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More "Bluntness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... say anything by way of reply, two of them remarked sneeringly: "With all this doltish bluntness of his will he after all absorb himself in abstraction?" While Hsiang-yn also clapped her hands and laughed, "Cousin Pao ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... showed him a hedger's cuff, which he held in one hand, and a bush in the other, to explain the use of it, and asked him if the former, being an article he made and sold, was subject to a Stamp Duty? Mr. Pitt appeared rather struck with the oddity and bluntness of the man's question, and, mounting his horse, waived a satisfactory answer by referring him to the Stamp Office ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... know. I expect you hear about all they is goin' on in this neighborhood," replied Mrs. Ripley with crushing bluntness; but the ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... intelligence of her heroism, or in the musical simplicity of the original, "kims for to know it:" with honest bluntness he exclaims "Vat vind has blown you to me?" The character of the sea captain is well supported: he does not say, "how came you here?" but in the characteristic language of profession, "vat vind has blown you to me?" The classical reader will be pleased also ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... her victory was but half achieved, put her hand upon his shoulder, and asked him to let her taste the grog again. I also, to make him feel more at ease, helped myself to a glass. Tom did the same, and old Tom with more regard to the feelings of the Dominie than in his own bluntness of character I would have given him credit for, said in a quiet tone, "The old gentleman is afraid of grog, because he seed me take a drop too much, but that's no reason why grog ar'n't a good thing, and wholesome in moderation. A glass or two is very well, and better ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... neglect; still, it is no mere mass of negative existence that they constitute. There is vitality there and positive strength, in those lanes and cellars, put forth for evil if not drawn towards the good. We must not confound ignorance with torpor of spirit or bluntness of understanding. One of the most remarkable characteristics of vagrant children is a keen, precocious intellect. A boy of seven in the streets of a city is more developed in this respect than one of fourteen in the country—a ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... laid his hand on her arm. "Forgive my brutal bluntness. I'm not clever at such things, but I would have said as much to my sister if I ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... very morning spoken out with a pitiless bluntness, which had made Philip unusually thoughtful. The very words the Queen had used haunted him—'tale-bearers, who had neither clean hearts ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... just what they say, my lord," said the unmerciful Richie, whose natural love of lecturing, as well as his bluntness of feeling, prevented him from having any idea of the pain which he was inflicting on his master; "these are even their own very words. It was but yesterday your lordship was pleased, at that same ordinary, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... you"—just that and nothing more. Giovanni had never thought much about it, but he supposed that men in love, very seriously in love, must take a long time to express themselves, as is the manner in books; whereas he was horrified at his own bluntness in having blurted out rashly such words as could never be taken back, as could never even be explained now, he feared, because he had put himself beyond the pale of all explanation, perhaps ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... navy. His success was so great, however, that he was made a lieutenant in 1679. He rose rapidly to the rank of captain and then to that of admiral. The peace of Ryswick put a close to his active service. Many anecdotes are narrated of the courage and bluntness of the uncultivated sailor, who became the popular hero [v.03 p.0447] of the French naval service. The town of Dunkirk has honoured his memory by a statue and by naming a public ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... therefore, that in many respects, we considered America the greatest country we had seen. We ought of course to have said that no reasonable person in the world would ever think of putting any other country above the Celestial Empire; our bluntness elicited some surprise, for the ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... not because it was lawful, but because France required it, and England, for good reasons, could not let France bring it about alone: what Russia thought of the transaction, she soon let the whole world know with disconcerting bluntness. Petrograd not only withdrew her troops from the performance, but made short work of the "guarantee" and "protection" quibbles by roundly declaring that "the choice of the form of government in Greece, as well as its administrative ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... it," said Achilles; "that you came to take the parting orders of him who now acts the sovereign. Surely, had I seen you there, with that steadfast, open, seemingly honest countenance, cheating the wily Greek by very dint of bluntness, I had not forborne laughing at the contrast between that and the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... has rather a blunt way of saying things, but that very bluntness often places thoughts much more distinctly before us—Paul was speaking of her; he did not suspect anything; if he had, he is good-natured, he would not have spoken thus—well, ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... grant is very true, Monsieur," I made reply, with deep suspicion in my soul. "Yet, pardon me, if I confess that to me it proves no more than that you acted as a generous enemy. Pardon my bluntness also—but what profit do you look to make ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... The bluntness of timidity was in Vic's answer, but the strength and musical depth of his resonant ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... of dry philosophy, a defiant humor, an enforced medium temperature of soul. The Englishman is no more given to extremes than is his climate; against its damp and perpetual changes he has become coated with a sort of bluntness. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... but shutting their eyes to one half of the facts which it is their duty to explain. Speaking generally, we do well to distrust the dilemma as a form of argument; but in this case there need be no hesitation in putting the alternative with all possible bluntness: either Christ was God, or He was not good. That Jesus, if He were merely a good man, with a good man's consciousness of and sensitiveness to His own weakness and limitations, could yet have arrogated to Himself the ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... innocent: the longing for the enjoyment of domestic joys, so often interrupted by the absence of the husbands, is to be the means of putting an end to the calamitous war by which Greece had so long been torn in pieces. In particular, the honest bluntness of the Lacedaemonians ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... comprendre, c'est tout pardonner. And they are modern: treating problems of character and milieu, they disdain the adventitious aids of eloquence and theatrical splendor, and speak to us with the directness, often with the bluntness, of nature herself. Hebbel was no naturalist, in the sense of one who seeks but to reproduce phenomena in all their details, sordid, trivial, or vulgar, if such they be. But through Ibsen, who esteemed ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... am interested in you, even if I don't care a fig for your music," Phebe answered, with a bluntness that should have been death ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... embarrassed the beholder. All men had liked him, and spoken well of him throughout his long and hard-worked career. Thorpe was very fond of him indeed, and put a respectful cordiality into his grasp of the proffered hand. Then he looked, with a certain thinly-veiled bluntness of enquiry, past the ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... say: "My husband was married before, just as he said he was." But she said nothing more, and went home. There she put it to Di, and with her terrible bluntness reviewed to ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... bowl in her hand. She had squatted down to put it on the floor for the benefit of a large cat, which appeared then from behind her skirts, and hid its head into the bowl greedily. She got up, and approaching Miss Haldin asked with nervous bluntness— ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... the great Company's secretary," said Geoffrey, with a bluntness under which the other winced, as he ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... contradictions, or in acute nonsense: sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture, passeth for it: sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness giveth it being: sometimes it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange: sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose. Often it consisteth in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable, and inexplicable; ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... the stream. Christophe was lying in the grass a few yards away, and, with his chin resting in his hands, he watched them. They were not put out by it; they went on chattering in a style which sometimes did not lack bluntness. He hardly listened; he heard only the sound of their merry voices, mingling with the noise of their washing pots, and with the distant lowing of the cows in the meadows, and he was dreaming, never taking his eyes off the ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... . . We couldn't have kept closer . . . without too much treading upon the Author's Heels, and destroying our Design of giving it an easie, Comick Style, most agreeable to our present Times" (Terence's Comedies, p. xx). To this end it was necessary to tone down the "familiarity and bluntness in [Terence's] Discourse" which were "not so agreeable with the Manners and Gallantry of our Times." This was intended to bring Terence up to the level of gentility for which he was credited by compensating for the barbarity of Roman social manners. But the translation was willing to go ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... assigned to the task. Three strokes, and the limb, from just above the elbow, was no longer Samoa's; and he saw his own bones; which many a centenarian can not say. The very clumsiness of the operation was safety to the subject. The weight and bluntness of the