors of trouble while on guard in holding the savages in. The Ogalallas would hardly pay any attention to the white sentries of the chain guard, and when they wanted to pass beyond the guard limits ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson

... she carried she lay over until her lee rail was almost under water when the heavy squalls swooped down on her from the cliffs. The rest of the squadron was keeping some distance out, presenting a fine sight as the ships lay over, sending the spray flying high into the air from their bluff bows, and plunging deeply into ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... and refers to a wide stretch of woodland once included in the great Morfe Forest; and ford to an adjoining passage of the river—one, half a mile higher up, being still called Danes' Ford. On a bluff headland, rising perpendicularly 100 feet above the Severn, close by, the hardy Northerners, who thus left their name in connection with the Severn, established themselves in 896, when driven by Alfred from the Thames; and on the same projecting rock, defended on the land side by a trench cut in ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall

... girl beginning to relent, but still enjoying the success of her coup. "But really that is a small leap for a man. My driver, I believe—" Her face suddenly lighted with a new inspiration. Hastily she walked to the top of the bluff. "McCall," she cried. "Will you come ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry

... Castle "If"—If pigs had wings, If wishes horses were, If, rather more substantial things, My Castles in the air; If balances but grew on Banks, If Brokers hated "bluff;" If Editors refrained from thanks And ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various

... to disintegrate had been a bluff. Would the attorney general have dared disintegrate a ship with even a Junior E on board? Maybe it had been just a threat of the local police, one they ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... was almost ubiquitous. Here, there, wherever the mirth was loudest, there the form of the jovial baron was sure to be found. Old knights and equally elderly dames congregated together in the capacious oriel windows, and, with the tapestry curtains drawn aside, talked of the good old times of "Bluff King Hal," and pointed out with pride of superiority of their own happy age to these degenerate days. Middle-aged matrons sat proudly watching their offspring as they flitted to and fro, and noted with much satisfaction ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... see why it's a bluff," said Susan hardily, back at her own desk, and turning her light on, full above her bright, innocent face. "I intended to wear my grandfather's gray uniform and my aunt's widow's veil to make an impression on him, and you ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... the Mississippi, on a bluff above the river, fortified by the Confederates in the Civil War; after a siege of over a year surrendered to General Grant, 4th ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... party of tourists on a lake in Scotland, and threatened to capsize the boat. When it seemed that the crisis had really come, the largest and strongest man in the party, in a state of intense fear, said, "Let us pray." "No, no, my man," shouted the bluff old boatman; "let the little man pray. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... the east river, stole down along the bank in the gathering twilight, and softly beached their canoe below the white buildings of the Factory. With a muttered word of command to their captive, they disembarked and climbed the steepness of the low bluff to the grass-plot above. The ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White

... ranch the way to the Lava Beds leads down the Bremer Meadows past many a smooth grassy knoll and jutting cliff, along the shore of Lower Klamath Lake, and thence across a few miles of sage plain to the brow of the wall-like bluff of lava four hundred and fifty feet above Tule Lake. Here you are looking southeastward, and the Modoc landscape, which at once takes possession of you, lies revealed in front. It is composed of three principal ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir

... pour oil on the fire, oleum addere camino [Lat.]. explode; let fly, fly off; discharge, detonate, set off, detonize^, fulminate. Adj. violent, vehement; warm; acute, sharp; rough, rude, ungentle, bluff, boisterous, wild; brusque, abrupt, waspish; impetuous; rampant. turbulent; disorderly; blustering, raging &c v.; troublous^, riotous; tumultuary^, tumultuous; obstreperous, uproarious; extravagant; unmitigated; ravening, inextinguishable, tameless; frenzied &c (insane) 503. desperate &c (rash) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... addressing Lucien with a bluff German heartiness that concealed his dangerous subtlety; "well, so you have made your peace with Mme. d'Espard; she is delighted with you, and we all know," he added, looking round the group, "how difficult it is to ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... Cox had united their commands and were advancing upon Wise and Floyd caused General Lee to move at once to their support. He found General Floyd at Meadow Bluff and General Wise at Sewell Mountain. The latter position being very favorable for defense, the troops were concentrated there to await the threatened attack by Rosecrans, who advanced and took position in sight of General Lee's intrenched camp, and, having remained ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... persons he loved the feel of it in his fingers, the sensation of having it in his pocket. Smith was vain, in his way, and money satisfied his vanity. It gave him prestige, power, the attention he craved. He could call any flashy talker's bluff when his pockets were full of money. It imparted self-assurance. He could the better indulge his propensity for resenting slights, either real or fancied. Money would buy him out of trouble. Yes, Smith liked the feel of money. He took a roll of banknotes from the belt pocket ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart

... a bluff about half a mile from the ruins of what looked like an old fort, but which was now embedded in banks of clay and overgrown with moss and rank weeds, he found that the whole structure had been built ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood

... dangerous nonsense, and she rather wanted to say so. Most of her life had been passed among soldiers. Her father had been a general in the Artillery. Her two brothers were serving in India. Her husband had been a bluff and straightforward man of action, full of hard commonsense, and the sterling virtues that so often belong to the martinet. Mr. Amarinth and Lord Reggie were specimens of manhood totally strange to her—until now she had not realised ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

... told me to find fault like the mischief, and I'm going to call your bluff. This here's Montana, recollect, and I raise the long howl over them habiliments. The best thing you can do is pace along to the house and discard before the boys get sight of yuh. They'd queer yuh with the whole outfit, sure. Uh course," he went on soothingly when he saw ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower

... by the General Com'dg to say that he deems it advisable that you should move your Hd. Qrs. higher up the river, say in the vicinity of Webber's Falls or Pheasant Bluff. He is desirous that you should be somewhere near the Council when that body meets, so that any attempt of the enemy to interfere with their deliberations may be thwarted by you."—DUVAL to Cooper, April 22, 1863, Confederate Records, chap. 2, no. ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel

... before the flattery of the novelist, like the bloom of a plum before the breath of a boy, when he polishes the powdered fruit ere he devours it. No sooner had his Highness agreed to be changed into bluff Harry than the secret purpose of his adviser was immediately detected. No Court confessor, seduced by the vision of a red hat, ever betrayed the secrets of his sovereign with greater fervour than did von Chronicle labour ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... pard," said Dick confidently; "no ghost kin rake down the pot ag'in the keerds I've got here. This ain't no bluff!" ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... soil. Seward, Sumner, Chase, and John P. Hale had preceded him. Less favored than these senators in the advantages of early life, less powerful in debate, he yet brought to the common cause some qualities which they did not possess. His bluff address, his aggressive temper, his readiness to meet the champions of slavery in physical combat as well as in intellectual discussion, drew to him a large measure of ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... these faces are commonplace, with bourgeois cunning written on the heavy features; one is bluff, another stolid, a third bloated, a fourth stately. The sculptors have dealt fairly with all, and not one has the lineaments of utter baseness. To Cristoforo Solari's statues of Lodovico Sforza and his wife, Beatrice d'Este, the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... the most of a tranquil afternoon, where there was an armistice of storm, to climb the bluff of Mount Solaro. A ruined fort caps that limestone bulwark; and there we lay together, drinking the influences of sea, sun, and wind. Immeasurably deep beneath us plunged the precipices, deep, deep descending to a bay where fisher boats were rocking, diminished ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... seen by vessels coming from the eastward as soon as they rounded Cape Schank. It would also serve as a leading mark for navigating the southern channel, but the tower would require to be of considerable height to show the light over Shortland's Bluff ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... if you know what's good for you. Go to bed, or not, when I get my dogs outside, so help me, onto the sled you go. Mebbe you fooled with me, but I'll just see your bluff and take you in ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London

... interesting accompanied him in the shape of a young and beautiful wife. Not every geologist whose years have entered the fifties can go forth and capture in second marriage a charming New England girl, thirty years his junior. Yet those who knew Mr. Gale—his splendid physique, his bluff cordiality, the vigour of his various talk—were scarcely surprised. The young lady was no heiress; she had, in fact, been a school teacher, and might have wearied through her best years in that uncongenial pursuit. Transplanted ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... Dare. He wondered vaguely how he should look when he also took his place among his relations. Nature had favored him with a better mustache than most men, but he had a premonitory feeling that the very mustache itself, though undeniable in real life, would look out of keeping among these bluff, frank, light-haired people, of whom it seemed he—he who had never been near them before—was the ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... breeze this day was not so strong as the day before, and it veered out more, so that we had a fair wind to run in with to the shore, and at sunset anchored in twenty fathom, clean sand, about five leagues from the Bluff point, which was not a cape (as it appeared at a great distance), but the easternmost end of an island about five or six leagues in length, and one in breadth. There were three or four rocky islands about a league from us, between us and the Bluff point, and we ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton

... bad paper, eh? Come now, didn't you cash a check on the Cotton Exchange Bank for about six hundred dollars when there was only fifteen on deposit? Don't try to bluff me. I know your sort. Lucky if ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train

... Madam O'Connor only laughs heartily, and gives her a little smart blow on the shoulder with her fan. Olga laughs too, gayly, and Hermia lets her lips part with one of her rare but perfect smiles. If she likes any one besides Olga and her children, it is bluff and ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... popularity has descended to our time, in which he is admired by the unreflecting because of the boldness and dash of his actions and on account of the consequences of those actions, so that he is commonly known as "bluff King Hal," a title that speaks more as to the general estimate of his character than would a whole volume of professed personal panegyric, or of elaborate defence of his policy and his deeds. But this is not sufficient for those persons who would have reasons ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... fought in fierceness, now in peace we part. My luckless heart hath ever been the goal Sought by your sabres, but in vain, O Heart! Welcome to death amid the drum's far roll, Great souls, where I no more will dare your dart. 'Tis best to die where war's bluff banners wave, Swathed in your guerdon, "Bravest of ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw

... big bluff! Daddy'll be here in the morning sure!" That was what the attending nurse overheard of the parting. A minute after the door had shut, she discovered her little patient shedding silent tears for "daddy"; but he brightened quickly ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd

... a pity! (Dropping his sarcastic tone and facing him suddenly and seriously) Do you at all realize, sir, that we have nothing standing between us and destruction but our own bluff and the sheepishness of these colonists? They are men of the same English stock as ourselves: six to one of us (repeating it emphatically), six to one, sir; and nearly half our troops are Hessians, Brunswickers, German dragoons, and Indians with scalping knives. These are the countrymen on ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw

... great many times in San Francisco. Their most satisfactory residence was on a bluff on California Street. Their windows looked down on a lot of Chinese houses—"tin-can houses," they were called—small wooden shanties covered with beaten-out cans. Steve and Mark would look down on these houses, waiting until all the Chinamen were inside; then one of ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... mesa land that was half desert. Until then he had not known that her window saw so far; though it was not strange that he could see her light, since he was on the crest of a ridge higher than any other until one reached the bluff that held Sunlight Basin like a ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... as if the very devil was in it. The Englishmen treated his downright refusal to sell as a piece of bluff, and talked on as though it were merely the opening of the negotiation. When he became plain with them in his anger, and told them why he would not sell, they seemed to have been prepared for this as a stroke of business, and were ready to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... this," said Muhlenberg. "You are asking God to restore me, and I am asking God to take me home. There must not be any contradiction in our prayers, for it is evident that He cannot answer them both." This was characteristic of his bluff frankness, as well as of his ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... Charlton's manner—bluff, unceremonious, candid, at times rude. He treated women exactly as he treated men, and he treated all men as intimates, free and easy fellow travelers afoot upon a dusty, vulgar highway. She had found charm in that manner, so natural to the man of no pretense, ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... nearer, I'll sh-sh-shoot you dead!" quavered Ingred, wishing she had at least some semblance of a pistol to bluff with. ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... progressing for some time before the captain's arrival. In front of the bluff of rock blazed a fire made of birch and maple, and on a spit before this a huge piece of venison was roasting. A hideous old woman, with eyes like a rattlesnake, and draggled hair coloured like the moss upon an aged fir, stood by the spit, which every few moments she turned. ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... wolf's gray, was clipped all over within an inch of his head, and stood up like the bristles on a wild boar's back. His brows were bushy, and jutted, roof-like, over his deeply-sunken eyes; his nose was bluff as a bull-dog's; his cheek-bones were rough and high; his eyes were wide-set; his mouth was cut square across almost from ear to ear; his chin was square and massy; he had an Adam's apple as large as a gilly-flower ripening on his throat; his hands were large and bony, and ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee

... the bow of the canoe with his head leaning over the edge gazing abstractedly at his own reflected visage, while his hands trailed through the cool water, and his young dog—a shaggy indescribable beast with a bluff nose and a bushy tail—watched him intently, as a mother might watch an only child in a dangerous situation. And the old sun-dried, and storm-battered, and time-shrivelled mulatto trader, in those canoe they were embarked and ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... gasoline on you. She loaded her car with girls on purpose. There was no room to spare. She stopped it above the station yard and stayed there until after the train had come in. After a while she drove into the yard and out again. Not one of us set foot on the platform. It was a clever bluff and served ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... at once to invest Donelson, and sat down before it on the 12th with 15,000 men. The stronghold stood upon a bluff 100 feet high. On the east it was protected by the Cumberland River; on the north and south by two flooded creeks. Along a crest back of the fort a mile or two ran a semicircular line of rifle-pits, with abatis in front. Nine ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... I know; it may be half a mile deep and ten miles across, with a perpendicular bluff a thousand feet high on the ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis

... all track of time and place, trusting blindly to a downward course. The hurricane still harried them with unabated fury, when all at once they came to another bluff where the ground fell away abruptly. Without waiting to investigate whether the slope terminated in a drift or a precipice, they flung themselves over. Down they floundered, the two half-insensible men tangled together as if in a race for total oblivion, only to plunge through ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... this bit of suffrage to women, came out the next morning with a three-quarter-page picture of a beautiful woman, labeled New Orleans, on a prancing steed named Progress, dashing over a chasm entitled Sanitary Neglect and Commercial Stagnation, to a bluff called A Greater City, while in one corner was a female angel with wings outspread, designated as Victory. The two-page account ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... a huge rocky bluff, shooting out into the river more than half a mile from the shore, and rising, at its highest point, nearly two hundred feet. It was joined to the shore by a marshy neck of land, crossed by ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell

... many were married, and encumbered with families; not a few were already up in years; and this itself was out of tune with my imaginations, for the ideal emigrant should certainly be young. Again, I thought he should offer to the eye some bold type of humanity, with bluff or hawk-like features, and the stamp of an eager and pushing disposition. Now those around me were for the most part quiet, orderly, obedient citizens, family men broken by adversity, elderly youths who ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... all bluff!" cried a voice. "They know that by holding out they can get what they want. They'd cave in directly if we ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn

... fire, and the Government is now rebuilding it upon a more formidable scale. The Staten Island shore is lined with guns. At the water's edge is a powerful casemated battery, known as Fort Tompkins, mounting forty heavy guns. The bluff above is crowned with a large and formidable looking work, also of granite, known as Fort Richmond, mounting one hundred and forty guns. To the right and left of the fort, are Batteries Hudson, Morton, North Cliff, and South Cliff; mounting about eighty guns of heavy ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... git you once talkin' 'if-only,' the bluff is called," replied the smith, with a grin. "Now what are you needin' at ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels

... ain't just the sort of politics that you've been used to. But I'm kind of used to it myself. Had to pull the same game off over in Colfax County when I was runnin' for sheriff the first time. It worked, too, because the folks that was mixed up in it knowed I wasn't ringing in any bluff." He looked at Dunlavey with a level, steady gaze, his eyes gleaming coldly. "If you think I'm bluffing now, chirp for some one of your pluguglies to bust into this game. I'd sort of like to let off my campaign guns into ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... Mazeppa proved that he fully merited his master's sincere if inelegant praise. They got on capitally now, for Tom was in his proper sphere, and showed his best side, being civil and gay in the bluff boy-fashion that was natural to him; while Polly forgot to be shy, and liked this sort of "toughening" much better than the other. They laughed and talked, and kept taking "just one more," till the sunshine was all gone, ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... being displaced by General Sumner, offered his services to Jefferson Davis and was killed at Shiloh. Edward Baker, now a Senator from Oregon, left the halls of Congress for a Union command. At the head of the California volunteer regiment he charged the enemy at Ball's Bluff and fell, his body pierced by half a dozen bullets. Curiously different was the record of Broderick's old foeman, William Gwin. In October, 1861, he started East via the Isthmus of Panama, accompanied by Calhoun Benham, one of Terry's seconds in the fateful duel. ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... having meantime billeted himself in Colonel Baby's big brick house at Sandwich, issued a proclamation to the "inhabitants of Canada." As a sample of egotism, bluff and bombast it stands unrivalled. He told the inhabitants of Canada that he was in possession of their country, that an ocean and wilderness isolated them from England, whose tyranny he knew they felt. His grand army was ready to release ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey

... which gave the trouble is evidently in the hollow of one of the big waves that continue through the pressure ridges at Cape Crozier towards the Bluff. There are probably more of these waves, though we crossed several during the last part of the march—so far it seems that the soft parts are in patches only and do not extend the whole length of the hollow. Our course is to pick a way with ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... oldest engineer on the road, off duty, but a privileged character on all occasions, stepped from the gossiping crowd of loungers at a little distance. He swung up into the cab with the expert airiness of long usage. His bluff, hearty face expressed admiration and satisfaction, as his rapid eye took in the ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman

... be winning and still remain down-hearted, but this is not the case at Paris. The supposed fear of Germany is only political bluff. France fears no Germans. She fears nobody. Perhaps she ought to fear—for the far future. But she has always had a belief in herself and her way of doing things and an inbred contempt for other races as for barbarians, and it has only needed this colossal victory ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... avarice, cunning, bluff, campaigning with humor and natural forces. "The starry night and the majestic rivers might just as well be plaster-walls," she whispered. "What terrible occupations are these to make our brothers so dull, bald ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... drawn somewhat to Sandy. Quite close to these, round another fire, were grouped the three bachelor brothers Skyd, with their friend Dobson. At another, within earshot of these, were Edwin Brook and his wife, his daughter Gertrude, Scholtz and his wife, Junkie, George Dally, and Stephen Orpin, with bluff Hans Marais, who had somehow got acquainted with the Brook family, and seemed to prefer their society to ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne

... position of attention is "chest lifted; and arched." There should be a stretch upward at the waist. The position should give the impression of a man as proud of himself as he can be. This is a bluff which works, not only by making a good first impression on others, but by causing the man himself to ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker

... the party was brought up by a large, powerfully-built man, with a bluff, honest, but rugged countenance, slashed with many a cut and scar, and stamped with that surly, sturdy, bull-dog-like look, which an Englishman always delights to contemplate, because he conceives it to be ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... not upon the sea-beach to-day. I walked a mile or so along the sand, but did not find her. She had gone around the little bluff to our shark-line. This was a long rope, like a clothes-line, with a short chain at the end and a great hook, which was baited with a large piece of fish. It was thrown out every day, the land end tied to a stout stake driven into the sand, and the whole business ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... hand the ape-man held his heavy spear; but he had no intention of pitting his puny weapon against seven lions; yet he stood there growling and roaring and the lions did likewise. It was purely an exhibition of jungle bluff. Each was trying to frighten off the other. Neither wished to turn back and give way, nor did either at first desire to precipitate an encounter. The lions were fed sufficiently so as not to be goaded by pangs of hunger and as for Tarzan he seldom ate the meat of the carnivores; but ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... pump up water from the creek, and when he appeared they ordered him off without showing so much as a head. And he went, for the swiftness of the change had confused him; he was whipped before he began. There was no use to fight or to put up a bluff, the men behind the wall were determined; and while, according to law, they held no title the law was far away. It was a weapon for rich men who could afford to pay the price; but how could he, a poor man, hope to win back his ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... favoured the Southerner because the election of Jackson and Harrison convinced him that winning battles opened a sure way to the White House. But Thurlow Weed was not a stranger to Taylor's sympathies. He had satisfied himself that the bluff old warrior, though a native of Virginia and a Louisiana slave-holder, favoured domestic manufactures, opposed the admission of Texas, and had been a lifelong admirer of Henry Clay; and, with this information, he went to work, cautiously as was his ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... Denas to have your love, but there then! your brother is a fine, handsome young man, and—no offence, miss—it would not be a great honour for my little maid to have his love or the likelihood of it—and out of temptation is out of danger, miss, and if so be I do speak plain and bluff, you will not put it ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... had got to learn," etc. etc. etc. It seemed to me that the lesson which they had yet to learn was then in the process of being taught to them. They were anxious to be told all about the mischance at Ball's Bluff, but nobody would tell them anything about it. They wanted to know something of that blockade on the Potomac; but such knowledge was not good for them. "Pack them up in boxes, and send them home," one military gentleman said to me. And I began ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... Ottawa are a splendid pile of buildings, and though they may owe a great deal to the wonderful site they occupy on a semicircular wooded bluff projecting into the river, I should consider them one of the most successful group of buildings erected anywhere during the nineteenth century. All the details might not bear close examination, but the general effect was admirable, especially that of the great circular library, with its conical ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... there, rose ohia blossoms lighted shady places, orange flowers gleamed like stars amidst the dense leafage, and the crimped-leaved coffee shrubs were white with their mimic snow. It was my last tropical dream, and I was rudely roused by finding myself on the unsightly verge of the great bluff on the north side of this valley, which plunges to the sea with an uncompromising perpendicular dip of 2000 feet, and carries on its dizzy brow a shelving trail not more than two ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... leaped of a sudden the sun, And against him the cattle stood black every one, To stare through the mist at us galloping past, And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff river headland ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... coming on of Sidney Johnston a bad surprise for you?" "Oh, later in the war," said Sherman, "we no doubt should have done differently, but we got ready for them as they came on." "Was there not bad demoralisation," I said, "ten thousand or more skulkers huddled under the bluff on the Tennessee?" "Oh," said Sherman, "the rear of an army in battle is always a sorry place; but on the firing line, where I was, things did not look so bad."—"Your adversaries, General, were often good fellows, were they not, and you are good friends now?" "The best fellows ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... Over a bluff of rock fifty feet high the rivulet poured and in the spray they saw a rainbow. Down below where they stood ferns were rank and the rocks were soft with moss. Here they sat and chatted of nothing but themselves, he discovering faults in himself and she denying them, ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read

... he said, "remember you are Canadians." The line advanced with great spirit, less than two thousand Canadians against a hundred thousand Germans. It was the biggest bluff in history but it won. On and on went the Canadians, 10th and Highlanders, one moment with the bayonet the next moment firing. The Germans, who were busy digging in south of the wood, saw the Canadians coming in the twilight, ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... and, instead, is further provoked to action by the unintended actions of the aggressor. Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis' invasion of Kuwait demonstrate when this Potemkin Village model can backfire. Saddam simply let his bluff ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade

... that the main object of the Yuen-nan provincial government in employing two American engineers, who at the present moment (August, 1910) are surveying a route from Yuen-nan-fu to the Yangtze, is merely official bluff. It is preferable to pay two men a monthly stipend if the official "face" can be preserved and the Chinese dogged official procrastination be maintained, rather than to allow foreigners ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... over. And when it appeared that the two magistrates were bluff, good-humoured squires, who seemed to have no particular spite against anybody, and believed everything the clerk told them, the spirits of our heroes revived wonderfully, and Duffield's ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... Peace Conference on the basis of his appeal. Our declaration might be shown to have been actuated by Wilson's having sent us a direct request for our peace terms. President is of opinion that Note sent to him by the Entente was a piece of bluff which need not be taken seriously. He hopes definitely to bring about Peace Conferences, and quickly too, so that the unnecessary bloodshed of the Spring ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... seen the squire so near at hand. He was a tall man, over six feet high, and broad in proportion, and he had a bluff, rough-and-ready face, all roughened and reddened and lined in his long travels. His eyebrows were very black, and moved readily, and this gave him a look of some temper, not bad, you would say, but quick ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... The water-carrier—a bluff, sturdy fellow in his way—would have thanked the baron could he have kept quiet; but he stood roaring like a child, perfectly overcome with the kindness he had received. It was some months afterwards that Francois announced two visitors. When they appeared, I recognised my ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... shadow of madness. They kept a close watch over him; and at last Bowling Green, one of the most devoted friends Lincoln then had, took him home to his little log cabin, half a mile north of New Salem, under the brow of a big bluff. Here, under the loving care of Green and his good wife Nancy, Lincoln remained until he was ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various

