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More "Brusque" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from long experience how to pile the different sizes so that each would be ready at the hands of the carpenters when the morning whistle should blow. He was all about the work, giving a hand here, an order there, always good-humored, though brusque, and always inspiring the men with the sight of his ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... and boys, who danced violently all the evening. Those who did not dance walked up and down the rooms as well as they could, squeezing by non-dancing ladies, causing them to swear in their hearts as the brusque broadcloth carried away the light outworks of gauze and gossamer. The dowagers, ranged in solid phalanx, occupied all the chairs and sofas against the wall, and fanned themselves until supper-time, looking ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... suppose That the Grasshopper wore his summer clothes, And stood there kicking his frozen toes And shaking his bones apart; And the Ant, with a sealskin coat and hat, Commanded the Grasshopper, brusque and flat, To "Dance through the winter," and things like that, Which he thought were ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... when Friday came and the afternoon session was over, Marjorie was escorted to the gymnasium by the Picture Girl and her friends, who, even to Mignon, believed that the newcomer had been wise and taken their brusque advice. ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... was the sight of those tears that made Daubrecq lose his head, with a brusque movement he clutched the woman and drew her to him. She repelled him, with a violence full of hatred. And, after a brief struggle, during which Lupin caught a glimpse of the man's bestial and contorted features, the two of them stood face to ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... suddenly stopped short and grinned at the brusque line officer, who, for all his bullying tactics, knew how to take the edge off a touchy situation. Walters sat down again and Hemmingwell spread out several large maps on Walters' desk. He pointed to a location on the chart of the area surrounding ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... tall, lean-faced man of forty or forty-five, well dressed, with a brusque yet pleasant manner of speech. His moustache and beard were black and quite heavy. Mr. Crow eyed him quietly for ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... Kentucky of Virginia parentage, married to a Southern woman, accustomed from boyhood to the narrow circumstances of the poor, and still unused to the ways of the great, was called to the American Presidency. He was not brusque and warlike as Jackson had been; he was a kindly philosopher, a free-thinker in religion at the head of an orthodox people, or peoples. A shrewd judge of human character and the real friend of the poor and the dependent, Lincoln, ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... is a singular lack of formality, or even of orderliness, and they might have passed between business colleagues, who were on terms of close intimacy and easy familiarity. Clarendon's tone is almost uniformly brusque and off-hand, and he must have tried the King's patience terribly by the infamous illegibility of his handwriting. Charles's writing is a schoolboy scrawl, but it is uniformly legible.] and amongst his colleagues Hyde could count some who were his warmest and ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... actresses, and, in the end, you have put us off with a wretched story about the parvenu DABCHICK. For my part, I refuse to admit your authority until you prove, in greater detail, that you really know something of the subject on which you presumed to write." "Sir," I reply, "you are brusque, and somewhat offensive in the style you use towards me. For my part I do not admit that you are entitled to an answer from me, and I have felt disposed to pass you by in silence. But since there may be other weak vessels of your sort, I will do violence to myself, and pen another letter." And ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various
... were not in the least prepared to accept the brusque demands of Sir William Phipps. Fort Royal, it is true, had been cowed into an immediate surrender, but the blustering sailor of New England had ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... landlady dressed all the meals, though the lodgers bought the provisions. So Gerard's hostess speedily detected him, and asked him if he was not ashamed himself: by which brusque opening, having made him blush and look scared, she pacified herself all in a moment, and appealed to his good sense whether Adversity was a thing to be overcome ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... sense of bewildered shock and horror that such things could have broken in upon that orderly, disciplined world with which he had become familiar. It was this horror that hung over him—its impression deepened by the bleak April morning, the nervous strain under which he suffered, the brusque discourtesy of the men who had received him, and the knowledge that scarcely thirty-six hours before an envoy who had come alone and peaceably had been done to death in this silent city. And the horror also centred for him now, as in a symbol, ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... the general almost cannoned into the brigadier as he stood shaving by the light of a candle. There was a brusque rejoinder, and the man handed in a note. The brigadier read the slip of paper handed to him while he stropped his razor. The orderly who had brought the message stood stiffly to attention until the brigadier finished ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... beset with such danger—the hour so untimely, the alley so strictly secluded—often, you said, haunted by that dragon, the English teacher—une veritable begueule Britannique a ce que vous dites— espece de monstre, brusque et rude comme un vieux caporal de grenadiers, et reveche comme une religieuse" (the reader will excuse my modesty in allowing this flattering sketch of my amiable self to retain the slight veil of the original tongue). "You are aware," went on this precious ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... be able to come, but half will; and mother'll give orders for the spread. And now I must be off. Good-bye, and enjoy yourselves.' And the millionaire, with a brusque nod, was off. ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... la Chtre was "digne d'etre poux d'une personne si aimable et si charmante que Madame de la Chtre."(53) He looked very drolly, scarce able to meet our eyes; but at last, as he is la franchise mme, he answered, "M. de la Chtre est un bon homme—parfaitement bon homme: au reste, il est brusque comme un ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... your brusque frankness, worthy Nimrod; but in order to go, I must learn a road thence, and ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... very influential lad in his class because of his uncommon force of character. Compared with others, he has a somewhat brusque, independent manner, pleasing, however, by its honest manliness. He says everything he thinks, and precisely in the tone that he thinks it, even to the degree of being a little embarrassing sometimes. He does not hesitate, for example, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... brusque separation from his particular divinity was disconcerting. How to see her again? He must go up to Oxford in the morning, he wrote her that night, but if she could possibly let him call during the week he would ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... in Costello, "you earn your money if it is small pay; but the job goes against you, now don't it?" His voice was almost soft. "You ain't used to our kind, are you?" The man's brusque kindness touched Von Barwig, and he choked up a ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... cried, in his brusque, explosive fashion, "I like Schuyler, and I care not who knows it! Dammy! I was cool enough with him and his lady when they arrived, but he played Valentine to my Orson till I gave up; yes, I did, George, ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... hill of Comminges. In order to carry out this design satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolize the verger of the church for the day. The verger or sacristan (I prefer the latter appellation, inaccurate as it may be) was accordingly sent for by the somewhat brusque lady who keeps the inn of the Chapeau Rouge; and when he came, the Englishman found him an unexpectedly interesting object of study. It was not in the personal appearance of the little, dry, wizened old man that the interest lay, for he was ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... learning not to fear his brusque ways. He was no carpet knight, and men who carry their lives in their hands do not ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... backing, they had undertaken some constructive work in northern New York, and, at this time, were building a railroad which passed through Geneva. Alac had been in the neighborhood for two months supervising operations. He was striking in appearance—a florid-faced' blonde, brusque in business, quite jovial socially, and cracking—full of the conceit of youth, wealth and station. So far, life had, in practically ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... lightning