instrument both deadened the pain and lessened the hemorrhage. The wound was then scorched, and held over the smoke of the fire, till all signs of blood vanished. From that day forward it healed, and troubled ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... eloquence or self-assertion in Allingford's remarks; brief they were almost to bluntness, but well suited to the audience to whom they were addressed. It was the old, well-tried captain of Ronleigh who spoke, and the boys of Ronleigh who listened, and the manner in which the words were given and ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... and patient as he was, had had a tiger's temper at bottom. Durgin had seen it roused once or twice, and even received a chance sweep of the paw. Richard liked Durgin's rough wit as little as Durgin relished Richard's good-natured bluntness. It was a mistake, that trying to pick up the dropped ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... right if left alone. It was Mrs. Cranston and Miss Loomis to whom he delivered himself of the last mentioned. He liked them both, which was more than he did most people, for this AEsculapian countryman of Carlyle had much of that eminent writer's sharpness of vision and bluntness of speech together with even more of his contempt for the bulk of his fellow-men. "No, Mrs. Cranston," said he, "don't wait a day for her. Start just as soon as you are ready, and don't give a thought to this little flibberty gibbet." And so the Cranstons, with ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... circumambient spirit of democracy. The American is so accustomed to recognise the essential equality of others that he sometimes carries a good thing to excess. This spirit is seen in his dealings with underlings of all kinds, who are rarely addressed with the bluntness and brusqueness of the older civilisations. Hence the father and mother are apt to lay almost too much stress on the separate and individual entity of their child, to shun too scrupulously anything approaching ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... "Penny, the bluntness of your methods is deplorable. Instead of insinuating that I am accepting Roger as a pis-aller, it would be more seemly if you would ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... them with entire military bluntness. He proved the existence of his right, said that he had had his identity substantiated at Fontainebleau, Paris, and Berlin; cited from memory two or three passages of the will, and finished by declaring that the Prussian ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... it was all real and true? He could not understand the lawyer's allegation. Later on, when Sharpman declared boldly that Ralph's statement on the witness-stand was a carefully concocted falsehood, the bluntness of the charge was like a cruel blow, and the boy's sensitive nerves shrank and quivered beneath it; then his lips grew pale, his breath came in gasps, the room went swimming round him, darkness came before his eyes, and his weak body, enfeebled by prolonged fasting and excitement, ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... are some comic ditties which may have been sung at wine-parties. Of these I have thought it worth while to present a few specimens, though their medieval bluntness of humour does not render them particularly ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... at the honest bluntness of this question, and must admit that I felt a little crest-fallen when I came to compare the respective performances. Therefore I could only answer, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... readily. He never saw the like of us before, and we are beyond his Teutonic frontier-like comprehension. He gives us up; he fails to solve the puzzle; he knows not how to unravel the mystery; and, with characteristic Teutonic bluntness, he advises us to push on through fifteen miles of rocks, sand, and darkness, to Wadsworth. The prospect of worrying my way, hungry and weary, through fifteen miles of rough, unknown country, after dark, looms up as rather a formidable task. So summoning ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... to, and sympathising with, every statement made, or emotion expressed, is almost equally disagreeable. It is unmanly, and is felt to be dishonest. "It may seem difficult," says Richard Sharp, "to steer always between bluntness and plain-dealing, between giving merited praise and lavishing indiscriminate flattery; but it is very easy—good-humour, kindheartedness, and perfect simplicity, being all that are requisite to do what is right ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... no more; and why should I not act and speak like one?"—it was remarked, however, that he had not learnt, or did not desire, to conceal his emotions—that he commended with more rapture than was courteous, and contradicted with more bluntness than was accounted polite. It was thus with him in the company of men: when woman approached, his look altered, his eye beamed milder; all that was stern in his nature underwent a change, and he received them with ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... sidelong glance at the pretty cousin into whose family she had been adopted. The subject of Gresham was a painful one; and Johnny felt his blundering bluntness keenly. ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... court about it, and he was called to account by the usual process of law. The plain, gruff old farmer, who seems all along to have been a man of strong sense and decided character, filed an answer, which is unsurpassed for bluntness of expression. It has no language of ceremony, but goes to the point at once. It has a general interest as showing, to how late a period the inhabitants of this neighborhood were exposed to Indian attacks, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... bluntness of his age, asked him if it was true he had been with Garibaldi. The old man did not seem to attach any importance to the question. He answered quite quietly in as low a ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... A certain bluntness in the question, and the real or affected anxiety of the young man's tone brought the color streaming into ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... repulsive, the opposite habit of assenting to, and sympathizing with, every statement made, or emotion expressed, is almost equally disagreeable. It is unmanly, and is felt to be dishonest. "It may seem difficult," says Richard Sharp, "to steer always between bluntness and plain- dealing, between giving merited praise and lavishing indiscriminate flattery; but it is very easy—good humor, kind heartedness and perfect simplicity, being all that are requisite to do what is ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... open to you. I can scarcely imagine such work to be congenial to a lady's feelings, as, in the case of really distinguished personages, she must assuredly meet with many a rebuff! I hope I have not offended you by my bluntness, ... "— here he trailed off into inaudible polite murmurs, while the "Tiger-Lily" marched steadily toward ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... your grandfather was, Mr. Glenarm. You’ll excuse my bluntness, but I take it that you’re a frank man. He was a very keen person, and, I’m afraid,”—he chuckled with evident satisfaction to himself,—”I’m really afraid, Mr. Glenarm, that ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... impression of himself: he was at times gauche, blunt, awkwardly infelicitous in speech or silence, when he would have wished, as he knew perfectly how, to be considerate, gentle, sympathetic, responsive. On the other hand, his shyness and reticence were seemingly contradicted by a downright bluntness, a deliberate frankness in matters of opinion in which his convictions were involved; for his views were most positively held and his convictions were often passionate in intensity, and he declared them, upon occasion, with an utter absence of diplomacy, compromise, or equivocation; ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... must appeal as forecasting movements strictly within the bounds of actuality. A literal translation is all that has been attempted, with absolutely no embellishment to make it "popular" or easy reading. With characteristic bluntness this German officer brushes aside non-essentials and goes to the main point in daring fashion. For that very reason it is exceedingly ...
— Operations Upon the Sea - A Study • Franz Edelsheim
... belong; but their physiognomy seemed to me to be slightly different from that of any other tribe which I had before seen. Their expression is generally grave, and even austere, and possesses much character: this may pass either for honest bluntness or fierce determination. The long black hair, the grave and much-lined features, and the dark complexion, called to my mind old portraits of James I. On the road we met with none of that humble politeness so universal in Chiloe. Some gave their "mari-mari" (good morning) with ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... these months of hopeless want to smell the rough, high-spiced sea victuals without lust, and his mouth watered with desire of the champagne. It was no less impossible to have assisted at the scene between Huish and the captain, and not to perceive, with sudden bluntness, the gulf where he had fallen. He was a thief among thieves. He said it to himself. He could not touch the soup. If he had moved at all, it must have been to leave the table, throw himself overboard, ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... so?" she asked, delighted at my bluntness. "And you, too, Carus—why, you are like a radiant one from the sky! I have ever thought you handsome, but not as flawless as you now reveal yourself. Lord! we should cut a swathe to-night, you and I, sir, blinding all eyes in our proper ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... lusty Hyperbole, in a startling Metaphor, in a plausible Reconciling of Contradictions, or in acute Nonsense; Sometimes a scenical Representation of Persons or Things, a counterfeit Speech, a mimical Look or Gesture passeth for it. Sometimes an affected Simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous Bluntness giveth it Being. Sometimes it riseth from a lucky Hitting upon what is Strange; sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious Matter to the Purpose. Often it' consisteth in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable, and ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... ruin. Of the tracery of the windows, or any of the lighter and more delicate architectural work, not a stone remains. I believe much of the more easily used stone-work found its way into the building of neighbouring houses, perhaps into the paving of the roads. But it has a certain bluntness and gauntness of its own, standing solid and stark in the plain meadowland of the Wey. Perhaps if one were to "visit it by the pale moonlight" it would take on darker graces and dignities. As it is, there is somewhere about it an air of protest; it is like a ghost that cannot get back before daylight. ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... mind," said Wilson, with irritated bluntness, "if you knew the entire scheme instead ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... served as a curtain for the window. The trifling incident of the changed name was forgotten in the speculation as to why her father's return to the hill country should be a matter of evident import to this sagebrush cavalier. So intent had she become that she hardly noticed the cruel bluntness of ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... promise of something different in the future, that it attracts us more than many forms of beauty. They have something of the merit of a rough sketch by a master, in which we pardon what is wanting or excessive for the sake of the very bluntness and directness of the thing. It gives us pleasure to see the beginning of gracious impulses and the springs of harmonious movement laid bare to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... scurvily, and scolded my own people for not having more penetration than myself. I dare say he did not fail to descant upon the brutal behaviour of the Englishman; and that my mistake served with him to confirm the national reproach of bluntness, and ill breeding, under which we lie in this country. The truth is, I was that day more than usually peevish, from the bad weather, as well as from the dread of a fit of the asthma, with which I was threatened: and I dare say my appearance seemed as uncouth to him, as his travelling ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Dwining, "for the smithy churl under whose blow you have suffered has often done me despite and injury. He has thwarted me in counsel and despised me in action. His brutal and unhesitating bluntness is a living reproach to the subtlety of my natural disposition. I fear ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... asked the serving-woman with unusual bluntness. "But I daresay the master will find something for him to do. He is clever ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... to hear his father's blundering, and, in his jovial humour, in his delight over the new conception of his father that he had acquired after the toast, he said, with a cheery bluntness: ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... treatment meted by each translator to the coarsenesses of the Nights we have already referred. Payne, while omitting nothing, renders such passages in literary language, whereas Burton speaks out with the bluntness and coarseness of ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... their kings we see neither the intrepid spirit of the old Parliaments of France, nor the serene dignity of the present National Assembly; neither do we see in them anything of the style of English manners, which border somewhat on bluntness. Since then they are neither of foreign extraction, nor naturally of English production, their origin must be sought for elsewhere, and that origin is the Norman Conquest. They are evidently of the vassalage class of manners, and emphatically ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Reynolds relaxed his hostility at last, and, becoming generous when it was too late, obtained an order from a nobleman for two landscapes at a proper price." So he insinuates an unworthy hypocrisy, while lauding the bluntness of Wilson. "Such was the blunt honesty of his (Wilson's) nature, that, when drawings were shown him which he disliked, he disdained, or was unable to give a courtly answer, and made many of the students his enemies. Reynolds had the sagacity ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... falling water, not condensed and formidable as in the gorge of the river, but scattered and sounding gaily and musically from glen to glen. Here, too, the spirits of my driver mended, and he began to sing aloud in a falsetto voice, and with a singular bluntness of musical perception, never true either to melody or key, but wandering at will, and yet somehow with an effect that was natural and pleasing, like that of the song of birds. As the dusk increased, I fell more and more ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Having, by dint of much pains and many prayers, obtained, as you hope, some beginnings of victory over the most wayward of wills, and the most unaccountably strange of mixed natures, with its intellectual sharpness and moral bluntness, its precocious knowingness and stereotyped childishness, its quickness to learn and slowness to unlearn, prepare for the next stage of your enterprise. Lay out your scheme of emigration, get the money where you can, that is to say, call it flown from ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... had he attempted to speak German—which he did at times, and could make himself understood—have aped the guttural accents of the Teuton. He despised the German thoroughly, detested him most cordially, and perhaps it was characteristic of his bluntness that he thoroughly detested his language. Thus, while in the darkness Henri and Jules might hope to pass muster, in the case of Stuart there was not the ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... — N. bluntness &c adj.. V. be blunt, render blunt &c adj.; obtund^, dull; take off the point, take off the edge; turn. Adj. blunt, obtuse, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was plain to my father, that all souls were by nature equal,—and that the great difference between the most acute and the most obtuse understanding—was from no original sharpness or bluntness of one thinking substance above or below another,—but arose merely from the lucky or unlucky organization of the body, in that part where the soul principally took up her residence,—he had made it the subject of his enquiry to find out ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... people: the love and the habit of civil liberty and religious conviction and independence. Allied to these is another trait—truthfulness. To speak the truth in word and action, to the verge of bluntness and offense—and with more relish sometimes because it is individually obnoxious and unlovely—is an English trait, clearly to be traced in the character of this people, notwithstanding the equivocations of Elizabethan diplomacy, the proverbial lying ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... place as any other for the man who goes out there to work," I said. "But somehow you don't look to me like a chap that is used to what is called roughing it. Pardon my bluntness." ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... oblige, which knew no bounds when it was not demanded of her, was indeed, like her assumed bluntness, a necessity of her position. She had at length understood what her life must be, seeing that she was at everybody's mercy; and needing to please everybody, she would laugh with young people, who liked her for a sort of wheedling flattery which always wins them; guessing and taking part with their ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... lieutenant-governor of the Isle of Wight, and afterward governor of Massachusetts. They contain incidental reference to William of Orange, and many public men of that period, as well as to the campaign of the allied army in Flanders, and the evident sincerity and soldierly bluntness of the writer renders them quite entertaining. Lord Cutts was not merely a famous commander, but a poet, and his verses are quoted by Horace Walpole. Mr. Winthrop expressed a desire to learn where a picture of him might be found, and he discussed ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... weigh very heavy," said Jerry, in a shamefaced bluntness, as if he wronged the absent goddess through such crudities. "You can't seem to see anybody that's had the thoughts she has and the way she's got of putting 'em—you can't see 'em very big-framed or heavy, can you? I ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... don't suppose I do!" acknowledged the Senior Surgeon with equal bluntness. "But my little kiddie here loves you!" he hastened somewhat nervously to affirm. "Oh, I'm almost sure that my little kiddie here—loves you! She needs you anyway! Let it go at that! Call it ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... "I admire your bluntness," remarked the former chairman across the table, "although I can't say as much for your philosophy. It is our duty to keep everybody contented; we cannot do any public weeding-out until the others are satisfied that the malcontents ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... Why?" Hazel neglected the question entirely. The bluntness of it took her by surprise. Frank speech was not a characteristic of ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... been almost happy, but their occupation humiliated them since they had begun to set a higher value on themselves, and their disgust increased while they were mutually glorifying and spoiling each other. Pecuchet contracted Bouvard's bluntness, and Bouvard assumed a little ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... is a horror, Edith," that lady replied, with the bluntness of intimacy. "I think," turning and surveying her friend calmly from head to foot, "that it is the very worst I have ever seen you wear, and that is saying a great deal. It makes you look like green cheese. For Heaven's sake, put some other ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense: sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture passeth for it: sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness giveth it being; sometimes it riseth from a lucky hitting upon what is strange, sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose: often it consisteth in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being answerable ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... Madame Campan," vol. iii., p. 24. Many traits of original and amusing bluntness are related of Lansmatte, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... With all the bluntness of a military man, Colonel Hofferman had put his finger on the open wound which for long years had been a source of irritation to the detective force and the intelligence department alike, when, owing to circumstances, both were called on to intervene ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... months before his death, is valuable. He knew he was a dying man, and not only wished to collect these fugitive bits of verse, but wished to leave behind him his theory of poetry. With characteristic bluntness, he says that the poems which follow the Preface were mostly written "before the views just stated, with which they have little to do, had come ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... unsated with glory and conquest, has been told in various ways. The emperor himself