... side of that big bluff just west of town. Oh, that's some story. The hermit lived there until about ten years ago. Some said he was a Jesuit priest who lived a hermit's life to become more holy, and others that he was an Italian Noble who had fled from Italy to ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... He told the girl that she should remain in hiding; but she refused to be left, saying that whatever fate was to be his, she intended to share it, so that he was at last forced to permit her to come with him. Through woods at the summit of the bluff they made their way toward the north and had gone but a short distance when the wood ended and before them they saw the waters of the inland sea and dimly in ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Keep up a big bluff! Daddy'll be here in the morning sure!" That was what the attending nurse overheard of the parting. A minute after the door had shut, she discovered her little patient shedding silent tears for "daddy"; but he brightened ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd

... to where he had left his clothes. Catching up the garments into a bundle he placed them further along the bank, on a little bluff that overlooked the edge of the lake. The clothes were ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young

... Sir Asher himself was unpicturesque. Indeed, he was the very picture of the bluff and burly Briton, white-bearded like Father Christmas. But he did not seem to lead to yonder vision of poetry and purity. Lady Aaronsberg, who might have supplied the missing link, was dead—before even arriving at ladyship, alas!—and ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... for Goyder was at Lake Torrens, where he found the water quite fresh. He described the Lake as stretching from fifteen to twenty miles to the north-west, with a water horizon, with an extensive bay forming to the southward; while to the north, a bluff headland and perpendicular cliffs were clearly to be discerned with the telescope. From the appearance of the flood-marks, Goyder came to the conclusion that there was little or no rise and fall in ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc

... joy in life lies in the anticipation of pleasure to come. I think there is a considerable amount of truth in this, and I am sure that not even bluff old King Hal setting out to hunt in the New Forest could have promised himself a greater treat than we did as we got ready for our tour in the land of the guanaco, and country ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... was bluffing; still it was possible he wasnt. In such a delicate situation there was nothing I could do but bluff in turn. If you are a good salesman, I always say, you must have psychology at your fingertips. "Very well, Mr Gootes; perhaps I shall see ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... folk-lore, and feareth neither pixie or graymarie, he can, on a spring night, just as the moon has entered her last quarter, and the first note from the belfry of the chapel in the frith has proclaimed the arrival of midnight, take his stand upon Blentford's Bluff and peer into the dark and sombre depths of Kinder, when he will hear the hooting of the barn owl on Anna rocks, the unearthly screech of the landrail as he ploughs his way through the unmown grass in search of his mate, the scream ...
— Buxton and its Medicinal Waters • Robert Ottiwell Gifford-Bennet

... characteristic yells of boisterous hilarity from their noontide gathering under a cottonwood somehow ceased when Mr. Bulger was seen gravely approaching, and his casual stopping before a poker party in the gulch actually caused one of the most reckless gamblers to weakly recede from "a bluff" and allow his adversary to sweep the board. After this it was felt that matters were becoming serious. There was no subsequent patrolling of the camp before the stranger's cabin. Their curiosity was singularly abated. A general feeling of repulsion, kept within ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... burst out, violently. "There's not a gram of metal inside the fourth zone—within a hundred thousand kilometers—and yet they must be close to send such a wave as that. But the Second thinks not—what do you think, Costigan?" The bluff commander, reactionary and of the old school as was his breed, was furious—baffled, raging inwardly to come to grips with the invisible and undetectable foe. Face to face with the inexplicable, however, he listened to the ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith

... a full day to correctly estimate the situation in Simiti. His bluff, hearty manner and genial good-nature constituted a passport to every house, and by midday he had talked with nearly every man in the pueblo. He called Jose and Rosendo for consultation during ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... being thus matutinary, in order to get to Terni in time to see the falls. The road was very striking and picturesque; but I remember nothing particularly, till we came to Borghetto, which stands on a bluff, with a broad valley sweeping round it, through the midst of which flows the Tiber. There is an old castle on a projecting point; and we saw other battlemented fortresses, of mediaeval date, along our way, forming more beautiful ruins than any ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... its long occupation into what proved to be an impregnable stronghold—one which so far, to the Boers' cost, maintained its promise—that Drew Lennox and Bob Dickenson returned after their unfortunate fishing expedition, the colonel, a bluff, sun-burnt, stern-looking officer, meeting them with a frown as they came up. "How many men ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn

... that night, and the next day, cautiously approaching a bluff that arose precipitously from the water, their hearts were gladdened by the sight of three men, standing on a bluff, excitedly beckoning to them, and shouting at the ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... joked as the evening advanced. And the night passed without any disturbance; although it was a little odd for them to be so close to a city, and hear the various sounds that floated down to them in their enclosure below the bluff. ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel

... revered by every amateur photographer. The father of Henry, Dr. John William, was a friend of Daguerre, and it is said that in this building was developed the first portrait negative. The dwelling is beautifully situated on the high river bluff and affords a wonderful view up and down ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine

... sneered, and Sandersen retorted fiercely: "Shut up! You know it ain't possible, but I ought to call your bluff." ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... James Weber Linn * The First Christmas-Tree. By Lucy Wheelock The First New England Christmas. By G.L. Stone and M.G. Fickett The Cratchits' Christmas Dinner. By Charles Dickens Christmas in Seventeen Seventy-Six. By Anne Hollingsworth Wharton * Christmas Under the Snow. By Olive Thorne Miller Mr. Bluff's Experience of Holidays. By Oliver Bell Bunce ** Master Sandy's Snapdragon. By Elbridge S. Brooks A Christmas Fairy. By John Strange Winter The Greatest of These. By Joseph Mills Hanson * Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe. By Elizabeth Harrison ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... still; let us up again and new through the canal of Piombino, touching at the isle of Elba, the "Great Emperor's" mimic domain; step into the town lying beneath this rocky bluff; which is crowned by a fort-it is Porto Ferrajo. Look off for a moment from this rocky eminence, back of the town, and see the wild beauty of these Tuscan mountains on the main land. Now, we will over to the Italian coast, and cross, if you will, from Leghorn to Florence. There, we are ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray

... linnet—almost flute-like in softness, while others prick and tingle like thistles. He is the mocking-bird of squirrels, pouring forth mixed chatter and song like a perennial fountain; barking like a dog, screaming like a hawk, chirping like a blackbird or a sparrow; while in bluff, audacious noisiness he is a ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various

... building. The navigation, however, proved so much better than had been expected that I thought for a time of the possibility of making this the route for obtaining a foothold on high land above Haines Bluff, Mississippi, and small class steamers were accordingly ordered for transporting an army that way. Major-General J. B. McPherson, commanding seventeenth army corps, was directed to have his corps in readiness to move by this route; and ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... Mellen in the woods he took a moment for consideration, and then walked quickly towards the shore tavern. As he turned a point which led from Piney Point to the bluff which overhung it, his servant, the young mulatto, who had spent most of the season at this retreat, came to meet him with ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... modified by a touch of doubt. I could see that these words, by lifting the accusation from the wholly absurd to the somewhat plausible, had impressed him. Once again I was gripped by the uneasy feeling that Sam had an unsuspected card to play. This might be bluff, but ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... a south-south-east direction, and at the end of one mile rounded a bluff point; the limestone hills to the eastward gradually decreased in elevation and we ascended one of them to gain a view of the surrounding country. I found that the summit of this range consisted of a terrace about half a mile wide, richly grassed ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... Bart. "We called their bluff. They thought we'd have a case of nerves when we saw them come rushing towards us. But we've seen those fellows' backs too often to be afraid ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall

... fishing near the mouth of Fall Creek. It was late in the afternoon. The Boy was passing on his way home from a point farther up the stream. Not more than twelve, but tall and strong for his age, he came along the rough path at the foot of the bluff with the easy movement and grace of a young deer. He checked a moment when he saw the Doctor, as a creature of the forest would pause at first sight of a human being. Then he came on again, his manner and bearing showing frank interest, and the clear, sunny face of him flushing ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... drooped his ears and tail, and trotted along as if he were reproaching me for my rashness. I was glancing out over the grey trouble of the sea, and watching the forlorn ships cowering along like belated ghosts, when I heard a click to the right of me. Looking up the bluff, I saw a tall powerful lad who had just straightened himself up. He had two rabbits slung over his shoulder, and his big bag seemed to contain many more. I walked towards him to have a look at what he was doing, and I found him manoeuvring with a great steel trap. When he had finished, ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... an athlete all right," said Billups. "When it comes to running up accounts, and jumping his board-bill, and lifting his voice, and throwing a thirty-two pound bluff, there isn't a gladiator in creation that can give my boy Tommie any kind of a handicap. He's just written for ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... July our well must needs dry up; the cows had not a drop of water to slake their thirst and they almost stopped giving milk. So when I was hard at it in the woods the mother went off to the river with a pail in either hand, and climbed the steep bluff eight or ten times together with these brimming, and her feet that slipped back in the running sand, till she had filled a barrel; and when the barrel was full she got it on a wheelbarrow, and wheeled it off herself to empty it into the big tub in the cow-pasture more than three ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... it comes, Harry!" he said. He spoke in the same bluff, hearty way he always did. He fairly shouted in my ear. "When did you hear from the boy? Are you and Mrs. ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder

... Babbage's two men returning with some of the horses for rations. They informed me that the water was nearly all gone, but that there was plenty in the Elizabeth, nineteen miles from Pernatta. I intended to keep on the track, but our black insisted that Pernatta lay through a gap, and not round the bluff. I allowed him to have his own way. Our route was through a very stony saddle. When there we saw a gum creek, and made for it; when we arrived at the creek he told us that was Pernatta. We looked for water, and found a little hole, which, to our great disappointment, contained salt water. Could ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart

... Mediterranean and may be distinguished at a great distance by its white buildings. The chain of mountains on the left of our road hither form a sort of arch to the chord of the linea Pia and terminates one end of the arch by meeting the linea Pia at Terracina, which forms what the sailors call a bluff point. Terracina stands on the situation of the ancient Anxur and the description of it by ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... bold fishermen, who knew the coast well, went out in their boats, hugging the rocky shore until the promontory was gained, and gathering up great heaps of driftwood on the edge of the bluff, set it on ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... good guesser, for just as he decided it fell to the Harmony halfback to make the attempt. The bluff was dazzling, and deceived nearly all the Chester players, so that it looked as though Oldsmith with the pigskin oval in his grip would have a clear field to the coveted place in the line where he could drop for a touchdown, ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... he had said to Eleanor, "this chap Holmes thinks—or he did think, at least—that I'd be scared by his ability to help or hurt a man in my profession in the city. But I think a whole lot of that is bluff on his part. I don't believe he can do as much as he thinks he can. And I don't know that I care a whole lot, anyhow. He hasn't gone out of his way to help me so far, and I've managed to get along pretty well. I guess I can do without him to the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart

... well, too, for I'd got half way through the soup before I notices anything the matter with it. My guess was that it tasted scorchy. I glances around at Vee, and finds she's just makin' a bluff at eatin' hers. Doris and Westy ain't even doin' that, and when I drops my spoon Doris signals to take it away. Which Cyril does, movin' as solemn and dignified as if he was usherin' at a funeral. Then there's a stage wait for three or four minutes before the fish ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... The flat as featly as the edge he plies, Of that good faulchion forged of stubborn grain; And, at strange blindman's bluff, in weary wise, Hammers on Dudon with such might and main, He often dazzles so the warrior's eyes, That hardly he his saddle can maintain. But to win better audience for my rhyme, My canto I defer ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... of Queensborough," I said, coolly, explaining to the bluff major. "His mania takes the form of a curious hatred for me, though I know not why. Two days since, he was put in arrest by my Lord's authority for threatening my life and that of his master's daughter. Now, it would seem, he has broken jail and ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... avenue, at the head of Circular street, and near the base of a high limestone bluff, in the northerly part of the village, a few rods above the Star Spring, and about three-fourths of a mile from the Congress. Owned by the Congress and Empire Spring Company. O.H. ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn

... said, was about seventeen years old, and big and strong of his age. He played well at all games where pluck wasn't much wanted, and managed generally to keep up appearances where it was; and having a bluff, off-hand manner, which passed for heartiness, and considerable powers of being pleasant when he liked, went down with the school in general for a good fellow enough. Even in the School-house, by dint of his command of money, the constant supply ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... time thereafter, moved slowly along the deserted road, where it ran like a winding ribbon over the top of a great bluff. A sea wind, coming in varying gusts, bent low the long grass and rustled in the bushes. The moon had escaped from behind dark clouds in a stormy sky and threw its rays far and wide. They imparted a frosty sheen to the wavy surface between ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... river, arriving by boat on the 7th. The town of Randolph, which formerly contained about three hundred inhabitants, is situated above high-water mark on a narrow strip of land nearly three hundred yards wide, behind which rises a bluff ninety feet high and very steep. On this bluff, overlooking the town and the river, we established our camp, and here commenced our real soldier's life. The daily routine was as follows: Reveille at 5 A.M.; drill from 51/2 to 71/2; breakfast, 71/2; fatigue call from 8 to 10; ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson

... man—his noble proportions, his fine features, and his frank bearing—fitted in with that jovial, man-to-man manner which he affected. Here, one would say, is a bluff, honest fellow, whose heart would be sound however rude his outspoken words might seem. It was only when those dead, dark eyes, deep and remorseless, were turned upon a man that he shrank within himself, feeling that he was face to face with an infinite possibility ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle

... 1840, it numbered in all not more than fifty houses, a few of them lodgings or humble cafes, but the greater part staid little whitewashed summer-dwellings with green verandas and occasional roof-balconies; set down irregularly, without street or system, along the sunny slopes of the bluff. Murray's Handbook for 1848 gives it passing notice, and disrespectfully styles it the dullest place upon earth for one having no resources of friends upon the spot. But in the modern edition of forty years later, the same manual has come to describe the place in a very different strain; ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... on the very peak of the ridge now, and the hill sloped smoothly down before them to the bluff which bounded Quitter Creek. Far down, a tiny black speck in the coulee-bottom, they could see Wooden Shoes riding along the creek-bank, scouting for water. From the way he rode, and from the fact that camp was nowhere in sight, Pink guessed shrewdly that his quest was in vain. ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower

... rustled and roared through the dark woods lining the shore, and then it would pipe afar off as if a reserve were advancing to aid in holding the ground already occupied; anon the echo of a force would be heard close in by the bluff bordering the stream, and in a moment more, it was sweeping with all its strength and pride of power down the broad surface of the glittering ice, as if the rightfulness of its invasion scorned resistance. Sullen ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... of Henry VIII., Catharine, and Anne Boleyn. "Bluff King Hal," although a well-loved monarch, was none too good a one in many ways. Of all his selfishness and unwarrantable acts, none was more discreditable than his divorce from Catharine, and his marriage to the beautiful Anne Boleyn. The King's love was as brief as it was vehement. ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... the shore to the northward, toward the little group of houses at the foot of the bluff, in one of which ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long

... August, 1854, what seemed to be the entire population of Wynyard's Bar was collected upon a little bluff which overlooked the rude wagon road that was the only approach to the settlement. In general appearance the men differed but little from ordinary miners, although the foreign element, shown in certain Spanish peculiarities of dress and color, predominated, ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... the Prophet! It is enough!" The Master's soul warmed toward the honesty of this bluff old Arab. "Thy magic is good magic. Give me thy salt, Frank, and ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... disagreed over the exact cause and nature of the weakness. It seemed all right. Smoky did not flinch from rubbing, though he did lift his foot away from strange hands. They questioned Bud, who could offer no positive information on the subject, except that once he and Smoky had rolled down a bluff together, and Smoky had been lame for a ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower

... their Majesties was erected on a stage in the shape of a semicircle, and covered with a bluff carpet studded with bees, and was reached by twenty-two steps. The throne, draped in red velvet, was also covered by a pavilion of the same color, the left wing of which extended over the Empress, the princesses, and their maids of honor, and the right over the two brothers ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... It was March; but the air was like summer. As soon as we had passed the first bend, the St. Johns appeared more like a far-reaching lake than a stream. The river is from one to six miles wide below Pilatka. The shores are never elevated, for there is not a bluff upon it that is more than thirty feet high, while generally the land is only a few feet above the level of the water. The highest elevation near the river ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic

... middle-aged gentleman reputed to be very rich. His name was Amos Sutterby. Mr Huntingdon had met him abroad in the second year after his marriage when taking a tour in Switzerland with his wife. Mr Sutterby was an old bachelor, rather bluff in his manners, but evidently in easy circumstances. The Huntingdons and himself had met on the Rigi, and the squire had taken to him at once—in a great measure, it may be, because Mr Amos was a good listener, and was very ready to ask Mr Huntingdon's opinion and advice. ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson

... said Miller, "but it was a woman's idea of a bluff, and it didn't go. She told us that before we urged her brother on to fight, we should have found out that he has spent the last five years in Paris, and that he's the gilt-edged pistol-shot of the salle d'armes in the Rue Scribe, that he can hit a scarf-pin at twenty paces. Of ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... same Sphinx!" he thought now, with a slight frown shading the bluff good-nature of his usual expression; "She is a woman who will face Death as she faces Time,—with that cold smile of hers which expresses nothing but scorn of all ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... from the woods; but there are mosquitoes everywhere, and the report that people have been driven away by them is manifestly untrue, for whoever comes to Jocelyn's remains. The beach at the foot of the bluff is almost a mile at its curve, and it is so smooth and hard that it glistens like polished marble when newly washed by the tide. It is true that you reach it from the top by a flight of eighty steps, but it was intended to have an elevator, like those near the Whirlpool at Niagara. In the mean ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... but prayer for his men to return to Rouen,—needless his message, and short our answer," said Vebba, the bluff thegn ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the first two miles it winds and twists its sandy way over bare hills, with cranberry swamps and marshy ponds in the hollows between. Then it enters upon a three-mile stretch bordered with scrubby pines and bayberry thickets, climbing at last a final hill to emerge upon the bluff with the ocean at its foot. And, fringing that bluff and clustering thickest in the lowlands just beyond, is the village of East Wellmouth, which must on no account be confused with South Wellmouth, or North Wellmouth, or West Wellmouth, or ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... the Mound-Builders was found near the Waterbury mine. Here, in the face of a vertical bluff, was discovered "an ancient, artificial, cavern-like recess, twenty-five feet in horizontal length, fifteen feet high, and twelve feet deep. In front of it is a pile of excavated rock on which are standing, in full size, ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin

... houses not very far away on the bluff along the river, and after a few inquiries, a white family was found that very kindly gave Miss Campbell shelter ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger

... heart's desire." The warriors applauded with loud "Ho! Ho!"[24] And he flung the brand to the drifting snow. Three times Wakawa puffed forth the smoke From his silent lips; then he slowly spoke: "Mahpiya is strong as the stout-armed oak That stands on the bluff by the windy plain, And laughs at the roar of the hurricane. He has slain the foe and the great Mato With his hissing arrow and deadly stroke My heart is swift but my tongue is slow. Let the warrior come to my lodge and smoke; He may bring the gifts;[25] but the ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... came into market he was bluff and cordial; with the people in general he was genial and good tempered. At meetings at which the county gentry were present he was quiet, businesslike, and a trifle deferential, showing that he recognized the difference between his position ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty

... a great mystery. Had you not met them after the fall over the bluff I would be inclined to say that that fall must have been accidental. But, as it is, it was premeditated, beyond a doubt. And you are certain that you never ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield

... brewers' servants, by means of ropes 420 and pulleys affixed to their drays, lowering down beer into, or drawing up empty casks from the cellars of public-houses. Now although this may be unavoidable, ask one of these bluff bipeds to let you pass, the consequence frequently will be, instead of rough civility, an insolent reply accompanied with vulgar oaths; in short, a torrent of abuse, if not a shove into the kennel; perhaps ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... and, having completed the preliminary commonplaces, said, as he hurled the core with an energetic sweep of his arm into the ocean at the base of the little bluff on which ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... and off they went on the pleasant ride through the city and out Broadway. As there was plenty of time, they drove through Shawnee Park and along the bluff overlooking the Ohio River creeping sluggishly past. Then they turned, and went a short mile to the entrance to ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt

... but slowly up that way; it is June before the woods have quite clothed themselves. In April the angler or the sketcher is chilled by the east wind, whirling showers of hail, and even when the riverbanks are sweet with primroses, the bluff tops of the border hills are often bleak with late snow. This state of things is less unpropitious to angling than might be expected. A hardy race of trout will sometimes rise freely to the artificial fly when the natural fly is destroyed, and the angler is almost blinded with ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... started as if he had heard the warning of a rattlesnake at his feet. Turning like a flash, he saw Mr. Warmore standing at his elbow. Had he received but a few seconds' notice, he might have tried to bluff it out, by pretending he had come to look after some matters about which he was not fully satisfied. Holding the situation he did in the establishment, he could feel certain no one would suspect him of ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis

... and I ain't a word to say agin it. It war just a piece of cussedness, and I have asked myself forty-eleven times since, what on arth made me make such a blame fool of myself. Afore that fellow came over to bluff me I hadn't no thought of following the waggons, but arter that I felt somehow as if he dared me to do it. I reckoned I was more nor a match for the two fellows who just jined them, and as for the greasy-faced chaps in black, I did not count them in, one way or the other. ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... breadth she 151has; why she's fit for any seas; and if the Arrow ever shoots past her, I'll forfeit every shot in my lockers." "Avast there! master Horace," said our master at the helm, who was an old Cowes pilot, and as bluff as a Deal sea-boat; "the Pearl is a noble sailer; but a bird can't fly without wings, nor a ship run thirteen knots an hour without a good stiff breeze. If the light winds prevail, the Arrow will have the advantage, particularly now she's cutter rigged, and ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... younger clerks came in and congratulated him with much heartiness. He was popular at his office, and they had got a step by his promotion. Then he met one or two of the elder clerks, and was congratulated with much less heartiness. "I suppose it's all right," said one bluff old gentleman. "My time is gone by, I know. I married too early to be able to wear a good coat when I was young, and I never was acquainted with any lords or lords' families." The sting of this was the sharper because Crosbie had begun to feel how absolutely ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... of July the Union forces were routed at Bull Run with terrific loss of life and many wounded. Two months later the battle of Ball's Bluff occurred, in which there were three Massachusetts regiments engaged, with many of Clara Barton's lifelong friends among them. By this time the hospitals and commissaries in Washington had been well organized, and there ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... of the chateau, although its architecture has been highly praised, did not impress us particularly. This may be because the mansion is situated on a level sweep of lawn, laid out after the English style, instead of crowning a great bluff like Blois, Amboise and Chaumont. The interior of Cheverny leaves nothing to be desired. It is elegant, aristocratic, and yet most delightfully homelike, with its spacious hall, richly decorated royal bedroom, and salon as livable ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

... Seraphim," he exclaimed. "I call upon them to suspend their singing for an instant, and to witness this. He sees that I patter of Miss Sandus. What perspicuity. And he just a mortal man, like anybody—nay, by all accounts, just a bluff country squire. Ah, what a noble understanding. Well, then, my dear Hawkshaw, since there's no concealing anything from you,—fine mouche, allez!—I own up. I patter ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... 1812, was a Jackson Democratic Representative in the days of the contest between "Old Hickory" and "Biddle's Bank." He was a type of a gentleman of the old school, and he recalled Washington Irving's picture of the master of Bracebridge Hall. The bluff and hearty manner, the corpulent person, and the open countenance of the General, his dress of the aristocratic blue and buff, and his gold- headed cane, all tallied with the descriptions of the English country gentleman of the olden time. He was greatly beloved in Ohio, and several anecdotes ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... a young man who owned the ranch next to ours, who, during the year, had ridden over to see us with increasing frequency. His name was Ralph Buckner, and he seemed to us to be a characteristic product of the West—with his large frame, bluff manners, and frank, open countenance. We all liked him, and the fact that he differed so much from the Eastern men I had known perhaps caused me to show a greater interest in him than I really felt. At all events, no girl was ever more genuinely surprised by an offer of marriage than ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... The dictionary definition is a ravine or gulch, but it also means a high bluff or cliff and in that sense is ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge

... all ready but the date! Let him get wind of this business, and you mark my words, Uncle Masterman will die in two days and be buried in a week. But see here, Johnny; what Michael can do, I can do. If he plays a game of bluff, so can I. If his father is to live for ever, by God, so ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... captain will be glad enough to have us celebrate—at our own expense," suggested a cadet in one corner, yet he did not mean what he said, knowing that bluff Captain Putnam, the owner and headmaster of Putnam Hall was whole-souled and ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield

... was there a stop made. There were two or three passengers on board for Bluff City, a new and prosperous mining camp, composed chiefly, though so late in the season, of tents. Lumber and supplies of different kinds had to be put off. As the entrance to the hold of the ship where the stores were kept was in ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... high bluff, northeast from the village of Mackinaw, half a mile from the mission house. Soon after the settlement of the modern Mackinaw, Capt. Robinson, of the English army, then commanding this port, had a summer house built on the brow of this bluff, now called Robinson's Folly, for ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland

... images, and dumpy pillars—his native cheekiness faded into most unwonted humility. For he was increasingly conscious of being, to put it vulgarly "up against something pretty big." Conscious of a personality altogether too secure of its own power to spread itself or, in the smallest degree, bluff or brag. Sir Charles Verity struck him, indeed, as calm to the confines of cynicism. He gave, but gave of his abundance, royally indifferent to the cost. There was plenty more where all this came from, of knowledge, of initiative and of thought. Only once or twice, during the course of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... occurred in October. On the night of the 20th two Massachusetts regiments crossed the Potomac at Ball's Bluff, a few miles above Washington, to surprise a hostile camp which according to rumor had been established there. A large force concealed in the woods attacked and forced them to retreat. They were re-enforced by 1,900 men under Colonel Baker. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... if you will pardon the expression, was a piece of bluff. You love Miss Parmenter perhaps as much as, though not possibly more than, I do, and therefore you would certainly not destroy the world as long as she was alive in it. You would be more or less than man if you did, and I don't ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith

... 1863, the Confederates held the Mississippi River only from Vicksburg to Port Hudson. The capture of these two towns would complete the opening of the river. Grant, therefore, determined to capture Vicksburg. The town stands on the top of a bluff which rises straight and steep from the river, and had been so strongly fortified on the land side that to take it seemed impossible. Grant, having failed in a direct advance through Mississippi, cut a canal across a bend in the river, on the west bank, hoping to divert ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... that there really was a considerable body of Protestant opinion in agreement with Lord Pirrie, and prepared to support Home Rule on "Liberal," if not on avowedly "Nationalist" principles, and that the policy for which Carson, Londonderry, and the Unionist Council stood was a gigantic piece of bluff which only required to be exposed ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... may be commended to any poet ingenious enough to find a rhyme for "scissors." The following is dated July 7th: "I should not forget to say that the gentle Mr. Bauer seldom forgets to add 'and Mrs. Flinders' good health' after the cloth is withdrawn, and even the bluff Mr. Bell does not forget you...Thou wilt write me volumes, my dearest love, wilt thou not? No pleasure is at all equal to that I receive from thy letters. The idea of how happy we MIGHT be will ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... went the hard, bluff soldier, who has as much iron in his composition as any man of his time sprang one of those human surprises that even war fails to emulate—when he listened time after time to the record that he loved better than most music, "I know that my ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... brave octave, and listened again. A distant cowbell tinkled from some willows in another meadow across the river, a breeze moved audibly by, and then the answer came. "Bob—Bob White?" it inquired from the top of a pine-covered bluff, round which the stream swept down in boulder-strewn rapids to its smoother course between the two meadows. It may be the name was not just that, but it was certainly two monosyllables! The listener stepped quickly ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... she had nothing, nothing to give him. For he had to go back, oh, he had to go back to-morrow, and he hated it so—they all hated it—the best of them! How clearly she saw through the superb, pitiful bluff, that it was all sport, "wonderful"! Wonderful? She knew, but she would never dare let Leonard see that ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway

... the politician remarked, with unwitting veracity. "Did the dern Dago bluff me, does he want more, er did he reely didn't un'erstand fer honest?" Then, as he took up his way, crossing the street at the warning of some red and green smallpox lanterns, "I'll git those seven votes, though, someway. I'm out fer a record this ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... make short work of it, General," he said, in his bluff, abrupt fashion. "It will come rattling about their heads, and they must take to the walls behind, and these will soon give way before a steady cannonade. Or if we take the cannon up to yonder heights of Rattlesnake Hill, we can fling our round shot within their breastwork ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... Mawruss. In fact, last week Mendel Immerglick struck me for new terms—ninety instead of sixty days—and he wanted to give me a couple of thousand dollar order. I turned him down cold, Mawruss. People what throw such a bluff like Mendel Immerglick don't give me no confidence, Mawruss. I'm willing to sell him up to five hundred at ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass

... a landmark. When they leave the Souris valley the hills are blue with distance and seem to promise wooded slopes, and maybe leaping streams, but a half-day's journey dispels the illusion, for when the traveller comes near enough to see the elevation as it is, it is only a rugged bluff, bald and bare, and blotched with clumps of mangy grass, with a fringe of stunted poplar at ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung

... did not return at night, and a horror seized the others, as they thought that he had been overtaken and killed by hostile Indians. Day after day the woods were scoured in the hope of finding the missing companion, but it seemed vain. A fort was erected for the protection of the party on a high bluff, and named for the lost hunter, Prudhomme. At last they met some Chickasaw Indians, and messages of amity were exchanged through them with the people of their village, not far distant. Soon afterwards Prudhomme was ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... they touched at one of the first of the South Sea Islands that they came in sight of, where scenes of the most unprecedented description took place between Corrie and a bluff old gentleman named Ole Thorwald, and a sweet, blue-eyed, fair-haired ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... his bluff way, "you all make great merit of risking property and life in this wretched teapot tempest; you all take credit for unchaining the Mohawks. But you give them no credit. What have the Iroquois to gain by aiding us? Why do they dig up the hatchet, hazarding ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... virtue! If you are only polite, there is nothing that you may not do. This is a school of manners, you know!" One of the men, Rose by name, laughed—a pleasant musical laugh. "I remember," he said, "that when I was a boy at Eton, my excellent but very bluff and rough old tutor called upon us, and was so much taken up with being hearty, that he knocked over the coal-scuttle, and didn't let anyone get a word in; and when he went off in a sort of whirlwind, my old aunt, who was an incisive lady, said in a meditative ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... begin; for she has always been severe upon our bluff old man, and it is not the spirit of contrariety alone which makes me invariably take his part. Coarse he may be, and not one whom the owners would have chosen to command the Lady Jermyn; a good seaman none the less, who brought us round ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... dashes forward of a few feet; and often we went astray on false scents, only to return finally to the last certain spot. In this manner we crossed the little plain with the scattered shrub trees and arrived at the edge of the low bluff ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... and slender sprouts, as he rolled down the almost perpendicular bluff, Stacy yelled lustily for help. From the soft, sandy soil the weeds came away in his hands, without in the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin

... back there, quivering and unable to speak. I was so unnerved; but I saw the other gentleman hand a flask to the bluff-looking man who had saved me, and I saw him take a hearty draught and draw long breath, after which he ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn

... deep and broken canon, on the north by a creek which ran through a forest of scattered juniper trees. The plateau rose in two gentle slopes to a height of about five or six hundred feet above the valley level, and was thus half as high as the bluff to the westward, which formed the base of the semi-circle. Near the northern part of the plateau the rocks were elevated in a series of irregular broken peaks, like the jagged ice hummocks of the higher latitudes. The whole plateau was covered with enormous boulders, over ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... a little bit of gold rolled over the table to the doctor, from a bluff-looking gentleman opposite—it was well aimed—"There, doctor! there's your fee; but don't you begin again prating a parcel of stuff to my wife about her complaints—she is quite well—and if you frighten her into illness, take notice, you will get a different ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... Wrangell Narrows, that tortuous and narrow passage between Mitkof and Kupreanof Islands, past Norris Glacier with its far-flung shaft of ice appearing above the forests as if suspended in air; past the bold Pt. Windham with its bluff of three thousand feet frowning upon the waters of Prince Frederick Sound; across Port Houghton, whose deep fiord had no ice in it and, therefore, was not worthy of an extended visit. We made all haste, for Muir was, ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young

... insanity—the London "Times" called them ravings. The people, in gratitude for the past, and in anxiety for the future, outbid one another in servility to Russia. They despise Austria-Hungary as powerless, for internal and external reasons. The serious words of our statesmen are regarded as "bluff." ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... on towards the Sieur Rudel's home-coming, and ever the twain looked out across the sea for the black boats to round the bluff and take the beach—Joceliande from her balcony, Solita from the window of her little chamber in the tower; and each night the princess gave orders to light a beacon on the highest headland that the wayfarers might steer safely down that red path ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... that part of the road which ran below the doctor's house. The moon swam clear; the cliffs and mountains in this strong light lay utterly deserted; but the house, from its station on the top of the long slope and close under the bluff, not only shone abroad from every window like a place of festival, but from the great chimney at the west end poured forth a coil of smoke so thick and so voluminous, that it hung for miles along the windless night-air, and its shadow lay far abroad in the moonlight upon the glittering alkali. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... try to make good; no bluff. Won't compromise inside limit set. Have seen paper and wish another interview before following original instructions. Party will wait forty-eight hours before acting. Where can you be seen? ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... matter, Melchior," said the broad-shouldered, bluff, sturdy-looking Englishman. "I don't want to ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... how poor the prate Of statute and state, We once held with these fellows— Here, on the flood's pale-green, Hark how he bellows, Each bluff old Sea-Lawyer! Talk to them, Dahlgren, Parrott, ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)

... challenge, I'll take it!" Then he added; and his face went hot as her own: "As to the freebooters of the Western Wilderness ripping the bowels out of public property out here, I'll accept that challenge, too! We'll put up a bluff of a ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... you may be as bluff as you please; but, when the Captain is a little cool, I shall expict to receive a bit of a message from him; or may I never look on the bald pate of the blessed Peter but he shall receive a bit of a message from me. And so ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... rail was almost under water when the heavy squalls swooped down on her from the cliffs. The rest of the squadron was keeping some distance out, presenting a fine sight as the ships lay over, sending the spray flying high into the air from their bluff bows, and plunging ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... to this, me and the Sweet Caps Kid has been sojourning in that favored metropolis which is bounded on one side by a loud Sound and on the other by a steep Bluff, and is doing her constant best at all times to live up to the surroundings. Needless to say, I refer to little Noo Yawk, the original haunt of the come-on and the native habitat of the sure thing, where the ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... are commonplace, with bourgeois cunning written on the heavy features; one is bluff, another stolid, a third bloated, a fourth stately. The sculptors have dealt fairly with all, and not one has the lineaments of utter baseness. To Cristoforo Solari's statues of Lodovico Sforza and his wife, Beatrice d'Este, the palm of excellence ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... any point for an interior beyond the range of the human eye, when standing upon the summits of the highest mountains, after having traversed their shores. The latter are uniformly rock-bound, frequently bluff or precipitous for from 25 to 1500 feet, with generally very limited borders of level country, the base of the steep mountains reaching down to the sea, with but narrow foothill slopes. There are occasional short ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden

... supernatural glory. Far to the north-east was Nordkyn, the most northern point of the mainland of Europe, gleaming rosily and faint in the full beams of the sun, and just as our watches denoted midnight the North Cape appeared to the westward—a long line of purple bluff, presenting a vertical front of nine hundred feet in height to the Polar Sea. Midway between those two magnificent headlands stood the Midnight Sun, shining on us with subdued fires, and with the gorgeous colouring of an hour for which we have no name, since it is neither sunset nor sunrise, ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... therefore, to halt, and the Indians again made demonstrations of friendship, some of them even getting into the stream to show that they were at the ford. Thus reassured, we regained our confidence and boldly crossed the river in the midst of them. After we had gained the bluff on the other side of the creek, I looked down into the valley of Pit River, and could plainly see the camp of the surveying party. Its proximity was the influence which had doubtless caused the peaceable conduct of the Indians. Probably the only thing that ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan

... just bluff on Sawkins's part, but having heard that the Bishop of Santa Martha was in the city, Sawkins sent him two loaves of sugar as a present, and reminded the prelate that he had been his prisoner five ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... of July our well must needs dry up; the cows had not a drop of water to slake their thirst and they almost stopped giving milk. So when I was hard at it in the woods the mother went off to the river with a pail in either hand, and climbed the steep bluff eight or ten times together with these brimming, and her feet that slipped back in the running sand, till she had filled a barrel; and when the barrel was full she got it on a wheelbarrow, and wheeled it off herself ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... to the distance of eight or ten miles to their confederates. This is done in two ways: first, by lighting one or more fires; secondly, by flashing the sunlight by small mirrors from one bluff to another. Thus, by day or by night, they can communicate at great distances. They have ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle

... bring the vessel round, and lay to about a quarter of a mile o' the coast. At dusk I'm to put off in a skiff and row to Pine Bluff, and lay under its shadow till I hear your signal. Then I'm to put to ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... North American colonies, then in a state of revolution, and passed the winter of 1782 in the city of New York. He is still borne in lively recollection by many of the elder inhabitants of that city, as a fine bluff boy of sixteen: frank, cheery, and affable; and there are anecdotes still told of his frolicsome pranks on shipboard. Among these, is the story of a rough, though favourite, nautical joke, which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various