from the gentleman to the lady, and remained fixed on the fine lady from the town full of suspicion: if she would not give her anything, why should she let them ask her any more questions? What did they want with her? With the curtest of nods and a brusque "adieu" the Walloon turned away. She walked away across the marsh calmly but with long strides; she got on quickly, her figure became smaller and smaller, and soon the faded colour of her miserable skirt was no longer recognisable in ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... Tottenham's found aught but direct and decorous response. His society on these occasions gave her solid pleasure; so did the drive and the lunch; the satisfactions were apparently upon the same plane. She was aware of the plum, if I may be permitted a brusque but irresistible simile; and with her mouth open, her eyes modestly closed, and her head in a convenient position, she waited, placidly, until it should fall in. The Farnham ladies would have been ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... admired the tact with which the host kept his guest at a distance, by extreme attention, for the latter fancied so much ceremony was but a homage to his claims. It had the effect to put him on his own good behaviour, however, and of suspending the brusque manner in which he had intended to broach his subject. As every body waited in calm silence, as if expecting an explanation of the cause of his visit, Mr. Dodge soon felt himself constrained to say something, though it might not be quite as ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... to account for it, and offer some apology for my brusque behaviour, when I was challenged to the confession ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... rough in her ways and sharp with her tongue; but even Mrs. Sankey, who was often ruffled by her brusque independence, was conscious of her value, and knew that she should never obtain another servant who would take the trouble of the children so entirely off her hands. She retained, indeed, her privilege of grumbling, and sometimes complained to her husband that Abijah's ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... breakfast, if he had won, his behavior was gay and even affectionate; he joked roughly, but still he joked, with Madame Descoings, with Joseph, and with his mother; gloomy, on the contrary, when he had lost, his brusque, rough speech, his hard glance, and his depression, frightened them. A life of debauch and the abuse of liquors debased, day by day, a countenance that was once so handsome. The veins of the face were swollen with blood, the features ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... he had so often to direct, and almost to guide, and all the other perfections of mind and body this enchanting girl possessed, crept in at his admiring eyes, and began to steal into his very veins, and fill him with soft complacency. His brusque manner dissolved away, and his voice became low and soft, whenever he was in her delicious presence. He spoke softly to Jael even, if Grace was there. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... change for better means if they could be found; but never to cease striking. Halleck was worried by being jogged to new enterprises, but heartily supported them when once begun. C.F. Smith had a brusque manner, but a warm heart. He was direct and honest as a child. He seemed impetuous, but his outburst was a rush of controlled power. He was a thorough soldier, an enthusiast in his profession, the soul of ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force
... this ridiculous. At the age of 13 I menstruated, a fact that caused me shame and anger. Gradually I grew to feel myself peculiar, why, I cannot explain. I did not seem to myself to be like other girls of my acquaintance. I adopted, as a defense, a brusque and defiant air. I spent a good deal of time playing alone in our backyard, where I made a pair of stilts, practised rope-walking, and such things. At school I felt I was not liked by the nicer girls and began to associate with girls whom I now believe were immoral, but whom ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... ever seen in England. And I remember that I bore myself with a wary outlook for affronts to my newly fledging dignity, and concealed all that was stirring in me to new life, whether of nobility or natural emotion, as if it were a dire shame, and whenever I had it in my heart to be tender, was so brusque that I seemed to have been provided by nature with an armour of roughness like a hedgehog. But, perhaps, I had some small excuse for this, though, after all, it is a question in my mind as to what excuse there may be for any man outside the motives of his own deeds, and ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... clergyman had seemed, if his memory was to be trusted, to have been the shining centre of a group whose life threw the life of young Athens, as represented by Plato, into the shade. The man in question seemed, in later years, a sturdily built clergyman, slow and cautious of speech, brusque and even grim of address, sensible, devoted to commonplace activities, and with a due appreciation of the comforts and conveniences of life. His conversation had no suggestiveness or subtlety. He was grumpy in the morning and good-humoured in the evening. He seemed impatient of new ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Guards, in their curious comic opera caps, are reinforced by German gendarmes with rifles slung over their shoulders. Civilians are not allowed to cross this square in front of the railway station. "Keep to the sidewalk" is the brusque order to those who stray. Also the park in front of the Royal Palace is closed to the public. Three bright red gasoline tank wagons among the trees give it an incongruous touch, while the walks and drives are used as an exercising ground for officers' mounts. All the windows of the Royal Palace ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... pierceingly in a crowd, which disliked to be disturbed by sounds of distress in its quiet enjoyment of the national spectacle. When led away by a grave and protecting policeman, it would often become apparent that poor Stevie had forgotten his address—at least for a time. A brusque question caused him to stutter to the point of suffocation. When startled by anything perplexing he used to squint horribly. However, he never had any fits (which was encouraging); and before the natural outbursts of impatience on the part of his ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... presence of this brusque attack, simply shrugged his shoulders, and resumed his reflections—whatever ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... wound was closed, the child recovered its voice, and was well four days afterward. Annandale saw a little patient who had swallowed a bead of glass, which had lodged in the bronchus. He introduced the handle of a scalpel into the trachea, producing sufficient irritation to provoke a brusque expiration, and at the second attempt the foreign body was expelled. Hulke records the case of a woman, the victim of a peculiar accident happening during the performance of tracheotomy, for an affection of the larynx. The internal ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... you've come now, to stay?" It sounded brusque and unmannerly, but it was the only remark that occurred ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... Vienna comparatively unknown, but his fine piano playing and wonderful gift for improvising greatly impressed all who heard him. He constantly played in the homes of the wealthy aristocracy. Many who heard him play, engaged lessons and he was well on the road to social success. Yet his brusque manners often antagonized his patrons. He made no effort to please or conciliate; he was obstinate and self-willed. In spite of all this, the innate nobleness and truth of his character retained the regard of men and women belonging to the highest ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... quite impossible, your Majesty," said the Prime Minister, with a brevity that was almost brusque. "It would entirely confuse the issue ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... I thought I knew Louis Jennings pretty intimately in Parliamentary and social life, but I found a new man hidden in these pages—a beautiful, sunny nature, obscured in the ordinary relations of life by a somewhat brusque manner, and in these last eighteen months soured and cramped by a cruel disease. Jennings knew and loved the country as Gilbert White knew and ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... waywardness of our feelings that Margery had never reposed confidence in Pigeonswing, who was devotedly the friend of le Bourdon, and who remained with them for no other reason than a general wish to be of use. Something BRUSQUE in his manner, which was much less courteous and polished than that of Peter, had early rendered her dissatisfied with him, and once estranged, she had never felt disposed to be on terms of intimacy sufficient to ascertain his good ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... the words themselves were so brusque, while the utterance was so gentle and melodious, that Lynde refused to credit his ears. Could he have heard aright? Before he recovered from his surprise the gentleman in black was far up the slope, his gaze again riveted on some remote ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... mixed the Burgundians and English together in speaking of the enemy which Joan had come to make war upon. But she showed that she made a distinction between them by act and word, the Burgundians being Frenchmen and therefore entitled to less brusque treatment than the ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... offering a most winsome type of beautiful, good womanhood. A little child has been added to the picture—an afterthought, I understand, and scarcely a fortunate one; at least in the manner of its presentment. The figure is cleverly merged in half shadow, but the treatment of the face is brusque, and a most unpleasant smirk distorts the child's mouth. It is the portrait of the mother that carries the picture, and its superiority to many of Miss Beaux's portraits consists in the sympathy with her subject which the ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... fame of the Archdales. Did his father know of it? Nothing that Stephen had ever seen in him looked like such knowledge, but that did not make the son quite sure, for the old butler's remark about the Colonel's suavity was just; his elaborate manners made Stephen almost brusque at times, and aroused a secret antagonism in both, so that they sometimes met one another with armor on, and Stephen's keen thrust would occasionally penetrate the shield which his father skilfully interposed between that and ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... hospitality. His brother was returned from a visit to Guaymas and Mazatlan, and he had brought wine of the finest and cigars such as Arizona never had known, and Sancho was manifestly disconcerted at the regrets or refusals, coldly courteous on the part of Loring, blunt and brusque on the part of Blake. The veterans, however, saw no harm in going and were sumptuously entertained by mine host in the best room of the ranch. Blake caused a strong guard to be posted at camp, a most unusual thing, and one instantly noted among Sancho's people, and after making the rounds and giving ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... "He was what you may describe as brusque. It is the English way, perhaps, of treating such matters. Now, for myself I should have been warmer, I think. I should have allowed myself a little play, as it were. One says a few pretty things—is it not so? One suggests that the lady is an angel and oneself ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... it. And she found the hunting of deer far more thrilling than the tame pursuit of sheep. Slipping with curious ease the inherited sympathies of her kind, she fell into the ways of the wild kindred, save for a certain brusque openness which she ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... his brusque manner, "I like fair-play. If Cheenbuk is going to carry off one of our maidens, it seems to me reasonable that an Eskimo maid should be left in her place. There is one of their girls who is named Cowlik. I am willing to take Cowlik and make ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... she began with brusque directness the instant the quartette were seated in the taxicab, "don't keep me in the dark any longer. You must know how—what a queer feeling all this has ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... happily constituted. She rose with the sun, like the birds; and she herself resembled the birds by her domestic industry, by her maternal instinct, by her perpetual desire to sing, and by a sort of brusque grace, which I could feel the of very well even as a child. She was the soul of the house, which she filled with her systematic and joyous activity. My father was just as slow as she was brisk. I can recall very well that placid face of his, over which at times an ironical smile used to flit. ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... she said, her voice perceptibly less harsh and brusque than it had been when speaking to my companion. 'Hope nothing and ask nothing until you may have occasion; ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... said Caesar, speaking of the Germans. Pillage brings no shame. This desire of gain, this positive and realistic tendency is one of the motives which the brusque and prodigious economic expansion of Germany has promoted in ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Clemenceau appeared at the Conference door, and seemed taken aback by the large number of unfamiliar faces and figures behind Mr. Balfour, toward whom he sharply turned with the brusque interrogation: "Who are those people behind you? Are they English?" "Yes, they are," was the answer. "Well, what do they want here?" "They have come on the same errand as those who are now following you." Thereupon the French Premier, whirling round, beheld with astonishment and displeasure ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... incomes and economies. As the dentist came to know his little woman better she grew to be more and more of a puzzle and a joy to him. She would suddenly interrupt a grave discourse upon the rents of rooms and the cost of light and fuel with a brusque outburst of affection that set him all a-tremble with delight. All at once she would set down her chocolate, and, leaning across the narrow ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... in the same place two months later when he told her all, and asked her to be his wife in his own brusque characteristic way. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... fragments of their talk about the pictures—the easy mastery, now brusque, now poetic, with which Dalrymple had shown him the treasures of the gallery, in the manner of one whose learning was merely the food of fancy, the stuff on which ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for alarm. The Russians have been handsomely beaten again; but we have suffered considerable loss," he said, hesitating a little, fearing to be too brusque with ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... answer to Melissa, for I fear it was offensively brusque, my opinion being that Sir Gavial was the more pernicious scoundrel of the two, since his name for virtue served as an effective part of a swindling apparatus; and perhaps I hinted that to call such a man moral showed rather a silly notion of human ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... without confusing, and refuted without involving other subjects than those legitimately belonging to the controversy. His style of writing was serious, plain, and without an undue levity, yet withal perfectly readable. Men studied Collins who shrunk from contact with the lion-hearted Woolston, whose brusque pen too often shocked those it failed to convince. There was a timidity in many of the letters of Blount, and a craving wish to rely more on the witticisms of Brown, than was to be found in the free and manly spirit of our hero. To the general public, the abstruse speculations ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... permitted to appear in the case he would throw up his brief and leave it. Lincoln keenly felt the affront, but his great nature forgave it so entirely that, recognizing the singular abilities of Stanton beneath his brusque exterior, he afterwards, for the public good, appointed him to a seat ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... I brusque and surly? Or oppressively bland and fond? Was I partial to rising early? Or why did we twain abscond, All breakfastless, too, from the public view, To prowl by a ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... a domineering and brusque personality, had ably administered the War Department under Lincoln and Johnson. During the controversy between the President and Congress, Stanton had remained in the Cabinet but was closely in touch with his chief's opponents ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... drink, with one hand holding the pannikin to his brother's mouth and with the other supporting the dying head. Twice he gulped at it, then with a brusque motion of his wasted arm he knocked the cup aside, spilling the water on the ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... nothing of the kind." The brusque Captain is nothing if not unceremonious. "We'll have this Hamburg cargo loaded in a day, and you can't go and get back in time; and I won't wait—I won't wait a second for anyone mad enough to go to Guatemala! You'll have to give it up," ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... us and pruned us and advised us and did us more good than almost any other instructor we ever had. Oh, those were grand days! No better than the present, for life grows brighter to me all the time; but we shall not forget the quaint, strong, brusque professor who so unceremoniously smashed things which he did not like, and shook, the class with merriment or indignation. The widest awake professorial room in the land was Dr. Henry's, in the New York ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... ledges. In summer time he basked the whole day long, and slept the calm ambrosial nights away. Something of this free life was in the burning eyes, long clustering dark hair, and smooth brown bosom of the faun-like creature. His graceful body had the brusque, unerring movement of the goats he shepherded. Human thought and emotion seemed a-slumber in this youth who had grown one with nature. As I watched his careless incarnate loveliness I remembered lines from an ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... and do a few errands. The