reported the words as he wished them to be known, full of kindness and sadness on the part of Lannes. Some of those who stood by reported that the instinct of the dying soldier awoke with the bluntness frequently characterizing it, and that Lannes cursed the cruel ambition which strewed Napoleon's brilliant route with the corpses of his friends. He only survived that scene two days, and was praised as he deserved by Napoleon. On again mounting his horse, the emperor inspected ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... tears standing in his mother's eyes, he besought her pardon for the bluntness of his manner, and expressed his entire belief in her affection and zeal for his interests; but, on the main point, that he would not deceive Mr. Palmer, or directly or indirectly assert a falsehood, Mr. Beaumont was immoveable. In the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... answered Ginny, with her characteristic bluntness. "I just wanted to amuse the others and make them think I was awfully clever and that was plain outright conceit and selfishness. I guess that's the way I do most things. Well, I've learned a lesson. And there ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... upon the square, solidly-built women of Flanders. Is it imagination, or can one really trace somewhat of the same idea in Flora's kingdom? The Dutch roses, tulips, and other flowers, like the naval architecture of the Low Countries, have a certain breadth of beam and bluntness of prow that makes them differ from the same fragrant family of France. Has any learned essayist ever attempted to draw philosophical deductions from these aspects of the vegetable world, as showing local kinship ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... to both of us, I believe, to bring this conversation as soon as possible to an issue. You will excuse me, then, my dear niece, for speaking with a bluntness which, under other circumstances, would be unpardonable. You have, I am certain, given the subject of our last interview fair and serious consideration; and I trust that you are now prepared with candour to lay ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... a brutal bluntness unworthy of a Celt. He can be very irritating sometimes; but at this moment he was looking so extremely handsome and devil-may-care, that my desire to punch his head dissolved as I glared at him. Could any woman in her senses throw over even a titleless Terry and twelve horses worth ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... informed her that he had been overhauling himself since they last talked, and had some reason to blame himself for bluntness and general want of euphemism; which, although he had meant nothing by it, must have been very disagreeable to her. But he had always aimed at sincerity, particularly as he had to deal with a lady who despised ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... charm of manner in which he was allowed to be a model, and which was as natural to him as it was universal, if ever the interests of truth came in conflict with the dictates of society, he flung minor considerations behind his back, and came out with some startling piece of bluntness at which his mother was utterly confounded. These occasions were very rare; he never sought them. Always where it was possible he chose either to speak or be silent in an unexceptionable manner. But sometimes the barrier of conventionalities, or his mother's ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... am," replied the Sage, with unaccountable bluntness; "truth to tell, these orations about nothing in particular, spouted by persons with an imperfect knowledge of, I should say, almost any ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... his bluntness, but was in reality immensely relieved. Eve had been listening with closed eyes, but now opened them, and they were full ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... we were to make the matter as clear as the sun at noonday, there would still be sceptics. On shewing the above arithmetical calculation, for example, to an English lady, who has for a number of years studied Scotch character and manners, she, with a degree of bluntness that was exceedingly startling, gave it as her unqualified opinion, that the whole thing was a piece of nonsense; and that the only reason, as far as she could observe, why the Scotch do not shut the door, is that they have never ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... and he was at no loss in clubs and other assemblies to overbear and silence, if not to confute, his censurers. Beside which, Hawkins had certain accomplishments which qualified him to be a favourite with Mr. Tyrrel. The bluntness of his manner and the ruggedness of his temper gave him some resemblance to his landord; and, as these qualities were likely to be more frequently exercised on such persons as had incurred Mr. Tyrrel's ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... she don't weigh very heavy," said Jerry, in a shamefaced bluntness, as if he wronged the absent goddess through such crudities. "You can't seem to see anybody that's had the thoughts she has and the way she's got of putting 'em—you can't see 'em very big-framed or heavy, ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... again on my account," thought Katie; and, strange to say, the tendency to secretiveness in the child's nature seemed cured from that day. Katie ever afterward confessed her misdemeanors and the accidents that happen to the best-regulated children with a frankness that bordered on bluntness. ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... set down these private passages, as you perceive, without correction; thanks to you, the public has them in their bluntness. They are almost a list of the man's faults, for it is rather these that I was seeking: with his virtues, with the heroic profile of his life, I and the world were already sufficiently acquainted. I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... decreed, not because it was lawful, but because France required it, and England, for good reasons, could not let France bring it about alone: what Russia thought of the transaction, she soon let the whole world know with disconcerting bluntness. Petrograd not only withdrew her troops from the performance, but made short work of the "guarantee" and "protection" quibbles by roundly declaring that "the choice of the form of government in Greece, as well as its ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... which it is their duty to explain. Speaking generally, we do well to distrust the dilemma as a form of argument; but in this case there need be no hesitation in putting the alternative with all possible bluntness: either Christ was God, or He was not good. That Jesus, if He were merely a good man, with a good man's consciousness of and sensitiveness to His own weakness and limitations, could yet have arrogated to Himself the right to be the supreme judge and final arbiter of the destinies ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... transcendental views lurked in her words; but all except their obvious meaning was, naturally, missed by Arabella. The latter, after evincing that she was struck by Sue's avowal, recovered herself, and went on to talk with placid bluntness about "her" boy, for whom, though in his lifetime she had shown no care at all, she now exhibited a ceremonial mournfulness that was apparently sustaining to the conscience. She alluded to the past, and in making some remark appealed ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... the least—more likely six weeks," she said with kind bluntness. It was best he should know the ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... flattery, is to believe that the man is sincere who gives it us. It is by this one accident that absurd creatures often outrun the most skilful in this art. Their want of ability is here an advantage, and their bluntness, as it is the seeming effect of sincerity, is the best cover ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... man with a grievance. Despite the confusion, Mr. Vickers soon learned that it was a case of "two's company and three's none," and that Mr. Russell, after turning a deaf ear to hints to retire which had gradually increased in bluntness, had suddenly turned restive and called Mr. Tasker a "mouldy image," a "wall-eyed rabbit," and divers other obscure and contradictory things. Not content with that, he had, without any warning, kissed ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... was Mrs. Cranston and Miss Loomis to whom he delivered himself of the last mentioned. He liked them both, which was more than he did most people, for this AEsculapian countryman of Carlyle had much of that eminent writer's sharpness of vision and bluntness of speech together with even more of his contempt for the bulk of his fellow-men. "No, Mrs. Cranston," said he, "don't wait a day for her. Start just as soon as you are ready, and don't give a thought to this little ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... disturbed you, Mrs. Merrydew," he said, with a gentle bluntness, "if I hadn't wanted to ask your advice before I saw Reddy. I'm keeping out of his way until I could see you. I left Nelly and her mother in 'Frisco. There's been some queer goings-on on the steamer coming home; Kelly has sprang a new ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... told her directly," said Diana, with some bluntness, "but as she is no fool, I fancy she suspects. Why ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... "must pardon my bluntness. I am unable to hide what I know. For some time back I have suspected Major Hammersmith, but Mr. Godall is unmistakable. To seek two men in London unacquainted with Prince Florizel of Bohemia was to ask too much at ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... contemplates the possibility of having occasion for the army, and does not wish to tamper with the service or play any tricks with it. It is curious to see the working and counterworking of his real opinions and principles with his false position, and the mixture of bluntness, facility and shrewdness, discretion, levity and seriousness, which, colouring his mind and character by turns, make up the strange compound of ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... you," he replied, "with merciful bluntness. Your mother was a slave; it was my design, so soon as I had saved a competence, to sail to the free land of Britain, where the law would suffer me to marry her: a design too long procrastinated; for death, at the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... him that the restrictions applying to the sale of meat did not apply to the more intimate organs of the butchered animal, such as the liver and the heart, and, in the case of a cow, the tripe. But the English, with characteristic bluntness, choose to call one of these in its cooked state an offal dish—pronounced as spelled ...