... "I think this is a time for a big bluff. It may work and it may not. Beecher's crowd either has the map or they have not. If they have it they will lose no time in trying to find the right place to start digging ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton

... Scottish birth. The most familiar example of whipping-boy is mentioned by Fuller in his "Church History." His name was Barnaby Fitzpatrick, and the prince whose punishments he bore was Edward, son of bluff King Hal, who was afterwards Edward ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... could see the surprise in his face at Joan's beauty and extreme youth, and one could see, too, by Joan's glad smile, that it made her happy to get sight of this hero of her childhood at last. La Hire bowed low, with his helmet in his gauntleted hand, and made a bluff but handsome little speech with hardly an oath in it, and one could see that those two took to ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... that bluff and get away with it with Old Man Wright—and no one else, especial me—and to see Old Man Wright worrying, trying to figure out what was wrong, and not being able to—that was the hardest thing any of us ever tried. The way he worked to make ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough

... softly. "We had to bluff it out of him, but he came across. Sold the pistols to Carl Gwinnett. We're going, now, to pick ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... hastened to prune the branches of the kamani tree (Calophyllum inophyllum), so that the bluff should grow upward. And the bluff rose, and Kana grew. Thus they strove, the bluff rising higher and Kana growing taller, until he became as the stalk of a banana leaf, and gradually spun himself out till he was no thicker than a strand of a spider's web, and at last ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various

... before my departure for the interior: 'Since you are going to study Japanese life, perhaps you will be able to find out something for me. I can't understand the Japanese smile. Let me tell you one experience out of many. One day, as I was driving down from the Bluff, I saw an empty kuruma coming up on the wrong side of the curve. I could not have pulled up in time if I had tried; but I didn't try, because I didn't think there was any particular danger. I only yelled to the man in Japanese to get to ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... bandy-legged, with rat-eyes and a much-broken hooked nose. His defiant air was obviously a pretense, a weapon of protection borrowed from that world of snarl and snap, of physical bluff and physical menace, in which he had always lived. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... result of his conference with Fairfax, I at once said that Barbour was a coward and would not fight at all. I knew perfectly well that such terms could come only from a bully. I saw that it was a game of bluff he was playing. So I told Mott to accept them by all means. Mott accordingly called on Fairfax and accepted the terms as proposed, and gave notice that I would be on hand and ready at the time and place designated. This being reported to Barbour, Fairfax soon afterwards ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham

... keep his charge on his feet, a cab rushed across the tracks. Its driver, bluff Bill Carey, nodded familiarly to Bart, and looked the colonel over critically. He got the latter into the cab in an ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman

... dark cosy manor-house, all was very new to one used to Oxford, and to London, and to little else of England. And all was delightful. Even Mark's guardian seemed to her delightful. For Gordy, when absolutely forced to face an unknown woman, could bring to the encounter a certain bluff ingratiation. His sister, too, Mrs. Doone, with her faded ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... dominion of fire to that of water. Past low cliffs of ash and volcanic boulder, sloping westward to the sea, which is eating them fast away, the steamer runs in through a deep crack, a pistol-shot in width. On the east side a strange section of gray lava and ash is gnawn into caves. On the right, a bluff rock of black lava dips sheer into water several fathoms deep; and you anchor at once inside an irregular group of craters, having passed through a gap in one of their sides, which has probably been torn out by a lava flow. Whether the land, at the time of the flow, was higher or lower than ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... is a representation of one of them, found under such circumstances that there can be no question about its antiquity. We are told it was taken from the face of the bluff fronting the river. Owing to heavy rains, a large section off of the front of the bluff became detached just the day before this specimen was discovered. It was found in the fresh surface thus exposed, twenty-one feet from the surface, almost at the bottom ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen

... undetermined, from the Pearl River, Roses Bluff, 14 miles northeast Jackson, Rankin County, Mississippi; obtained by William F. Childers on ...
— Description of a New Softshell Turtle From the Southeastern United States • Robert G. Webb

... great that it seemed to me I had never been wetter except in a bathtub. As we descended to lower levels the valley broadened out, and the going improved so that we were able to make very good time. At one point, after passing through a little hamlet,—we came out on a high bluff overlooking a good-sized stream flowing in from the south. Fifty feet below roared the river, spanned at this place by a suspension bridge a hundred and fifty feet long, constructed of three iron ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... and the weather set fair, and but for the sea-mist the power of the sun would have been enough to dazzle all beholders. Already this vapour was beginning to clear off, coiling up in fleecy wisps above the glistening water, but clinging still to any bluff or cliff ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... in a loud, bluff, rather rich voice; and the next minute Archie was face to face with the fine-looking, white-haired, florid Major in command of the infantry detachment stationed at Campong Dang in support of Her Majesty's Resident, ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... which rained around Drury's Bluff, a boyish officer led a column of riflemen, gallant and daring. His uniform was soiled with the grim dirt of many a battle, but his bright blue eye took in every feature of the conflict. The day was just closing when an angry bullet pierced his throat as he was ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... ever to have seen a more ruffianly-looking fellow: he was about six feet high, with an immensely athletic frame; his face was black and bluff, and sported an immense pair of whiskers, but with here and there a grey hair, for his age could not be much under fifty. He wore a faded blue frock coat, corduroys, and highlows—on his black head was a kind of red ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow

... quiet pools where the good salmon goes to smoke his pipe after meals. Set such a stream amid fields of breast-high crops surrounded by hills of pine, throw in where you please quiet water, log-fenced meadows, and a hundred foot bluff to keep the scenery from growing too monotonous, and you will get some faint notion ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... "Don't try and bluff me, sir," roared the other. "You know perfectly well that that car was stolen from the outskirts of Bloodstock only a few hours ago. You're a receiver, sir, a common——" He checked himself with an effort. "Inspector!" The officer addressed came ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... grand of soul; We fought in fierceness, now in peace we part. My luckless heart hath ever been the goal Sought by your sabres, but in vain, O Heart! Welcome to death amid the drum's far roll, Great souls, where I no more will dare your dart. 'Tis best to die where war's bluff banners wave, Swathed in your guerdon, "Bravest of ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw

... and peas; Such food the fangs of keen disease defies, And such rare feeding Hornsey-house supplies: Nor these alone the joys that court us here, Wine! generous wine! that drowns corroding care, Asserts its empire in the glittering bowl, And pours Promethean vigour o'er the soul. Here, too, that bluff John Bull, whose blood boils high At such base wares of foreign luxury; Who scorns to revel in imported cheer, Who prides in perry, and exults in beer: On these his surly virtue shall regale, With quickening cyder, ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent

... by absurd speculations about her. If she did have a definite object in spying on Ferguson, the solitaire diamond on her engagement finger might be a bluff; her cheap manner, so out of keeping with refinement of feature and dress,—that might be faked likewise. If she were one of these female detectives you read about, who had hired her? Was she in the pay of Nickleby? If she were, it was Kendrick's duty to keep an ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... country is due for a lesson. It was anxious enough to get into trouble, and now we'll find how it likes some severe instruction. All the news here is bluff—the national asset. What I hope is that business won't be entirely ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... 'I am thinking about Tom Gradgrind's whim;' Tom Gradgrind, for a bluff independent manner of speaking - as if somebody were always endeavouring to bribe him with immense sums to say Thomas, and he wouldn't; 'Tom Gradgrind's whim, ma'am, of bringing up ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... disapproving head. "When it's after the draw," he said, "and you ain't got a thing in yore hand, and the other gents have everything and know they have everything to yore nothing, she's poor poker to make a bluff. Whatsa use, ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... the vain, proud, tempestuous daughter of "bluff King Hal." Already an old woman, she yet affected the dress and carriage of young maidenhood, possessing unimpaired the vanity of a youthful beauty, and, despite her growing ugliness, commanding the gallant attentions that ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... completion of these arrangements we found that we were getting into close proximity with our foes, the masts of the feluccas opening out simultaneously from behind a high bluff, and showing over a sloping spur or point of the island between them and ourselves. We accordingly got the boats into line, the men braced themselves for a dash, and in another minute or two the boats were unmasked by rounding the point. Even then we managed to get ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... still does battle in the streets of Corry with the four thousand, who have not yet found time to get out the stumps of the hastily felled trees, to "improve" a wild water-course that dashes down from the bluff and crosses the main street between a tailor's shop and a restaurant, or even to trample to death the wildwood ferns and forest flowers which linger on its margin. When the Coriolanians have attended to these little matters, their city will look even newer than at present. Then shall their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... to a flight of wooden stairs, leading somewhere into the club. It was our last chance, or we should indeed be obliged to stay all night in some bin; for it would not be long before they searched the cellars. If this flight led into the kitchen, we were saved, for I could bluff the servants. We paused. Presently we ascended, side by side, with light but firm step. We reached the landing in front of the door without mishap. From somewhere came a puff of air which blew out the candle. ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath

... a great many times in San Francisco. Their most satisfactory residence was on a bluff on California Street. Their windows looked down on a lot of Chinese houses—"tin-can houses," they were called—small wooden shanties covered with beaten-out cans. Steve and Mark would look down on these ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... whom I have mentioned more than once, is an odd figure, with his bluff, red face,—coarsely red,—set in silver hair,— his clumsy legs, which he moves in a strange straddle, using, I believe, a broomstick for a staff. The breadth of back of these fat ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... such circumstances, a bluff and hearty stoicism as remote as possible from Mrs. Peyton's deprecating evasion of facts. It was a bad business; he was sorry Kate should have been mixed up with it; but she would be married soon now, and then she would see that life wasn't exactly a Sunday-school ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton

... soon get to an ostrog that was only about twenty or thirty versts distant. They had not proceeded far before Spiridon saw the tracks of some reindeer; he therefore made his companions stop, and, taking his gun, walked gently round a high bluff on the coast, whither the deer had gone, and had the good fortune to shoot one of them. His companions no sooner heard the noise of the gun than they came to him. They cut the throat of the deer immediately, and drank his blood while warm. Spiridon said that they felt their strength revived ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... why she's fit for any seas; and if the Arrow ever shoots past her, I'll forfeit every shot in my lockers." "Avast there! master Horace," said our master at the helm, who was an old Cowes pilot, and as bluff as a Deal sea-boat; "the Pearl is a noble sailer; but a bird can't fly without wings, nor a ship run thirteen knots an hour without a good stiff breeze. If the light winds prevail, the Arrow will have the advantage, particularly now she's ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... sea. The great plain of Biguglia lay to the left under a soft blanket of mist, as deadly they say, as any African miasma, above which the distant mountains raised summits already tinged with rose. Ahead and close at hand, the old town of Bastia jutted out into the sea, the bluff Genoese bastion concealing the harbour from view. De Vasselot had never been to Bastia, which Casabianda described as a great and bewildering city, where the unwary might soon lose himself. The man of incomprehensible speech was, therefore, sent ashore to conduct Lory to the ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman

... have handled him as Clancy had any more than I could have hove a barrel of salt mackerel over my head, which was what the strong fishermen of the port were doing about that time to prove their strength; but the bluff went, and I couldn't help throwing out my chest as I went out the door and thinking that I was getting to be a great judge of ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly

... call on you," said Bud, as though he had great plans in preparation. As a matter of fact, as he admitted later, he really did not know what he was going to do, but he was not going to admit that to his father. In other words he was "putting up a bluff," and I have some reason for suspecting that Mr. Merkel knew this. However he gave no sign. In spite of the pie, cake and other good things set out by Nell and Mrs. Merkel, Bud and his chums decided to ride back to their camp that night. It was dark at the start, ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker

... Joe softly, taking it whether the astonished vintner would or no. 'Don't fear to shake it; it's a friendly one and a hearty one, though it has no fellow. Why, how well you look and how bluff you are! And you—God bless you, sir. Take heart, take heart. We'll find them. Be of good cheer; we have ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... will save me one?" asked Caroline composedly, and as she spoke she walked to the edge of the bluff and looked down into ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... served for several years as Agent of Lawrence University, and then entered upon the project of founding an Institution of learning at Point Bluff. The selection of a location, however, was unfortunate, and his expectations were only partially realized. After this disaster he addressed himself to ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller

... before this occurrence I had directed my party to proceed to the village, as I had discovered a smoke ascending from a hollow in the bluff, and wished to go alone to the place from whence the smoke proceeded, to see who was there. I approached the spot, and when I came in view of the fire, I saw an old man sitting in sorrow beneath a mat which he had stretched over him. At any other time I would have turned ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk

... One bluff, good-humoured fellow took me off to see his house and family. I may as well admit, here, that I am not a good linguist, and usually left our ladies to do the talking! But on this occasion I found myself, for the first time, ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne

... demonstration of direct attack should be made by part of the troops, while the main body should move rapidly down the St. Lawrence to Madrid (or Hamilton),[106] in New York, and cross there to the Canadian side, seizing and fortifying a bluff on the north bank to control the road and river. This done, the rest of the force should march upon Montreal. The army division on Champlain was to co-operate by a simultaneous movement and subsequent junction. The project, in general outline, had been approved by the President. In transmitting ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... wherever chance might lead me. As confidence came, my enjoyment increased. I began to believe I could take care of myself. I reasoned out that, as the peaks were snow-capped, I should find water, and very likely game, up higher. Moreover, I might climb a foothill or bluff from which I ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey

... all together in the parlor. The Princess had gone somewhere with one of her numerous adorers, whom she had failed to bluff off as she generally does: the young man was going to cast himself into the sea, I believe, and I told her she had better let him and be done with it, but she said he had a widowed mother and several sisters, and ought to live long enough to leave them comfortably ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... left bluff of the river, mile after mile, under the edge of the great town whose chimneys belched black smoke, noting railway train after train, their own impudent little motors making as much noise as the next ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough

... late in the afternoon, and I was hunting with an old Chinese when we discovered three pigs—a huge boar, a sow, and a shote—crossing an open hill. Crawling on my face, I reached a rock not seventy yards from the animals. At the first shot the boar pitched over the bluff into a tangle of thorns, squealing wildly. My second bullet broke the shoulder of the sow, and I had a mad chase through a patch of ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... which extends for a number of miles along the base of the mountains at once attracts our attention. The steep face of the bluff, which is from fifty to seventy-five feet high, appears to have been formed by a rising of the land upon the side next the mountains, or a dropping upon the valley side. There are reasons for believing that ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks

... behind a jutting spur of a bluff a horde of shadows sweep forth upon the open prairie towards the trail on which the solitary rider has disappeared. Here and there among them swift gleams, like silver streaks, are plainly seen, as the ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... the type which for many years we have striven to present to the contemplation of the outside world as the perfect Englishman. He is a bluff, hearty fellow, without serious vices, without, also, serious virtues; he has, of course, a perfect self-satisfaction, and a deep and unconscious selfishness, tempered by an easy good-nature and a superficial benevolence, of wishing to get on ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland

... like a cat to a fish. They was together more'n half the time, gitting up sailing parties, or playing croquet, or setting up on the "Lover's Nest," which was a kind of slab summer-house Brown had rigged up on the bluff where Aunt Sophrony's pig-pens used to be ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... district kadi, a venerable-looking and genial old gentleman whose acquaintance we had made in an official visit on the previous day, as he was then the acting caimacam (mayor). His house was situated in a neighboring valley in the shadow of a towering bluff. We were ushered into the selamluek, or guest apartment, in company with an Armenian friend who had been educated as a doctor in America, and who had consented to act ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... of accoutrements a cavalcade of horsemen descended the bluff to the tiny cove. Enoch recognized Colonel Allen, Major Warner, the stranger, Arnold, and Colonel Easton, the commander of the Massachusetts and Connecticut forces. "Praise the Lord, 'Siah!" cried the hearty voice of the Green Mountain leader. "We're ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster

... to apologise for being an Englishman! I confessed that I had listened to the two speeches, but their brilliancy and wit were entirely lost upon me; the subtle humour of the American passed an Englishman's understanding. Their personalities and political passages were no doubt ingenious "bluff," but so cleverly serious and so well acted that I had for four-fifths of the acrimonious speeches been entirely taken in. At this all laughed loud at my stupidity, and ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... hab der cabins whitewashed an' lookin' like new pins, an' look arter dere chillen. Sometimes she'd try to git ole Marse to take dere part when de oberseer got too mean. But she might as well a sung hymns to a dead horse. All her putty talk war like porin water on a goose's back. He'd jis' bluff her off, an' tell her she didn't run dat plantation, and not for her to bring him any nigger news. I never thought ole Marster war good to her. I often ketched her crying, an' she'd say she had de headache, but I thought it war de heartache. 'Fore ole Marster ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... also doubtful about Thormanby's reception of the book. He ought to be pleased, for he appears in my pages as a bluff, straightforward nobleman, devoted to the public good and full of sound common-sense though slightly choleric. This is exactly what he is; but I have noticed that people are not always pleased ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham

... faced the highroad some five miles from the Karnian border. It stood on a bluff over the river, and was, as the Crown Prince decided, not so unlike the desk, after all, except that it ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... trousers leg a bar of railroad iron and drove it to the hilt in the breast of the Frenchman, not, however, till the Frenchman had drawn from his pistol pocket a 300 ton Krupp gun and sent a solid shot weighing 280 pounds crashing into the skull of the Indian, and both rolled to the bottom of the bluff, dead. Dr. Hall, of Baraboo, was called, and he probed for the ball, but could not find it, and neither could he get the bar of railroad iron out of the Frenchman, and so they were buried on the spot where now stands the Cliff House. The squaw looked around for another fellow, but ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... would have said Soule was a root that had been planted in fat, loamy ground, to look at him. There was a healthy, liberal, lazy life for you! Yet the winter sky looked gray and dumb when he passed the window, and the fire-light broke fiercest against his bluff figure going to and fro. No matter; something there that would have warmed your heart to him: something genial, careless, big-natured, from the loose red hair to the indolent, portly stride. "Who knows? A comfortable, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... included such luxuries as tinned and compressed vegetables, condensed milk, &c. Jensen did not even think of ship's biscuits until I called his attention to the oversight. He demurred at first about buying them, but I told him I would not go until we had the biscuits aboard. Jensen was a very bluff, enigmatic sort of fellow, as I afterwards found out. He was of a sullen, morose nature, and I could never get much out of him about his past. He would not speak about himself under any circumstances, and at no time of our acquaintance was ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... seemed to think she had said enough, for her son was generally a very obedient boy, and she turned to walk up the bluff towards the house. But she knew enough about the management of a boat to perceive that, in this instance, her order was ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams

... and worshiped in private houses. They then built a meeting-house, near the river bluff, on the farm of Bro. David Floyd. It was of hewed logs, and primitive in architecture. It was called Mt. Olivet. They met every Lord's day to break bread, to worship God and to edify one another in love. Much of the long-continued prosperity of the Mt. Byrd church is doubtless due to ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... of the sunset heaven On land and water lay; On the steep hills of Agawam, On cape, and bluff, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... morning when a change of season had influenced him, he would slowly stride up and down the porch, seeming to shake with joviality as he walked. Years ago he had served as captain of a large steamboat, and this at times gave him an air of bluff authority. He was a successful river man, and was therefore noted for the vigor and newness of his profanity. His wife was deeply religious, and year after year she besought him to join the church, pleaded with him at evening when the two children were kissed good night—and ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read

... altogether misconstrued. The "reasonable" was only in comparison with the stormy interview of the day before, when the Superintendent attacked me most fiercely. When I began the second interview by saying I wished to resign, he changed front altogether. It had been purely a game of bluff on ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.

... and regret of them in the foreign land, had conspired together to keep their vivifying principle, and cause its growth after the poor girl was buried. Be that as it might, in this grave had been hidden from sight many a broad, bluff visage of husbandman, who had been taught to plough among the hereditary furrows that had been ameliorated by the crumble of ages: much had these sturdy laborers grumbled at the great roots that obstructed their toil in these fresh acres. ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... boy," began Owen in his bluff, cheery way when they had retired to the study for coffee and cigars, "I am in a difficulty, I must ask you some questions that may embarrass you—it's the ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... had never heard of Stuffer, but he played his meagre hand with a winning bluff. The boundary line between detectivism and poker ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... had been busy repairing damages, the carpenters below stopping shot-holes, the rest of the crew on deck knotting and splicing the rigging. Some way ahead was seen a lofty bluff with a range of cliffs, which, the chart showed, extended far along the shore; a shoal ran off it, so the brig had of necessity to steer some distance ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... drunk hot and strong, gave the world a brighter aspect. Casey decided that the situation was not so desperate, after all. Easy enough to bluff it out—easiest thing in the world! He would just go along as if there wasn't a thing on his mind heavier than his thinning, sandy hair. No man living had any right or business snooping around in his ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower

... anybody who comes I've gone to the flagstaff." With that the major stalked from the room, followed by the Irishman's adoring eyes. A moment later he stood by the tall white staff at the edge of the northward bluff, at whose feet the river swept by in musical murmurings. There he quickly focussed his glass, and gazed away westward up the Platte to where but the evening before a score of Indian lodges dotted the other ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... get acquainted in. An', here's another thing. I know, an' you know, down deep in your heart, that you're goin' to marry either Win, or me. Maybe you know which. I don't. But if it is him, you'll get a damned good man. He's square an' clean. He's got nerve—an' there ain't no bluff about it, neither. Wise men don't fool with a man with an eye like his. An' he wants you as bad as I do. As I said, we've got a week or more to get acquainted. It will be a week that may take us through ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... holiday in order to hear few more speeches from him. JOKIM, meaning to frighten WINDBAG, said, "Very well; then we'll adjourn till Thursday." WINDBAG, not believing JOKIM was serious, said he didn't care; game of bluff commenced; played so awkwardly that, in end, House jockeyed out of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various

... ever granted to an American colony. With eager and unselfish hopes of a noble service to be rendered to humanity, the generous soldier embarked with a picked company of one hundred and twenty emigrants, and on the 12th of February, 1733, landed at the foot of the bluff on which now stands the city of Savannah. The attractions of the genial climate and fertile soil, the liberal terms of invitation, and the splendid schemes of profitable industry were diligently advertised, and came to the knowledge of that noble young ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... surprised when she suddenly abandoned her play-acting. She hadn't figured on the difficult requirements, I suppose, poor child. Bluff and genial Tom, grown rather gray and stout and bald now, had met her with a hearty, "Hello, bride-elect!" Oliver had shouted, "Greetings, Mrs. Prof!" And Madge, his wife, had tucked a tissue-paper-wrapped package under Ruth's arm: "My engagement present," she explained. "Just ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty

... retained. But when he threw off the Papal authority, declared himself supreme head of the Church, and proceeded to confiscate its property, the intention of presentation was abandoned. This is at least plausible, as I do not mean that it was originally designed for a present to "bluff Harry," because it was produced before he was born. But the arms were a work for any time; and I think they were executed just before his rupture with the Pope was known. To pay him a compliment afterwards from any part of Catholic Europe was, of course, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various

... very strong from the eastward. I sent Mr. Roper forward to look for water, of which he found a sufficient supply. He stated that the country to the westward opened into fine plains, of a rich black soil; but it was very dry. The bluff terminations of the left range bore E. by S., and ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... crisply, "in spite of your friend's talk and in spite of the bluff he is putting up he is pretty badly hurt. You give me some sort of a light, I don't care if they see it down at San Juan, or you shoulder ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory

... any more Western stuff, you'll have to let me weed out some of these Main Street cowboys that Clements wished on to me, and go out in the sagebrush and round up some that ain't all hair hatbands and high-heeled boots and bluff. I've got to have some whites to fill the foreground, if I give up the Injuns; or else I quit Western stuff altogether. I've been stalling along and keeping the best of the bucks in the foreground, and letting these said riders lope in and out of scenes and pile off and go ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... consummate cheek, a man ought to get on in the world, I think, for after all it is self-confidence and "bluffing" that seems to succeed most. However down in the world you are, however bad your "hand," you only have to "bluff" a little to make it all right. There are many foolish people in the world ready to be your dupes, and luckily they never think of asking to "see" you. Even the best of us try it on a little; we strive to hide our skeletons under the cloak of cheerfulness, ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren

... insulting, uncouth, bluff, coarse, impertinent, raw, unmannerly, blunt, discourteous, impolite, rude, unpolished, boorish, ill-behaved, impudent, rustic, untaught, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... extensive and beautiful view, especially north-westwards over the heathy flats of the Frome valley to the distant Dorset-Somerset borderlands. The narrow Purbeck range now makes obliquely for the coast, where it ends more than six miles from Corfe in the magnificent bluff of Flowers' Barrow, or Ring's Hill, above Worbarrow Bay. This is without doubt the finest portion of the Dorset coast, not only for the striking outline of the cliffs and hills themselves but for the ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... in helpless bewilderment, watching the ship until she slowly drifted out of sight round a projecting bluff; and then, in a dazed, halfhearted way, and with nerves all unstrung by disappointment and the dreadful accident which had befallen the baronet, they began to slowly retrace their steps, in the faint hope of stumbling upon some means ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... top of that path," said Eleanor, pointing to a path that led up a bluff that backed against the tents. "I think maybe we'll build a wooden pipe-line to bring the water right down here, but for to-day we'll have to carry ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart

... troubled Frank deeply, and that formed the subject of many a long and earnest conversation. His father was a man about whose lack of religion there could be no doubt. He was a big, bluff, and rather coarse-grained man, not over-scrupulous in business, but upon the whole as honest and trustworthy as the bulk of humanity. By dint of sheer hard work and shrewdness he had risen to a position of wealth and importance, and, ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... business," the countryman replied, "and we'll show you, wealthy though you are, that you can't work any bluff game on us. But," and here he lowered his voice, "Mr. Sinclair, we don't want to quarrel. We came chiefly to tell you that your men in Camp Number Three are cutting the logs on the farm of a poor widow with several children. If you are a man of any heart you will see ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody

... sort of appeared out of the mist of the marnin', there bein' a divil's lot of excursions and conferences and holy gatherin's in Askatoon that time back, ostensible for the business which their names denote, like the Dioceesan Conference and the Pure White Water Society. That was their bluff; but they'd come herealong for one good pure white dioceesan thing before all, and that was to see the dandiest horse-racing which ever infested the West. Come—he come like that!"—Deely made a motion like a swoop of an aeroplane to earth—"and here ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... and Dio took our reins, while we made our way to the top of the bluff. Looking back we could see the train about half a mile off, slowly following in our tracks. Beyond us, to the southward, the country appeared much more level than that we had lately passed over, while, greatly to our satisfaction, the river widened ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston

... themselves, like Lofoden in flood, One in his pride, in his subtlety one, mocking England and God. Then tyranny's draught—once only—we drank to the dregs!—and the stain Went crimson and black through the soul of the land, for all time, not in vain! We bore the bluff many-wived king, rough rival and victor of Rome; We bore the stern despot-protector, whose dawning and sunset were gloom; For they temper'd the self of the tyrant with love of the land, Some touch of the heart, some remorse, refraining the grip of the hand. ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... round turn of such sudden force as to shake every nail in her timbers. Aloft there is crash upon crash, and the lighter spars come showering on to the deck, bringing with them ragged remnants of canvas. One man is struck down. The hawsers hum with strenuous vibration. The timbers at the bluff of the bow crack almost vertically, until the ship's nose is well-nigh torn out. The tension is too great and the port cable snaps. The starboard one is tougher. But were it ever so tough it would ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various

... knowledge of the High Peak folk-lore, and feareth neither pixie or graymarie, he can, on a spring night, just as the moon has entered her last quarter, and the first note from the belfry of the chapel in the frith has proclaimed the arrival of midnight, take his stand upon Blentford's Bluff and peer into the dark and sombre depths of Kinder, when he will hear the hooting of the barn owl on Anna rocks, the unearthly screech of the landrail as he ploughs his way through the unmown grass ...
— Buxton and its Medicinal Waters • Robert Ottiwell Gifford-Bennet

... to St. Louis, they used to drink and gamble away their hard-won dollars, few of these men caring for anything beyond the indulgence of immediate fancies. But Pierre was ambitious, and thought that money might be made subservient to his aspirations in a better way than speculating with it upon "bluff" or squandering it upon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... latter were having no easy time. They got into deep drifts, and stumbled out again, tiring themselves greatly in the process. Then they got off the trail, and wandered into the back country. It was not until they got on a high bluff, and saw the river below them, that they ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope

... and narrow exit from Bolinas Bay than I did of Captain Booden. So with great trepidation I jammed the helm hard down, and the obedient little Lively Polly fell off easily, and we were over the bar and gliding gently along under the steep bluff of the Mesa, whose rocky edge, rising sheer from the beach and crowned with dry grass, rose far above the pennon of the little schooner. I did not intend to deceive Captain Booden, but being anxious to work my way down to San Francisco, I had shipped as "able seaman" on the Lively Polly, ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... gave a million and a half dollars to these institutions I should still have the equivalent of about twenty thousand a year English, and I considered that Nancy could have a pretty good time on that or less. Anyhow, we had a stiff set of arguments up at the Hurlbird mansion which stands on a bluff over the town. It may strike you, silent listener, as being funny if you happen to be European. But moral problems of that description and the giving of millions to institutions are immensely serious matters in my country. Indeed, they are the staple ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... a big bluff. I took hold of the lapel of her waist, intending to undo just one button. I let go in fright when I found there was no button—only an awful complication of hooks or some other feminine method for keeping things together—and I grew red and trembled thinking what might have happened ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... "Oh, he's a bluff! That's all there is to it," asserted Mathews, reaching into the corner for his rubber boots, preparatory to going underground. "He knows it ain't right, just as well as I do. If he can put this over, all right. If he can't he'll give us the ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton

... sometimes with movable hands and feet, and also toy dishes, tables, wagons, and animals. Lively boys have whipping toys, balls, hoops, and swings. There is no lack of pet dogs, nor of all sorts of games on the blind man's bluff and "tag" order.[*] Athenian children are, as a class, very active and noisy. Plato speaks feelingly of their perpetual "roaring." As they grow larger, they begin to escape more and more from the ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... utterance I had not hitherto heard or imagined)—we achieved little progress. She rang, ere long, for aid; which arrived in the shape of a "maitresse," who had been partly educated in an Irish convent, and was esteemed a perfect adept in the English language. A bluff little personage this maitresse was—Labassecourienne from top to toe: and how she did slaughter the speech of Albion! However, I told her a plain tale, which she translated. I told her how I had left my own country, intent on extending ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... himself to be clergyman, professor, or statesman, while, like every other true Bostonian, he yearned for the ease of the Athenaeum Club in Pall Mall or the Combination Room at Trinity. Dana at first suggested the opposite; he affected to be still before the mast, a direct, rather bluff, vigorous seaman, and only as one got to know him better one found the man of rather excessive refinement trying with success to work like a day-laborer, deliberately hardening his skin to the burden, as though he were still carrying ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... and flashed away in a gleaming line of foam, a horseman appeared, bending low in the saddle for better protection against the storm. He rode along the edge of the stream on the farther bank, opposite the steep bluff on the northern side, forcing his wounded and jaded horse to keep fetlock deep in the water which swirled and sucked about its legs. He was trying his hardest to hide his trail. Lower down the hard, rocky ground extended to the water's edge, and if he could delay his pursuers ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various

... fine heat of resentment, thinking that a few years at Shrewsbury school might have improved both his language and his manners. But when I came to know him better, and to understand the motive of his rough address to me, I forgave the bluff seaman heartily. He was a keen partisan in the feud that then divided the navy, the one faction being for Benbow, the other against him; and being ignorant of my antecedents, he supposed from my not having been a midshipman that I was one of the fine gentlemen who were foisted on ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... a few things, Brencherly, remember. Baker Allen told me your office held him up good and plenty to turn in a different report when his wife employed you, and you 'got the goods on him.' Now, don't give me any bluff. I want facts, and I pay you for them, don't I? Well, when you got that story, you looked it ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford

... she went; also Mrs. Pulsifer; likewise Vee and Marjorie. Trust women for knowin' when a bluff has been called. I expect they was wise, two or three minutes before either me or Gilkey, that Pa Pulsifer was beat. I stayed long enough to see him slump into an easy-chair, his under lip limp and a puzzled ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford

... of February, 1852 bout 11/2 miles of Mars Bluff. My father, Western Wilson, belonged to Col. William Wilson en my mamma name Chrisie Johnson. She belonged to Dr. William Johnson en we stay dere wid him four or five years after freedom. Dr. Johnson old home ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... For nearly an hour we advanced in the direction from which the reports of the guns seemed to proceed. Nothing could we see, however, but the frowning rocks and cliffs, and the waves beating restlessly at their base. Cape Pug-Nose was reached, and we began to round the bluff old point. In a moment all our doubts were dispelled, and joy and gratitude to the Great Giver of all good filled our hearts. There, in the little sheltered cove beyond the cape, her sails furled, her anchor dropped, lay a brig of war with the English ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... seen a prettier place than this as we beheld it by the morrow's light. The house stands on a high bluff, worthy the name of hill, which slopes steeply but greenly down to the South Prong of Black Creek, better deserving the name of river than many a stream which boasts the designation. We crossed it upon a boom, pausing midway in sudden astonishment ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... spirit. In the end you will come out ahead. The power of the biggest boss is like chaff in your hands. You can see his finish. And he knows it. Hence, even he will treat you with respect. However he try to bluff you, he is the one who is afraid. The ink was not dry upon Bishop Potter's arraignment of Tammany bestiality before Richard Croker was offering to sacrifice his most faithful henchmen as the price of peace; and he would have done it had the Bishop but crooked his little ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... and rugged sea-front is itself suggestive of rich romance and reminiscent of bold adventure. The smugglers, the pirates, the wreckers, and the Spanish mariners knew every bluff and headland perfectly. And, however the world beyond may have changed, these tiny hamlets have triumphantly defied the teeth of time. They know no alteration. The brogue of the people is strange but rhythmic, and, though pleasant to hear, very hard for ordinary mortals to understand. ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham

... only heard of those days. But I should have liked to have seen the bluff kind faces above the stiff stocks and scarlet coats, and the joyous smiles which shone upon them. I should have liked to have heard the quiet town ringing with such blithe laughter. Little jokes would cause the ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... the Rajah," he said half-musingly. "In fact, I know him, by sight. He is what the magazinists are fond of calling an 'industry colonel,' a born leader who has fought his way to the front. If the Quartz Creek row is anything more than a stiff bluff on the part of the C. G. R. it will be quite as well for us if Mr. Somerville Darrah is safely at the other side of the continent—and well out of ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde

... close upon his heels, and glancing with a leer at his bolster case of pistols, by which he seemed to set great store. He was a square-built, strong-made, bull-necked fellow, of the true English breed; and as Hugh measured him with his eye, he measured Hugh, regarding him meanwhile with a look of bluff disdain. He was much older than the Maypole man, being to all appearance five-and-forty; but was one of those self-possessed, hard-headed, imperturbable fellows, who, if they are ever beaten at fisticuffs, or other kind ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... the Wilsons at Beverly Farms was on a bluff overlooking the sea. It was reached by a long avenue winding through pines mingled with birches and rowan trees; and stood in a clearing where all the day and all the night the sound of the waves ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... over the grassy chasm that separates the New from the Old Town; looked our first on Arthur's Seat, that crouching lion of a mountain; saw the Corstorphine Hill, and Calton heights, and Salisbury Crags, and finally that stupendous bluff of rock that culminates so majestically in Edinburgh Castle. There is something else which, like Susanna Crum's name, is absolutely and ideally right! Stevenson calls it one of the most satisfactory crags in nature—a ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... There was bluff old Sir Geoffrey loved brandy and mum well, And to see a beer-glass turned over the thumb well; But he fled like the wind, before Fairfax and Cromwell, Which ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... climate of Edinburgh itself. Snow covers its streets in the winter, and the great Mount Cook, clad in snow, hovers away in the far distance. Down towards the south scenery which not even the fiords of Norway can rival extends from the bluff towards the north. Milford Sounds are well known for their great beauty to all those who have travelled in those waters. I doubt whether there is any part of the world which, within such distances, ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... story-telling and pipes. The blizzard, which had been brewing for a week or more, had burst forth in all its fury, and the elements were in frightful commotion. The wind howled mournfully through the branches of the evergreens that covered the bluff behind the cabin; the rain and sleet, freezing as they fell, rattled harshly upon the bark roof over our heads; and the whole aspect of nature, as I caught a momentary glimpse of it when I went out to gather our evening's supply of fire-wood, was cheerless ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon

... His Excellency was a bluff but elegant bureaucrat, who had succeeded Count Witte, a man of refinement, belonging to a very old boyar family. He was an excellent talker, and with his soft, engaging manners he could, when he wished, exercise a personal charm that always ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux

... as well go the limit with the bluff he was playing. "Sure. I'll help you make a fourth o' July outa the kegs. Lead me ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine









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