sum total of these expenses amounted to only eighteen cents, which left me two cents over for emergencies." Balzac somewhat exaggerates his poverty and reduces his expenses to suit the pleasure of his poetic fantasy, but undoubtedly it was a brusque transition from the bourgeois comfort of family life to the austerity ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... no remark Unless it be a friendly call From soldiers walking in the Mall, Or the impertinence of pugs Stretched at their ease on carriage rugs. For thou art sturdy and thy fur Is rougher than the prickly burr, Thy manners brusque, thy deep "bow wow" (Inherited, but Lord knows how!) Far other than the frenzied yaps That emanate from ladies' laps, Thou art, in fact, of doggy size And hast the brown and faithful eyes, So full of love, so void of blame, That ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... intended to do that afternoon she would have to be cold to Craven in the future. With her temperament it would be impossible to continue her friendship with Craven if she were going to marry Sir Seymour. She knew that. But she did not know how frigid, how almost brusque, ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... no doubt," Nani again hastily replied, as if he feared that the others might be too brusque with the young enthusiast. "The Holy Father has such a lofty mind. And of course it would be necessary to see him. Only, my dear child, you must not excite yourself so much; reflect a little; take your time." And, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the murderer did," was the rather brusque reply. Inspector Carfon was finding the role of audience trying, alike to his ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... you have come several thousands of miles in order to preach the Gospel, is not sufficient to place you unquestionably on a pedestal. By temperament you are either impetuous or slow, easy-going or exacting, courteous or brusque, and you will prove to be by nature more or less reasonable or unreasonable when the Chinaman seeks to make you understand li, an untranslatable word, which embodies the idea of the complete range of all that it is suitable that you should be ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... Tilden and received that attention which characterizes Sir Thomas. Mr. Howe, once more on friendly footing, was assigned a seat beside the incorrigible Captain Hawley, whose choice epithets produced such sensitive effects upon the ears of the secretary sometime previous. Major McNair, a brusque, genial, stout-hearted soldier, always ready to do the honors of the Regiment under his charge, had on his right Captain Hawkins, an American officer; on his left an American youth and nephew of the officer. The convivial resources of these ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... him?" The question barked out, brusque and sharp, but never had a voice sounded more welcome in Elliott Cameron's ears. She turned around in joyful relief to encounter a pair of gimlet-like black eyes in the face of an old woman. She was an ugly little old woman in a battered straw ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... read, and write, and count," said I, taking the words out of Jack's mouth; for I felt that his brusque manner of replying was not calculated to commend ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... to the princess presumptuous and humiliating. She confessed to herself that the prince's manners were not in the least improved by his long campaign—that they were somewhat brusque. He took her hand tenderly; leading her to a divan, and seated himself beside her, but suddenly jumping up he left her, and returned in a few moments with ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... was Captain Hardy who had the surprise. Instead of the stern, silent, brusque man he had become accustomed to, Captain Hardy found the Chief smiling and talkative. As his eye fell on Captain Hardy, the Chief rubbed his hands with apparent satisfaction. Evidently something had happened that had put him in an ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... Prince, suddenly, with a return of his brusque frankness; "you might have ASKED me ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... done it and sent her boating with the rest, but submitted as usual when commanded to adhere to the former plan of driving with grandmamma. These Druce children must be excellent, according to their mother, but they are terribly brusque and bearish. They are either seen and not heard, or not seen and heard a great deal too much. Even Jane and Meg, who ought to know better, keep up a perpetual undercurrent of chatter and giggle, whatever is going on, with any one who will share ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... no difficulty in answering, but the interval of reflection had soothed her irritation, and blunted her animosity. Her reply was neither brusque nor rude, it leant rather to conventionalism than to originality, and she used, after all, those phrases which have been commonplaces in such circumstances, since man first asked and woman first refused. She thanked Mr Westray for the kind interest which he had taken in her, ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... je fais tous les jours, et je n'en suis pas surprise. Du caractere dont elle est, celui du Marquis doit etre de son gout. La Comtesse est une femme brusque, qui aime a primer, a gouverner, a etre la maitresse. Le Marquis est un homme doux, paisible, aise a conduire; et voila ce qu'il faut a la Comtesse. Aussi ne parle-t-elle de lui qu'avec eloge. Son air de naivete lui plait: c'est, dit-elle, le meilleur homme, le plus complaisant, le plus ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... hesitating soldiery which then constituted the whole of the French army; to surprise Versailles, inadequately defended, and seize, if it were possible, on the Assembly and the Government. Your sudden revolution wanted to be followed up by a brusque attack, there would then have been some hope—a faint one, I confess, but still a hope, and this plan of Bergeret, by the very reason of its audacity, should not have been condemned by you, who have only ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... to the Presbytery, the girl met Denis Quirk. Like Kathleen O'Connor, Molly Healy was not quite sure how she regarded the manager of "The Mercury." He was always brusque and unapproachable, yet she infinitely preferred his attitude to the polish ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... very utmost of their revolutions. We heard them slow down at last, and, vaguely, the white hull of the tug appeared moving against the black islets, whilst a slow and rhythmical clapping as of thousands of hands rose on all sides. It ceased all at once, just before Falk brought her up. A single brusque splash was followed by the long drawn rumbling of iron links running through the hawse pipe. Then a solemn silence fell ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... of an early September evening with the talk and company of the one young woman in the world whose talk and company were in any degree worth considering. Brower crunched his cigar between his teeth, and replied to Marshall's observations with a brusque carelessness for which he rebuked himself as being ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... the carved oak chair which had for generations been a member of the Major's family. The light mood had left him. Now he was the soldier, brusque in manner, with lines about his mouth which, to certain men, gave his ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... you not somewhat brusque and uncourteous in your demeanor?" Vane demanded, with some hauteur. "Who are you, and what do ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... here, they tell me," he grunted in the brusque way that failed to conceal the kindest ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... him—a boy in 1826 and a girl in 1827. After the Revolution of 1830 he was elected deputy. When he took his seat in the chamber, his American ideas and theories were very much like those of Armand Carrel. His animated speeches—brusque, martial, and full of feeling—made quite a sensation. He became one of the inspirers of the National after being one of its first shareholders, and he suggested articles attacking the budget ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... to listen to him dying for six hours, with his entrails torn with slugs. At any rate this was a life for a life. . . . And all this was said with the weariness, with the recklessness of a man spurred on and on by ill-luck till he cares not where he runs. When he asked Jim, with a sort of brusque despairing frankness, whether he himself—straight now—didn't understand that when "it came to saving one's life in the dark, one didn't care who else went—three, thirty, three hundred people"—it was as if a demon had been ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... love for the bit of land which his fathers had cultivated for more years than Ahab had reigned days, but by obedience to the law of God; and he was not afraid to show himself a Jehovah worshipper, by his solemn appeal to 'the Lord,' as well as by the fact of his refusal. The brusque, flat refusal shows that some independence ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... tolerated him, but when he tried to talk with them he found that most of them had little or no English, and he made scant progress with them in that particular. The big first mate, Carlos, rebuffed him repeatedly, but he persisted, and in time the rebuffs became less brusque. He also noticed a certain softening of the sailors toward him. His own charm of manner was so great that it was hard to resist it when it was continuously exerted, and sailors, like other men, appreciate help when it is given to them continuously. ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... than the canvassing of remote possibilities: each, in fact, was in the stage of finding each other a mine worth exploring. Brent began to see a lot in Queenie and her dark eyes; Queenie was beginning to consider Brent, with his grim jaw, his brusque, off-hand speech, and masterful manner, a curiously fascinating person; besides, he was beginning to do things that only strong ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... mystified and impressed by the brusque bitterness of Lieutenant D'Hubert's tone. They left the house together, and in the street he was still more ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... he had been an officer in Ellsworth's company, and was familiar with fancy manoeuvres for street parade, and with a special skirmish drill and bayonet exercise. Small, swarthy, with angular features, and a brusque, military manner, in a showy uniform and jaunty kepi of scarlet cloth, covered with gold lace, he created quite a sensation among us. His assumption of knowledge and experience was accepted as true. He claimed to have been a surgeon in the ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... alternated by small keys and old-fashioned mourning-rings. His complexion was pale and sodden, and his hair short, dark, and sleek. The bookseller valued himself on a likeness to Buonaparte; and affected a short, brusque, peremptory manner, which he meant to be the indication of the vigorous and decisive ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... An interruption brusque enough to silence her; or else it was its innuendo that struck the princess dumb with indignation. Lanyard's laugh offered amends for the rudeness, as if he said: "Sorry—but you asked for it, you know." He stepped aside, caught up a handful of her jewels that had been left, ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... The brusque reply is still remembered of Lawson Tait, the great English ovariotomist, to a distinguished German colleague, who had inquired the secret of his then marvelously low death-rate: after a glance at the bands of mourning on the ends of the other's fingers, ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... didn't take any notice of father," said Cicely, with the brusque directness of youth, and Aunt Ellen seemed to be somewhat bewildered at the statement, not liking to impute blame to her sovereign, but unable for the moment to find any ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... such a very undesirable party?" said Graham, laughing, for he heartily enjoyed his aunt's brusque way of talking, having learned already ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... born in Kentucky of Virginia parentage, married to a Southern woman, accustomed from boyhood to the narrow circumstances of the poor, and still unused to the ways of the great, was called to the American Presidency. He was not brusque and warlike as Jackson had been; he was a kindly philosopher, a free-thinker in religion at the head of an orthodox people, or peoples. A shrewd judge of human character and the real friend of the poor and the dependent, Lincoln, like his aristocratic prototype, Thomas Jefferson, believed ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... said no word. Perhaps if he had, Elizabeth might have been induced to reconsider her decision. The fact was, she was getting sore as well as unhappy. "If he had wanted me, he would have asked me to accompany them," she said to herself, never dreaming that her brusque, decided manner made any such invitation on his part ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... he carried eccentricity to an extravagant extent, was brusque and curt in speech, often to the verge of insult, laconic in his despatches, and—a soldier in grain—treated with stinging sarcasm all whose lack of activity or of courage invited his contempt. It was by this spirit that he incurred the enmity of the Emperor Paul, when, in his half-mad ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... murderer did," was the rather brusque reply. Inspector Carfon was finding the role of audience trying, alike to his nerves and to ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... the brunt of the battle alone, for Matchin soon grew shy of disputing with his rebellious child. She was growing rapidly and assuming that look of maturity which comes so suddenly and so strangely to the notice of a parent. When he attacked her one day with the brusque exclamation, "Well, Mattie, what's all this blame foolishness your ma's being tellin' me ?" she answered him with a cool decision and energy that startled and alarmed him. She stood straight and terribly tall, he thought. She ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... the rank and file. During training at home and on service in France he did splendid work, and to him is due in no small measure the high standard of efficiency and discipline maintained in the Battalion. In manner somewhat brusque, but of a tender heart withal, he was the friend and confidant of nearly all the Officers, N.C.O.s and men, and when off parade the best of ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... flow more quickly, out of sympathy; and his intellectual alertness bewildered and fascinated her. She was still shy at thirty-five, and really very timid and apologetic for her commonplaceness; but at times the rebellious bitterness at the bottom of her heart would leap forth in a brusque or bold speech. She was still capable of ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... remained silent, his speech failed him through the brusque manner in which he was addressed. Taking advantage of ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... at this time sixty-nine years old, a tall, robust, vigorous man with a stern face of remarkable vulgar strength. The illiteracy of his youth survived; he could not write the simplest words correctly, and his speech was a brusque medley of slang, jargon, dialect and profanity. It was said of him that he could swear more forcibly, variously and frequently than any other man of his generation. Like the Astors, he was cynical, distrustful, secretive and parsimonious. ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... saw her hastily stow a packet in her luggage. But, though he was Mayor of Auray, he did nothing more about his mother-in-law's death. It is to be remarked, however, that the Hetels themselves were against the brusque dismissal of Helene. She had "smothered the mother ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... otherwise a kind sort of woman, sends him here. She believes it will work his reform. I pity her error-for it is an error to believe reform can come of punishment, or that virtue may be nurtured among vice." Thus responds the brusque but kind-hearted old jailer, who view swith an air of compassion his new comer, as he lays, a forlorn mass, exposed to the gaze of the prisoners ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... without having learned that his business was to smite on conscience with a strong hand, and to tear away the masks which hid men from themselves. The whole spirit of the old prophets was revived in his brusque, almost fierce, address to such very learned, religious, and distinguished personages. Isaiah in his day had called their predecessors 'rulers of Sodom'; John was not scolding when he called his hearers 'ye offspring ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... He was never heard to speak other than gently to his mother, though to every one else his manner was sometimes brusque and dictatorial. ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... marry us both," said the marquis, replying to Laurence; "and the time has come," he continued, in the brusque tone of a man who is struck to the heart, "to ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... had openly proposed in her father's presence to ask them both to luncheon, the Squire had pretended not to hear, but had at any rate raised no objection. And when the brother and sister arrived, he had received them as though nothing had happened. His manners were always brusque and ungracious, except in the case of persons who specially mattered to his own pursuits, such as archaeologists and Greek professors. But the Chetworth family were almost as well acquainted with his ways as his own, and his visitors ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that, when Friday came and the afternoon session was over, Marjorie was escorted to the gymnasium by the Picture Girl and her friends, who, even to Mignon, believed that the newcomer had been wise and taken their brusque advice. ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... reader must rest satisfied with the author's bare word. There is no attempt at the study of passions; his heroes change their minds all of a sudden, with the stiff, sharp, improbable action of puppets in a show. Pandosto (Leontes) loves and hates, and becomes jealous, and repents always in the same brusque wire-and-wood manner; the warmth of his passions, so great and terrible in Shakespeare, is here simply absent; when he begins to suspect his friend Egistus (Polixenes) of feeling an unlawful love for Bellaria (Hermione), we are barely informed that the Bohemian king "concluded ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... cold days of January recurred monotonously, with now and then a brilliance of blue flashing in, when Brangwen went out into a morning like crystal, when every sound rang again, and the birds were many and sudden and brusque in the hedges. Then an elation came over him in spite of everything, whether his wife were strange or sad, or whether he craved for her to be with him, it did not matter, the air rang with clear noises, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... But this brusque separation from his particular divinity was disconcerting. How to see her again? He must go up to Oxford in the morning, he wrote her that night, but if she could possibly let him call during the week he would manage to run ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... with delinquency in not having required the Water people to share their superabundance with those of the Turquoise. The delegate of Kohaio was not only aggressive in his speech, but his manner of delivering it was brusque and violent, and created quite a stir; and many of the members cast glances at him which were not of ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... little Vicomte made his accustomed appearance in the drawing-room, after the table d'hote, he offered the Cockayne ladies his profoundest bows, and was most reverential in his attitude to Mr. Cockayne, who on his side was red and brusque. As neither Mr. nor Mrs. Cockayne could speak a French word, and Mr. John Catt was not in a position to help them, and was, moreover, inclined to the most unfavourable conclusions on the French nobleman, the presentations were on the English side of the most awkward description. ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... thirty of us followed the hearse which carried Louis Miraz to the Cemetery Montmartre. It had snowed the day before, and Doctor Arnould, the old frequenter of painters' studios, the friend and physician of the dead man, walking behind me, called in his brusque voice, ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... to join my new regiment, your excellency," replied Boris, betraying neither annoyance at the prince's brusque manner nor a desire to enter into conversation, but speaking so quietly and respectfully that the prince gave ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... had lived at the North,—not only from the proprietors of the office, but from every one of its frequenters. And yet after all these civilities he had so far forgotten himself as to challenge a friend of his host, a very worthy gentleman, who, although a trifle brusque in his way of putting things, was still an open-hearted man. And all because he differed with him on ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... leave for the second time. We walked some distance from the police-station before exchanging a word: I do not know what she was thinking of; as for myself, I was speculating on the change in my opinion brought about by the rough-and-ready statement of the brusque Yorkshireman. For until then I had firmly believed that the man who had accosted our friend of the Mariner's Joy, Jim Gelthwaite, the drover, was the man who had murdered Salter Quick. My notion was that this man, whoever he was, had foregathered ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... anxious countenance, first at one, and then at the other, but scarcely knew what to say. Woodward, however, who was better acquainted with the usages of society, and the deference due to the presence of women, than the brusque, but somewhat fiery Milesian, now said, with a smile and a bow to ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... class, the fishers have grown to be more religious than almost any other body of men, and they like powerful excitement; but they are always severely decorous. In his behaviour toward his social superiors the fisherman is rugged—perhaps morbidly rugged—but his brusque familiarity is not offensive. To touch his cap would be impossible to him, but his direct salute is neither self-assertive nor impolite. The fisherman toils on till the time comes for him to stay ashore always. His life is a very risky one, and the history of every ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... without. They thronged up to its lintels just as the surf presses against the dykes, that are the doors of the land, to guard it from that strange old sea which would learn all its secrets, only to obliterate them. The doctor looked up. "He is resting at last," he said in brusque fashion, "and a good thing for everybody. Did you ever see this mark on him, Dan? Regular ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... body to which he attributed most curious properties. Since his return he had been occupied with some very delicate experiments, which he did not always carry out to his satisfaction; his movements were brusque, his hands all thumbs; very often he chanced to ruin everything by breaking his vessels. Samuel proposed to assist him in a manipulation requiring considerable dexterity; he had very flexible fingers, was as expert as a juggler, and the ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... up quickly, as if he did not quite understand the brusque ways of his new acquaintance, who put his questions so directly. But the new acquaintance seemed good-humored and quite at his ease, and evidently had not the least idea of being rude or over-inquisitive. He had only the way of one apparently ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... every one stopped talking. At the beginning of the entr'acte Giovanni left the box, and Count Tornik took his chair. He was a strange man, but Nina was beginning to like him. Notwithstanding his brusque indifference, he had a charm that he could exert when he chose. Giovanni's speeches were no more flattering ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... time in her life, her father repelled her, shrinking away from her with a brusque, involuntary recoil that shocked her, thrusting her arms roughly to one side, and rising up hastily to retreat into the house. He said in a bitter, recriminating tone, "You don't know what you are talking about," and left her standing there, the tears frozen in her eyes. He went ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... Marston Greyle came on the scene—she had seemed to become constrained, chilled, distant, aloof—not with the stranger, himself, but with her kinsman. This fancy had become assurance during the conversation which had abruptly ended when Greyle took offence at Stafford's brusque remark. Copplestone had seen a sudden look in the girl's eyes when the fisherman repeated what Oliver had said about meeting a Mr. Marston Greyle in America; it was a look of sharply awakened—what? Suspicion? apprehension?—he could not decide. But it was the same look which had come ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... went on by gradual disintegration rather than by any brusque or even voluntary action on the part of Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Bates, the attorney-general, growing weary of the labors of his official position, resigned toward the end of November. Mr. Lincoln, on whom the claim of localities always had great ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... beside her, he put her through a catechism as to her village, her uncle, her friends. She resisted a little, for the brusque assurance of his tone still sounded oddly in her American ear. But he was not easy to resist; and when she had yielded she soon discovered that to talk to him was a no less breathless and absorbing business than to listen to him. He pounced on the new, the characteristic, the local; he drew ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... used to advance theatrically to the edge of the stage, and, then, pointing an accusing finger at one part of the audience, declare in loud ringing tones, "You're a sneak!" It is questionable whether any attempt at arousing interest could justify such a brusque approach. Only in broadly comic or genuinely humorous addresses can it be said that the end ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... the confessional. Fate saved me from playing the part Vane had assigned me in this vulgar comedy, dragged me from my entanglement, flung me on my feet again. She was a little brusque in the process; but I do not feel inclined to blame the kind lady for that. The mud was creeping upward fast, and a quick hand must ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... value of this conversation was that it taught me that the man's manner was no indication of his mood. I had thought he was impatient and indifferent, but I saw now that he was not so, rather brusque merely. He was simply excitable, somewhat like the French, and meant only to be businesslike. The upshot of it all was that he agreed to do it for one hundred and fifty, and asked me very solemnly ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... of an affliction. "A pity I don't hear better?" I have heard him say. "Not at all. If my misfortune, as you call it, were to be removed, you can't conceive how I should miss my deaf ear." He was a fine fellow, though brusque, and I never saw him without his pipe until two days