— Eating in Two or Three Languages • Irvin S. Cobb
... What do you think I meant by a "vulgar" person? What do you yourselves mean by "vulgarity"? You will find it a fruitful subject of thought; but, briefly, the essence of all vulgarity lies in want of sensation. Simple and innocent vulgarity is merely an untrained and undeveloped bluntness of body and mind; but in true inbred vulgarity, there is a deathful callousness, which, in extremity, becomes capable of every sort of bestial habit and crime, without fear, without pleasure, without horror, and without pity. It is in the blunt hand and the dead heart, in the diseased ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... and I apologise. I can't seem to get over my Western bluntness. And, Little Girl, I don't blame you a bit if you do care for him. He's a good-looking chap, and an all-round ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... in indifferent conversation, till Paaker abruptly informed her that he had heard of her son's reckless conduct, and had decided, as being his mother's nearest relation, to preserve her from the degradation that threatened her. For the sake of his bluntness, which she took for honesty, Katuti forgave the magnificence of his dress, which under the circumstances certainly seemed ill-chosen; she thanked him with dignity, but warmly, more for the sake of her children than for her own; for life she said was opening before them, while for her it ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the world, seen a hundred, done a hundred things. He had an enormous acquaintance in Society and among artists; writers, actors, painters—all the people who did things and did them well. As a rule they liked him, despite his bizarre bluntness of speech and manner, and they invariably spoke of him as a man of great talent; he said because he was so seldom fool enough to do anything that could reveal incompetence. His mother, who was a widow, ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... Clarissa Harlowe's affair, said Lord M. with his usual forward bluntness. That, Sir, is what you mean. She is, by all accounts, the most excellent ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... and sympathizing with, every statement made, or emotion expressed, is almost equally disagreeable. It is unmanly, and is felt to be dishonest. "It may seem difficult," says Richard Sharp, "to steer always between bluntness and plain- dealing, between giving merited praise and lavishing indiscriminate flattery; but it is very easy—good humor, kind heartedness and perfect simplicity, being all that are requisite to do what is right ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... but half achieved, put her hand upon his shoulder, and asked him to let her taste the grog again. I also, to make him feel more at ease, helped myself to a glass. Tom did the same, and old Tom with more regard to the feelings of the Dominie than in his own bluntness of character I would have given him credit for, said in a quiet tone, "The old gentleman is afraid of grog, because he seed me take a drop too much, but that's no reason why grog ar'n't a good thing, and wholesome in moderation. A ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... publick Good. "Manly is a blunt, honest and I believe brave officer.' I observe your Caution; and I admire it because I think it is a proof of your Integrity. Manlys Bravery is an Article of your Beliefe. His Bluntness& Honesty, of Certainty. I have not yet lookd into the Papers; but I recollect, when they were read in Congress, to have heard the Want of Experience imputed to him, and some thing that had the Appearance of blameing him ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... pardonner. And they are modern: treating problems of character and milieu, they disdain the adventitious aids of eloquence and theatrical splendor, and speak to us with the directness, often with the bluntness, of nature herself. Hebbel was no naturalist, in the sense of one who seeks but to reproduce phenomena in all their details, sordid, trivial, or vulgar, if such they be. But through Ibsen, who esteemed ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... serving-woman with unusual bluntness. "But I daresay the master will find something for him to do. He is ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense: sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture, passeth for it: sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness giveth it being: sometimes it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange: sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose. Often it consisteth in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable, and inexplicable; being answerable ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... wert thou, child," said Joan, with her usual bluntness, "to send to thy lord concerning this matter! Well, what is done, is done. I had looked for no better had I ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... he said, anxiously. "For, indeed, I had forgotten that it was not my part to offer any opinion upon your conduct, and I am afraid that I have given it with impertinent bluntness. ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... very rapid motion. The ideal of the face is often solemn—seldom beautiful; occasionally ludicrous failures occur: in the smallest designs the face is very often a dead letter, or worse: and in all, Giotto's handling is generally to be distinguished from that of any of his followers by its bluntness. In the school work we find sweeter types of feature, greater finish, stricter care, more delicate outline, fewer errors, but on the whole ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... disproved, or they will still listen to a doctrine leading to the disorganization of the community wherever it is acted upon. It is solely upon this ground that these letters have any claim to attention. Dr. James Johnson, of London, has, since my last letter, publicly contradicted, with all the bluntness and energy of honest conviction, the statement by Sir Gilbert Blane, Drs. Macmichael, Hawkins, &c., as to the importation of the cholera into the Mauritius by the Topaze frigate; but evidence is what ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... Minister, the facts which he stated from the tribune appeared often strange, but coming from so honest a man we accepted them. One falsehood, however, after another was exposed, and at last we discovered that H. himself, with all his military bluntness and sincerity, was a most intrepid, ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... performance quick; So true, that he was awkward at a trick. For little souls on little shifts rely, And coward arts of mean expedients try; The noble mind will dare do anything but lie. False friends, his deadliest foes, could find no way But shows of honest bluntness, to betray: That unsuspected plainness he believed; He looked into himself, and was deceived. 930 Some lucky planet sure attends his birth, Or Heaven would make a miracle on earth; For prosperous honesty is seldom seen To bear so dead a weight, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... struggle against law, by which law is discovered, may easily enough be confounded with the utter repudiation of it. Both forms of mind will discuss the same questions; both will discuss them freely, with a certain plainness and daring, which may range through all grades, from the bluntness of Socrates down to reckless immodesty and profaneness. The world will hardly distinguish between the two; it did not in Socrates' case, mistaking his reverent irreverence for Atheism, and martyred him accordingly, as it has since martyred Luther's ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... be not what he is. Having, by dint of much pains and many prayers, obtained, as you hope, some beginnings of victory over the most wayward of wills, and the most unaccountably strange of mixed natures, with its intellectual sharpness and moral bluntness, its precocious knowingness and stereotyped childishness, its quickness to learn and slowness to unlearn, prepare for the next stage of your enterprise. Lay out your scheme of emigration, get the money where you can, ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... great, however, that he was made a lieutenant in 1679. He rose rapidly to the rank of captain and then to that of admiral. The peace of Ryswick put a close to his active service. Many anecdotes are narrated of the courage and bluntness of the uncultivated sailor, who became the popular hero [v.03 p.0447] of the French naval service. The town of Dunkirk has honoured his memory by a statue and by naming a public square ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... to clear the air by a roundly declaratory statement of principles. "You'll pardon my bluntness, madam; but you must remember that none but the members of Professor Gridley's family are concerned in the exact details of his appearance. Fifty years from now nobody will remember how he looked, one way or the other. ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... "Then I had better take my own," said I, and returned to the posada. In the evening I went again, when I saw him. He was a short bulky man about thirty, and received me at first with some degree of bluntness; his manner, however, presently became more kind, and at last he scarcely appeared to know how to show me sufficient civility. His brother had just arrived from Santander, and to him he introduced me. This last was a highly-intelligent person, and had passed many years ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... set herself to work to discover what manner of man her son was. She was puzzled; he was brave, generous, full of high spirits, truthful, even to bluntness. She could not discover any grave fault in him. She thanked God he had no vices, no mean ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme
... to feel, but, in return, the legend is so visible, that, at the first look, you can see whose image and superscription they bear." This is a delicate way of setting forth the superior honesty and bluntness and the inferior smoothness and assimilating instinct of the Anglo-Saxon,—a vital difference, which no alliance or intercourse with his Gallic neighbors can ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Mizora people. They detected odors so refined that I was not aware of them. I have often seen a chemist take a bottle of perfumery and name its ingredients from the sense of smell only. No one appeared surprised at the bluntness of my senses. When I spoke of this Wauna tried to ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... as he listened to him, gradually lost the bluntness and carelessness that had hitherto characterised it, and assumed an attention and a seriousness more in accordance with his high station and important responsibilities. He began to regard the stranger as no common renegade, no ordinary spy, ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... say, my lord," said the unmerciful Richie, whose natural love of lecturing, as well as his bluntness of feeling, prevented him from having any idea of the pain which he was inflicting on his master; "these are even their own very words. It was but yesterday your lordship was pleased, at that same ordinary, to win from yonder young hafflins gentleman, with the crimson velvet doublet, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... to deal in justice here, are you not, Miss Tescheron?" I continued, not heeding her frigid, uninviting air. I had planned to deal tenderly with her wound, but soon realized that my sympathetic beginning had proved more irritating than bluntness; accordingly I introduced the spice of severity in tone in equivalent degree as an experiment, and as I proceeded I noted the interest of John MacDonald increasingly reflected in the features of ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... . . without too much treading upon the Author's Heels, and destroying our Design of giving it an easie, Comick Style, most agreeable to our present Times" (Terence's Comedies, p. xx). To this end it was necessary to tone down the "familiarity and bluntness in [Terence's] Discourse" which were "not so agreeable with the Manners and Gallantry of our Times." This was intended to bring Terence up to the level of gentility for which he was credited by compensating for the barbarity of Roman social manners. But the ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... with a brutal bluntness unworthy of a Celt. He can be very irritating sometimes; but at this moment he was looking so extremely handsome and devil-may-care, that my desire to punch his head dissolved as I glared at him. Could any woman in ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Gates like an old glove, yet his most dominant characteristic was an unfailing loyalty to our family and an honest bluntness, both of which had become as generally recognized as his skill in handling the Whim—"the smartest schooner yacht," he would have told you on a two-minute acquaintanceship, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... he had acquired the art at Marly or in the Fauxbourg. In truth, he should have been born on the far side of the Channel. And he has the air of the great man," said she, glancing up at ms, covertly. "For my part, I prefer a little more bluntness." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Nan like the way her uncle acted while he listened—and afterward. He talked a good deal about Gale and the way she was treating her cousin. When Nan declared she never would have anything to do with him, her uncle told her with disconcerting bluntness to get all that out of her head, for she was going to marry him. When she protested she never would, Duke told her, with many harsh oaths, that she should never marry de Spain even if he had to kill him or get killed ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... listen to the great Company's secretary," said Geoffrey, with a bluntness under which the other winced, as he ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... the groundwork of the passions, but that which is catholic, which in all ages has been, and ever will be, close and native to the heart of man,—parental anguish from filial ingratitude, the genuineness of worth, though coffined in bluntness, and the execrable vileness of a smooth iniquity. Perhaps I ought to have added the Merchant of Venice; but here too the same remarks apply. It was an old tale; and substitute any other danger than ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... had had a wider experience with women, Mrs. Clarke's remarkable ingenuity in hypocrisy would almost certainly have suggested to him that she was no novice in the life of deception. Her appearance of frankness, even of bluntness, was admirable. To every one she presented herself as a woman of strong will and unconventional temperament who took her own way openly, having nothing to conceal, and therefore nothing to fear. She made a feature of her friendship ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... regiment, six hundred yellow men under twelve white Englishmen, chasing malcontents in Shantung, is derogatory to Teutonic aspirations. Germany has earmarked Shantung, and it is just like English bluntness to remind the would-be dominant Power that there is a British sphere and a British colony in the Chinese province, as well as a German sphere and a German colony. But the German Minister, a beau garcon with blue eyes and a handsome moustache, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... and thanked also," she said lightly. "Such bluntness comes more directly at the heart of the matter than much diplomacy, and is more easily answered. I deny the charge." And then, turning to the King, she went on: "For my own protection I am constrained to tell you the purpose of Captain ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... He could not see her expression, but he had always been confident of his ability to talk himself out of trouble, so he rambled on in pretence of camaraderie, currying favour, as he believed, ingratiating himself with the coarse bluntness that served him among some men, even ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... absolutism which their Tudor predecessors had maintained—nothing more, nothing less. There were, however, several reasons why, for them, this was an impossibility. The first arose from their own temperament. The bluntness, the lack of perception of the public will, and the disposition perpetually to insist upon the minutest definitions of prerogative, which so pre-eminently characterized the members of the Stuart house must have operated ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... of a beautifully manicured hand. Graham was immediately interested in this gentleman's functions, and asked him a number of singularly direct questions. The Surveyor-General seemed quietly amused at the Master's fundamental bluntness. He was a little vague as to the monopoly of education his Company possessed; it was done by contract with the syndicate that ran the numerous London Municipalities, but he waxed enthusiastic over educational ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... whose happiest experiences were in dreamland, Miss Barrett was keenly susceptible to the strong humanity of Browning's song, nor less keenly attracted by his strenuous and fearless outlook, his poetic practicality, and even by his bluntness of insight in certain matters. It was no slight thing to her that she could, in Mr. Lowell's words, say of herself and ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... that he had spent in the celebrated University of Lugenmaulberg, the medical theory had changed twenty-five times, and, thanks to this solid education, the doctor had a firmness of principle which nothing could shake. He had the frankness and bluntness of a soldier, it was said; he swore at times, even with ladies, a rudeness which left him at liberty always to be of the same mind with the stronger, and to demand a fee for having no opinion. The queen had fallen ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... however, there can be no doubt that personal odor tends to play a not inconsiderable part in sexual attractions and sexual repulsions. As a sexual excitant, indeed, it comes far behind the stimuli received through the sense of sight. The comparative bluntness of the sense of smell in man makes it difficult for olfactory influence to be felt, as a rule, until the preliminaries of courtship are already over; so that it is impossible for smell ever to possess the same significance ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... 'interviewer' open to you. I can scarcely imagine such work to be congenial to a lady's feelings, as, in the case of really distinguished personages, she must assuredly meet with many a rebuff! I hope I have not offended you by my bluntness, ... "— here he trailed off into inaudible polite murmurs, while the "Tiger-Lily" marched steadily toward ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... resembled Professor Child in character,—frank without bluntness; sincere both formally and intellectually,—full to the brim of moral courage. He was not only kind-hearted, but very tender-hearted, so that his lips would quiver on occasions and his eyes fill ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... ball with one of her young friends. A man well known for his bluntness, whose acquaintance she is to make later in life, but whom she now sees for the first time, Monsieur Foullepointe, has commenced a conversation with Caroline's friend. According to the custom of society, Caroline listens to this conversation without ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... on having married a genius, I'm afraid you're wrong," he said, with a bluntness not usual ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... controlled by an ardent patriotism and an earnest sense of religion; and with all their regard for the royal prerogative, they never lost their regard for the law. The grandeur and originality of Bacon's intellect parted him from men like these quite as much as the bluntness of his moral perceptions. In politics, as in science, he had little reverence for the past. Law, constitutional privileges, or religion, were to him simply means of bringing about certain ends of good government; and if these ends could be brought ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... now, frankly consulting his watch with Neale's bluntness in such matters. "Train's due in a minute or two," he said. "Where's ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... received the decision with acclamation, and the two elder ones vied with one another in attempts to set her mind at rest by undertaking everything, and promising for themselves and the children perfect regularity and harmony. Sophy, with a bluntness that King Lear would have highly disapproved, said, 'She was glad mamma was going, but she knew they should be all at sixes and sevens. She would do her best, and very ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lacks the shears? If you will forgive me what may seem to you a piece of rudeness, I declare that the poor man is ashamed of such things with the sensitiveness of a young girl. YOU, for instance, would not care (pray pardon my bluntness) to unrobe yourself before the public eye; and in the same way, the poor man does not like to be pried at or questioned concerning his family relations, and so forth. A man of honour and self-respect such as I am finds it painful and grievous to have to consort with ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... my bluntness will be pardoned: You preserve A race of idle people here about you, Eaters, and talkers, to defame the worth Of those that do things worthy; the man that uttered this Had perisht without food, be't who it will, But for this arm that fenc't him ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... think so?" she asked, delighted at my bluntness. "And you, too, Carus—why, you are like a radiant one from the sky! I have ever thought you handsome, but not as flawless as you now reveal yourself. Lord! we should cut a swathe to-night, you and I, sir, blinding all eyes in our proper ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... a man of your calibre!" the other answered with good-humoured bluntness. "You could never be bothered to keep ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... "your trans-Atlantic bluntness is somewhat disconcerting. However, you must admit that we have heard you patiently. Let us now, if you are willing, discuss for a minute or two the real ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... down, feeling the calm tone of proprietorship in the words of the other as if they had been a blow. His face flushed, yet he spoke firmly. "Possibly I misconstrue your meaning," he said, with some bluntness, determined to reach the gist of the matter at once. "Did Miss Gillis authorize you to thank me ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... his eyebrows to excuse Claude's bluntness. "See here," he said persuasively, "don't you go encouraging her into thinking she can't change her ways. Mother's entitled to all the labour-saving devices we ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... companion; Wolf's face was set like flint. He was buttoned into the familiar old overcoat, a tall, brown, clean-shaven, and just now scowling young man of the accepted American type, firm of jaw, keen of eye, and with a somewhat homely bluntness of feature preventing him from being describable as handsome, or with at best a rough, hard, open-eyed sort of handsomeness that was as unconscious of itself as the beauty ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... cuff, which he held in one hand, and a bush in the other, to explain the use of it, and asked him if the former, being an article he made and sold, was subject to a Stamp Duty? Mr. Pitt appeared rather struck with the oddity and bluntness of the man's question, and, mounting his horse, waived a satisfactory answer by referring him to ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... you—hang me if I don't!" said Mr. Frump, with California bluntness, "because you're fat and jolly. But here's wifey, and I know she wants to say somethin' ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... time, tea, and tobacco is consumed before the antagonists are fairly met. When the main subject is reached they gradually approach and conclude the bargain about where both expected and intended. An American would come straight to the point, and dealing with either of the above races his bluntness would endanger the whole affair. In many matters this patient angling is advantageous, and nowhere more so than in diplomacy. Every one will doubtless acknowledge the Russians unsurpassed in diplomatic skill. They possess the faculty of touching gently, ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... the American War and the politics of the Great Rebellion. These, of course, have lost their interest with the passing away of the times which gave them birth. The points of many of the jokes have corroded, and the barbed head of many an arrow of Artemus's wit has rusted into bluntness with the decay of the bow ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... had that very morning spoken out with a pitiless bluntness, which had made Philip unusually thoughtful. The very words the Queen had used haunted him—'tale-bearers, who had neither clean hearts ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... at times sees as the outward sign of that inward sense of the futility of things in general. I inquired how matters had been going in the office that morning. His reply, "Neurasthenics!" as it came out with all his characteristic bluntness, set me to asking questions. What I learned that day from the Doctor, coupled with later observations of his methods in dealing with these unfortunates, has never needed unlearning. He saw in these patients, wholly free from organic disorder, yet a prey to aches and obsessions, ...
— Some Personal Recollections of Dr. Janeway • James Bayard Clark
... the first reason; but the bluntness of the first must have conveyed a sense of honesty in the second, for like the child who has been told something nice, a smile was ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... inconsistency. We answered, therefore, that in many respects, we considered America the greatest country we had seen. We ought of course to have said that no reasonable person in the world would ever think of putting any other country above the Celestial Empire; our bluntness elicited some surprise, for the ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... behaved with quite praiseworthy self-control and leniency. They did not lynch those two herders. They did not kill them, either by bullets, knives, or beating to death. They took away the guns, however, and they told them with extreme bluntness what sort of men they believed them to be. They defined accurately their position in society at large, in that neighborhood, and stated what would be their future fate if they persisted in acting with so little caution ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... father's funeral, and was still in his Sunday suit, standing sheepishly within the door and stroking the mourning-band round his hat, as he gazed at her with a shamefaced expression, altogether unlike the bluntness of ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... however lowly, and had already found time to seek an interview with Cecco del Vecchio. But that stern Republican had received him with coldness. His foreign mercenaries, and his title of Senator, were things that the artisan could not digest. With his usual bluntness, he had said ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... not, say anything by way of reply, two of them remarked sneeringly: "With all this doltish bluntness of his will he after all absorb himself in abstraction?" While Hsiang-yuen also clapped her hands and laughed, "Cousin Pao has ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... metaphysics. Even supposing we were to make the matter as clear as the sun at noonday, there would still be sceptics. On shewing the above arithmetical calculation, for example, to an English lady, who has for a number of years studied Scotch character and manners, she, with a degree of bluntness that was exceedingly startling, gave it as her unqualified opinion, that the whole thing was a piece of nonsense; and that the only reason, as far as she could observe, why the Scotch do not shut ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... they are men of the first rank and fashion in England," cries Harry, not choosing to be offended with his companion's bluntness. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as to Calais, the possession of a fishing town on a foreign coast was of no moment to her in comparison with the peace and security of her own realm. This answer did not tend to close the breach. Besides the bluntness of the refusal of their offer, the French were irritated and vexed to hear their famous sea-port ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Doctor Desprez. And it was her indefeasible belief that Jean-Marie was dull. "Poor dear boy," she had said once, "how sad it is that he should be so stupid!" She had never repeated that remark, for the Doctor had raged like a wild bull, denouncing the brutal bluntness of her mind, bemoaning his own fate to be so unequally mated with an ass, and, what touched Anastasie more nearly, menacing the table china by the fury of his gesticulations. But she adhered silently to her opinion; and when Jean-Marie was sitting, stolid, blank, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... bring me the weekly bills?" he said, with masculine bluntness, after he had been at Chiswick for nearly ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... on leaving the house, said grimly after his fashion: "Not Mab but Ariadne—excuse a soldier's bluntness..... Good-bye!" and with a brusque salute he had ridden away. What he meant she did not know and could not ask. The thought instantly came to her mind: Not Sergeant Fones; but who? She wondered if Ariadne was born on the prairie. What knew ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... each other," he added, "you and I, quite alone. Captain Bontnor is a very worthy old fellow, but—" and he shrugged his shoulders. "We cannot leave her to the wayward charity of a capricious woman!" he added, with sudden bluntness. ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... noted, is the fundamental basis of good conversation. We must show habitual consideration and kindliness towards others if we would attract them to us. Bluntness of manner is no longer excused on the ground that the speaker is sincere and outspoken. We expect and demand that our companion in conversation should observe the recognized ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... say, (expanding the Greek thought), by carelessness as to the hands in which things are put, consequent dispute for the acquisition of them, disorderliness in the accumulation of them, inaccuracy in the estimate of them, and bluntness in conception as to the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... they succeeded wonderfully in imposing on themselves. It is true that Craigengelt was now handsomely dressed, and that was a point of no small consequence. But, independent of outward show, his blackguard impudence of address was construed into honourable bluntness becoming his supposed military profession; his hectoring passed for courage, and his sauciness for wit. Lest, however, any one should think this a violation of probability, we must add, in fairness to the two ladies, that their discernment was greatly ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... can one really trace somewhat of the same idea in Flora's kingdom? The Dutch roses, tulips, and other flowers, like the naval architecture of the Low Countries, have a certain breadth of beam and bluntness of prow that makes them differ from the same fragrant family of France. Has any learned essayist ever attempted to draw philosophical deductions from these aspects of the vegetable world, as ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... their physiognomy seemed to me to be slightly different from that of any other tribe which I had before seen. Their expression is generally grave, and even austere, and possesses much character: this may pass either for honest bluntness or fierce determination. The long black hair, the grave and much-lined features, and the dark complexion, called to my mind old portraits of James I. On the road we met with none of that humble politeness so universal in Chiloe. Some gave their "mari-mari" (good morning) ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... II. 299; Jackson's Life of Goodwin, 79 et seq.; Hanbury's Memorials, III. 78, note.— Burton, I believe, migrated to Stepney.]——Burton and Goodwin having been called to account, the next blow was at John Lilburne. With characteristic bluntness Lilburne had been for some months pressing the business of his own petition for arrears of pay upon the House of Commons, going to the House personally, waiting on the Speaker, circulating printed copies of his petition among the members, and always with outspoken comments on ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... house at all, would at least be a legitimate one. This was a severe thrust at the haughty chieftain, whose imperial airs rarely betrayed any consciousness of Barbara Blomberg and the bend sinister on his shield. He was made to understand, through the medium of Brabantine bluntness, that more importance was attached to the marriage, ceremony in the Netherlands than he seemed to imagine. The categorical demands made by the estates seemed even more indigestible than such collateral ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... contrasted in their character. One was Octavian, the adopted son of Caesar, a man who, though still quite young and possessed of great ability, was cunning, cold-blooded, and deceitful. The other was Antony, a soldier by training, and with all a soldier's bluntness, courage, and lawlessness. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... with an answer, even to himself. Her bluntness was disconcerting. "I don't know," he replied. "It doesn't matter. The main thing is to make your father get out of the way of the tree, for it's going to fall right where he's standing. He can't dodge once it starts. And ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... strength was restored. The cut I had received was not deep—thanks to my forage-cap and the bluntness ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... the book even in his thinking. The early volumes of the "Millennial Star" contained some interesting reading. Very likely, the doctrinal articles of these first elders were no better than those of more recent writers, but their plain bluntness and their very age seemed to ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... Sister, forgive my bluntness: Do you pride yourself on this? I ask because Grandmother ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... to me a kindness at all," returned Friedhof with frank bluntness. "I would be loth to sail the seas myself in such weather. And I thought you were so grandly married, Froeken Gueldmar,—though I forget your wedded name,—how comes it that your husband is ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... carrying a small bowl in her hand. She had squatted down to put it on the floor for the benefit of a large cat, which appeared then from behind her skirts, and hid its head into the bowl greedily. She got up, and approaching Miss Haldin asked with nervous bluntness— ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... consulting-room of a Cavendish Square physician by her father, who had insisted on having "a tonic or something" prescribed for her. The physician was one of those men who achieve a fashionable practice by an outrageous bluntness—a calculatedly outrageous bluntness. He had found that women like to ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... happy, but their occupation humiliated them since they had begun to set a higher value on themselves, and their disgust increased while they were mutually glorifying and spoiling each other. Pecuchet contracted Bouvard's bluntness, and Bouvard assumed ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... principal results being a spear-thrust in the head, and being generally told to read his books and leave men alone. Yet he is always doing good "lillah," that is to say, gratis and for Allah's sake: his pugnacity and bluntness—the prerogatives of the "peaceful"—gave him some authority over the Amir, and he has often been employed on political missions amongst the different chiefs. Nor has his ardour for propagandism been thoroughly gratified. He commenced his travels with an intention of winning the crown ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... the gates with hopes of homes and clearings rising in our hearts—until the motionless figure of the young Virginian met our eye. It was then that men began to scoff at him behind his back, though some spoke with sufficient backwoods bluntness to his face. And yet he gave no sign of anger or impatience. Not so the other leaders. No sooner did the danger seem past than bitter strife sprang up within the walls. Even the two captains were mortal enemies. One was Harrod, a tall, spare, dark-haired man of great endurance,—a type of the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... The simplicity, the definition and crisp sharpness of some of the results are entirely delightful. The bluntness and weariness of many of the later modelled Roman forms disappear in the new energy of workmanship which was engaged in exploring a fresh field of beauty. These brightly illuminated lattices of carved ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... does not fade, red hair that holds the sunlight in its tangles, a sweet voice, poetic gifts, regal peremptoriness, a Gallic wit, genuine magnanimity, and rhapsodical piety, with strange indecorum and bluntness of feeling under the extremes of splendour and misery, just such a lovely, perverse, bewildering woman was she, great granddaughter of Raymond-Berenger, fourth Count of Provence,—the pupil of Boccaccio, the friend of Petrarch, ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... with her characteristic bluntness. "I just wanted to amuse the others and make them think I was awfully clever and that was plain outright conceit and selfishness. I guess that's the way I do most things. Well, I've learned a lesson. And there isn't anything I wouldn't do for you, ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... convincingly as to leave little to be said for the unfortunate Graydon. He expressed himself as "eager to be carefully and categorically questioned." This Report appears subsequently to have been withdrawn, probably on the advice of Borrow's friends, who saw that its uncompromising bluntness of expression would make it unacceptable to the General Committee. It was certainly presented to and considered by the Sub-Committee. Another document was drawn up entitled, "Report of Mr Geo. Borrow on Past ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... princes and ranked with royalty. But his properties took such an immense amount of money to keep up that an added fortune would be a great relief to the whole family. Her consummate naturalness did away with much of the bluntness of her speech; but even so, this was too much for ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... cried out to the guards, "Take me back to the quarries." Dionysius, took the joke and pardoned him. He afterwards left the Syracusan Court, and went to his native place, Cythera; and it was characteristic of his bluntness and wit, that, on being invited by the tyrant to return, he replied by only one letter ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... in the palace when the hunt was over. The bluntness and plain-speaking of the Badawi, which caused the revelation of the Koranic chapter "Inner Apartments" (No. xlix.) have always been favourite themes with Arab tale-tellers as a contrast with citizen suavity and servility. Moreover the Badawi, besides saying ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... Because his clients were luxurious and extravagant, he took a revengeful pleasure in having his shoes halfsoled a second time, and in getting the last wear out of a broken collar. He had first been interested in Thea Kronborg because of her bluntness, her country roughness, and her manifest carefulness about money. The mention of Harsanyi's name always made him pull a wry face. For the first time Thea had a friend who, in his own cool and guarded way, liked her for whatever was ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... the two necessary traits in the character of a great people: the love and the habit of civil liberty and religious conviction and independence. Allied to these is another trait—truthfulness. To speak the truth in word and action, to the verge of bluntness and offense—and with more relish sometimes because it is individually obnoxious and unlovely—is an English trait, clearly to be traced in the character of this people, notwithstanding the equivocations of Elizabethan diplomacy, the proverbial ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... violet shadow of his square hut inside the compound, squatted Zalu Zako. The lips and nose were nearer to the Aryan delicacy than the negroid bluntness; for the Wongolo, like the Wahima, are a mixed Bantu-Somali race. In colour his skin had the red of bronze rather than the blue of the negro, and the planes of his moulded chest were as light as the worn ivory bracelets upon his polished limbs. Broad in the shoulders he had ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... talk with entire sincerity,—I said,—always feels himself in danger of two things, namely,—an affectation of bluntness, like that of which Cornwall accuses Kent in "Lear," and actual rudeness. What a man wants to do, in talking with a stranger, is to get and to give as much of the best and most real life that belongs to the two talkers as the time will let him. ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... not wonder at little Elizabeth for her discomfort under the rude homeliness of Stokesley, where the children made a bad copy of their father's sailor bluntness, and the difficulties of money matters kept down all indulgences. She knew that Captain Merrifield was as poor a man for an esquire as her father was for a surgeon, and that if he were to give his sons an education fit for their station, he must make his household live plainly ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... am not sure that I don't agree with you," said the ex-magistrate. "An occasion like this ought to be simple, to guard against the possibility of deception—if you will forgive my bluntness, Mr. Backhouse." ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... back as much by the bluntness of the remarks as if they had been doused with cold water. Indignation was everywhere visible on the countenances of the people. But Mr. Washington appeared unruffled. On the contrary, his heavy jaw was hard set and his eyes danced in a merry measure. It was a time to keep one's temper and wits, ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... disguise of a serving man, all his greatness and pomp laid aside, this good earl proffered his services to the king, who, not knowing him to be Kent in that disguise, but pleased with a certain plainness, or rather bluntness in his answers, which the earl put on (so different from that smooth oily flattery which he had so much reason to be sick of, having found the effects not answerable in his daughter), a bargain was quickly struck, and ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... glaring with a frown at her sister, and detached her eyes from her with an effort. "What did you say?" she demanded, with an absent bluntness. "Oh yes. Yes! We went once. Father took a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... surgeons, two of them departed aboard the tug, the third remaining to care for the patient. Hank, despite all his bluntness of manner, was proving himself valuable in the sick-room, while Joe spent most of his time in the wireless room of the bungalow, waiting to receive or send any word. So, as evening came, Tom Halstead bestirred himself with the preparation of the ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... Little, with Madame du Chatelet, Voltaire witnessing with pain;—it was just as they quitted Cirey together, ten years ago, for these new courses of adventure. Do readers recall the circumstance? Maupertuis, referee in that quarrel, had, with a bluntness offensive to the female mind, declared Konig indisputably in the right; and there had followed a dryness between the divine Emilie and the Flattener of the Earth, scarcely to be healed by ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... by his disreputable propensities. In dress and manner he affected the plain bluff Englishman, wore a blue coat, beaver gloves (or none at all), and a hat broad in the brim, spoke of all foreigners with supreme contempt, and of himself as honest Tom Ringwood. This lip honesty and assumed bluntness were a standing joke with those who knew his real character, but passed muster as perfectly genuine with ingenious and newly imported youngsters like myself, who took him for a wealthy and respectable English gentleman, the champion of fair ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... tell me definitely that he has sent in his resignation—and it has been accepted." Bernard's reply was wholly courteous, the boy's bluntness notwithstanding. He had ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... her that he had been overhauling himself since they last talked, and had some reason to blame himself for bluntness and general want of euphemism; which, although he had meant nothing by it, must have been very disagreeable to her. But he had always aimed at sincerity, particularly as he had to deal with a lady who despised hypocrisy ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... and we know that, to the author's mind, Clara Mowbray had no right to throw stones. All these jeers are offensive to generous feeling, and in the mouth of Clara are intolerable. Lockhart remarked in Scott a singular bluntness of the sense of smell and of taste. He could drink corked wine without a suspicion that there was anything wrong with it. This curious obtuseness of a physical sense, in one whose eyesight was so keen, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... much of you, Mr. Hugo,' said the other. 'And, if I may be excused a certain bluntness, it is very obvious that, though you say little, you are no ordinary man. Can it be possible that you have lived so long and so fully and are yet capable of pitying the dead? Have you not learnt that it is only they who are happy?' He vaguely indicated the corpse. 'If you will ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... allowed to be a model, and which was as natural to him as it was universal, if ever the interests of truth came in conflict with the dictates of society, he flung minor considerations behind his back, and came out with some startling piece of bluntness at which his mother was utterly confounded. These occasions were very rare; he never sought them. Always where it was possible he chose either to speak or be silent in an unexceptionable manner. But sometimes the barrier of conventionalities, or his mother's unwise policy, pressed too ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Christophe was lying in the grass a few yards away, and, with his chin resting in his hands, he watched them. They were not put out by it; they went on chattering in a style which sometimes did not lack bluntness. He hardly listened; he heard only the sound of their merry voices, mingling with the noise of their washing pots, and with the distant lowing of the cows in the meadows, and he was dreaming, never taking his eyes off the beautiful washerwoman. A bright young face would make him ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... we must consider the race he belongs to, say the German, the Northman, the formation and character of his intellect, his ways in general of thinking and feeling, that tardiness and frigidity of sensation which keeps him from rashly and easily falling tinder the empire of sensual enjoyments, that bluntness of taste, that irregularity and those outbursts of conception which arrest in him the birth of refined and harmonious forms and methods; that disdain of appearances, that yearning for truth, that attachment to abstract, bare ideas which develop conscience ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... slight gesture, and the Gainer took a step forward. The light that fell back from his hooded face played curiously about his jewelled hand; as it rose from the gilded hilt, it could be seen that to remedy the bluntness of the thick fingers the nails had been allowed to grow very long, which gave it now, in its half-curve, the look of a claw, upon which the red gems ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
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