before we buried him, which was ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... to fear his brusque ways. He was no carpet knight, and men who carry their lives in their hands do not ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... unique. Simple-minded, modest, and almost morbidly retiring, he was fearless and outspoken when occasion required. Strong in will and prompt in action, with a naturally hot temper, he was yet forgiving to a fault. Somewhat brusque in manner, his disposition was singularly sympathetic and attractive, winning all hearts. Weakness and suffering at once enlisted his interest. Caring nothing for what was said of him, he was indifferent to praise or ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... knew from previous inquiry, to rather an exceptional class of individuals in America, I did not suffer my mind to be biassed, although I could see that many of the passengers were not disposed to view the matter in the same light. He was a brusque and uncouth man, of swaggering gait, about forty years of age, above the middle stature, and soon let the captain and crew know, by his authoritative manner and volubility of tongue, that he was chief ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... The Count made a brusque movement of surprise, and saluting the Prince coldly, left him. A quarter of an hour after, two carriages in different directions left Ceprano. Monte-Leone's took the road to Rome, the Prince de Maulear's that to Naples. The former, however, did not go to Rome; for, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... going to say "rude," but knew better when she saw me waiting for it—"well, you are rather brusque, as we used to call it abroad, Miss Castlewood; but am I incapable of ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... Burgundians and English together in speaking of the enemy which Joan had come to make war upon. But she showed that she made a distinction between them by act and word, the Burgundians being Frenchmen and therefore entitled to less brusque treatment ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sandy waste stretching away to the misty sea at Budden, four men were walking. Two wore uniform—one an alert, grey-haired general, sharp and brusque in manner, with many war ribbons across his tunic; the other a tall, thin-faced staff captain, who wore the tartan of the Gordon Highlanders. With them were two civilians, both in rough shooting-jackets and breeches, one about forty-five, the other a few years ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... hull of the tug appeared moving against the black islets, whilst a slow and rhythmical clapping as of thousands of hands rose on all sides. It ceased all at once, just before Falk brought her up. A single brusque splash was followed by the long drawn rumbling of iron links running through the hawse pipe. Then a solemn silence fell ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... epigrammatic remarks, is a piece of gross exaggeration, but it has a modicum of truth in it. In the eyes of well-trained Russian officials M. Witte was a titanic, reckless character, capable at any moment of playing the part of the bull in the china-shop. As a masterful person, brusque in manner and incapable of brooking contradiction, he had made for himself many enemies; and his restless, irrepressible energy had led him to encroach on the provinces of all his colleagues. Possessing as he ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Government departments, according to whose piping ministers themselves have willingly or unwillingly to dance—is totally incompatible with the very elementary conditions of Socialistic administration."[1127] "Bismarckian State control is brusque and baneful, and is certainly not the desire of the ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... with a heart of gold!" was his mental comment; then he spoke abruptly, and his voice sounded brusque though his face was working ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... curtains, the sooty little back garden beyond, with its cat-runs, and its one stunted sumach tree; the dark-brown stare of Monsieur Harmost's rolling eyes brought back that time of happiness, when she used to come week after week, full of gaiety and importance, and chatter away, basking in his brusque admiration and in music, all with the glamourous feeling that she was making him happy, and herself happy, and going to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... as it happens. The parlance I like is a simple and natural parlance, the same on paper as in the mouth, a succulent and a nervous parlance, short and compact, not so much refined and finished to a hair as impetuous and brusque, difficult rather than wearisome, devoid of affectation, irregular, disconnected, and bold, not pedant-like, not preacher-like, not pleader-like." That fixity which Montaigne could not give to his irresolute ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... I am not in politics. The political mess grows to be nastier every year. But what are you here for? Come, now! Come! Let's talk it over." He was a bit brusque, but his ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... responded the other, in that quick, brusque manner belonging to his nature, "Master Martin did lay naught at thy door, but what I, or any other righteous man, might deem an honor to a house. Nay," he continued, with some vehemence, "if what he said ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... and conversing in different groups, and I talked with several. Archbishop Whately, I thought, seemed rather inclined to be jocose: he seems to me like some of our American divines; a man who pays little attention to forms, and does not value them. There is a kind of brusque humor in his address, a downright heartiness, which reminds one of western character. If he had been born in our latitude, in Kentucky or Wisconsin, the natives would have called him Whately, and said he was a real steamboat on an argument. This is not precisely the kind of man ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... all the marks of travel removed, came into the large room. They rose at once and exchanged greetings. Robert, although he did not trust them, felt that they had no cause of quarrel with the two, and it was no part of his character to be brusque ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... of Lent the Society of the Holy Gethsemane was visited by its ecclesiastical Visitor. This was the Bishop of the diocese, a liberal-minded man and not a very rigid ecclesiastic, abrupt, brusque, businesslike, and a good administrator. When the brothers had gathered in the community room, he took from the Superior the leathern-bound volume containing the rule of the Brotherhood and read ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... control the unruly spirits. Governor Cumming may for the moment have been deceived by this apparent division among the Mormons, but three years later he told the author that it was all of a piece with the incidents of his passage through Echo Canon. In his characteristic brusque way he said: 'It was all humbug, sir, all humbug; but never mind; it is all over now. If it did them good, it did not hurt me.'"—"Rocky Mountain Saints," ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... many hours to indulge in either emotion. Very early next morning the telephone, which Ranger Morton had promptly repaired, began to ring. Charley answered the call and received a brusque order from the forester to remain at the tower, as the forester was coming out to ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... from that day. Pontano, who was Ferdinand's secretary, told a different tale. He affirmed that the real father of the Duke of Calabria was a Marrano of Valentia. This last story is rendered probable by the brusque contrast between the character of Alfonso and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... was vibrantly conscious of the man's strange, forceful personality. His brusque, hard speeches fell on her like so many blows, and yet behind them she felt as though there were something that appealed—something hurt and seeking to hide its hurt behind an ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... penombre du Codex Exoniensis et devant qui passent soudain avec leurs brillantes syllables 'Halte-Clerc,' l'epee d'Olivier, 'Joyeuse' celle de Charlemagne, 'Monjoie' l'etendard des Francs? Avant toute description on est saisi comme par un brusque lever de soleil. Il est tels vers de nos vieilles romances d'ou la lumiere ruisselle sans meme qu'on ait besoin de prendre garde ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... jetted acutely across the indistinct mingling of remote noises, and this brusque person sprang to a little group of appliances in the corner of the room. He listened for a moment, regarding a ball of crystal, nodded, and said a few indistinct words; then he walked to the wall through which the two men had vanished. ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... temporary rank by the appointment of a provincial governor. Warren was an impetuous sailor accustomed to command, and Pepperrell was a merchant accustomed to manage and persuade. The difference appears in their correspondence during the siege. Warren is sometimes brusque and almost peremptory; Pepperrell is forbearing and considerate to the last degree. He liked Warren, and, to the last, continued to praise him highly in letters to Shirley and other provincial governors; [Footnote: See extracts in Parson, 105,106. The Habitant ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... commented with brusque good-humour. "We're all upset. A drop of brandy will do us ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... and it would sometimes happen, when Helbeck went away for a time, that the cold reserve or mauvaise honte of the Jesuit would melt wholly before the eagerness of the artist—when, with intervals of a brusque silence, he talked with the rapidity and force of a turbid stream on the imaginations and the memories embodied in his work. And on one occasion, when the painter was busy with the head of St. Ursula, Laura, who was talking to Helbeck a few yards away, turned suddenly and found those dark strange ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I owe the pleasure, Mr.... er ... Mahony?" he asked, refreshing his memory with a glance at the pasteboard. He spoke in the brusque tone of one accustomed to run through many applicants in the course of an hour. "I understand that you make use of my sister Mary's name." And, as Mahony did not instantly respond, he snapped out: "My time is ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... parson's pet antipathy. The bluff old minister, with his brusque manner and big heart, would have no truck with the man who never went to church, was perpetually in liquor, and never spoke good of his neighbors. Yet he entered upon the interview fully resolved not to be betrayed into an unworthy expression of feeling; ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... final promise that Harold would go to bed at once on coming home. It seemed that he had laughed at the recommendation, so that the young surgeon felt bound to enforce it before all of us, adding that it was a kind of hurt that no one could safely neglect. There was something in his frank, brusque manner that pleased Harold, and he promised with half a smile, thanking the doctor hastily as he did so, while Dermot Tracy whispered to me, "Good luck getting him; twice as ready as the old one;" and then ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you, that I wasn't really to blame for your accident?" The question was put to Katherine with brusque directness. "I was driving a little faster than usual to escape the storm. I was well within the speed limit. Remember that. I fail to understand why you girls didn't hear my horn. It sounded ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... his aides were not in the least prepared to accept the brusque demands of Sir William Phipps. Fort Royal, it is true, had been cowed into an immediate surrender, but the blustering sailor of New England had mistaken Quebec and ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... soyez bien prepare, & que vous n'ayez bien estudie vostre suiet. Dans l'entretien ordinaire, n'allez point chercher de periphrases, point de subtilitez, ny de figures. Ne confondez point vos paroles dans les coutumes d'vne langue trop brusque & begayante; mais aussi, ne parlez pas si lentement, & a tant de reprises, que vous ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... transacted, and when they might just as well have gone upstairs. But Mr. Thornton would not say a word about moving their quarters; he chafed and chafed, and thought Mr. Bell a most prosy companion; while Mr. Bell returned the compliment in secret, by considering Mr. Thornton about as brusque and curt a fellow as he had ever met with, and terribly gone off both in intelligence and manner. At last, some slight noise in the room above suggested the desirableness of moving there. They found Margaret ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... here!" he said. His voice, like himself, was rough and brusque, rumbling hollow from the depths of his cavernous chest. The figure in the bunk stirred and muttered. Nicodemus ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... were few in number. Only one of them had a distinguished air, and he, like the bridegroom, wore the uniform of France. He was a small man, somewhat brusque in attitude, as became a soldier of Italy and Egypt. But he had a pleasant smile and that affability of manner which many learnt in the first years of the great Republic. He and Mathilde Sebastian never looked at each other: either ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... ascetic person, she was looked upon with fear by all the villagers. Her manner was brusque, her speech sharp, and her criticism of neglectful mothers caustic and much to the point. Prim, always in black bonnet and jet-trimmed cape of years gone by, both in summer and winter, she took no heed of the vagaries of ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... it was thoroughly understood, did not tend to ingratiate him with the wives of the country gentlemen among whom he had to look for practice. And then, also, there was not much in his individual manner to recommend him to the favour of ladies. He was brusque, authoritative, given to contradiction, rough though never dirty in his personal belongings, and inclined to indulge in a sort of quiet raillery, which sometimes was not thoroughly understood. People did not always know whether he was laughing ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... his tone so brusque suddenly that Minks decided after all not to mention his poem where the Pleiades made their appearance as the ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... is,' the man answered in a deep and even voice. At the first brusque sound of my grandmother's voice his eyebrows faintly quivered. Surely he had not expected her to address him ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... every word that Morton did not address to her. Mildred looked at him again. He was better dressed than the others, and an air of success in his face made him seem younger than he was. He leaned across the table, and Mildred liked his brusque, but withal well-bred manner. She wondered what his pictures were like. At Daveau's only the names of the principal exhibitors at the Salon were known, and he had told her that he had not sent there for the ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... him like a great black sail. He had little imperious ways in court, too, of beckoning a client to come to him from the well, or of waving back a timid junior who had plucked his gown to draw his attention to some suggestion with a brusque 'Not now—I can't hear that now!' which suggested immeasurable gulfs between himself and them. But at home he unbent, a little consciously, perhaps, but he did unbend—being proud and fond of his children, who at least stood in no fear of him. Long years of ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... nervous activity—the ardent vitality in his appearance—was too aggressive to be wholly pleasing. She had been used to a considerate gentleness from men, and his manner, though frankly sympathetic, had seemed to her almost brusque. ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... to Andover next day and called upon the Shuttleworths. Mrs. Shuttleworth was kind and affable as usual, but whether my suspicions were ungrounded or not, I thought the rector a trifle brusque in manner, as though annoyed by my ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... Rochester (Edward). Brusque, cynical lover of Jane Eyre. Having married in his early youth a woman who disgraces him and then goes crazy, he shuts her up at Thornhill, and goes abroad. He returns to find a governess there in charge of his child-ward; falls in love with her, and would marry her, but for the discovery ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... dollars." "Why, we might almost buy it," she cried. "It's lucky you haven't saved more, John. I really believe you would buy it." "I'd like to sell it to Mr. Baxter," said Novelli, "he understands it," only to be cut short with a brusque, "No, it's out of our class, but I wanted Mrs. Baxter to see it, and I wanted you to know that she appreciates a fine object as much as I do." "Evidently," said Novelli as they parted. "I hope she will do me the honour of coming ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... to printed papers. These papers deal with all sorts of things—from the payment of Rs. 200 to a "secret service" native, up to rebukes administered to Vakils and Motamids of Native States, and rather brusque letters to Native Princes, telling them to put their houses in order, to refrain from kidnapping women, or filling offenders with pounded red pepper, and eccentricities of that kind. Of course, these things could never be made public, because Native Princes never err officially, and their ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... shameless Salvation Army rhythms; and it is sometimes (as in the Priest's solo with chorus in the last scene of the second act) odiously vulgar. "Aida" is more dramatic than "Traviata," has more of Verdi's brusque energy, less of his sentimentality; but it has none of the youthful freshness of his latest work. The young Verdi has already aged—how long will the old Verdi ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... the Little Red Doctor, speaking with the brusque informality of one assured of his place as a local celebrity. "I don't ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... view of specially delineating his nature, or detailing his opinions, has conquered me. I had intended to interview him, report in detail what he said, picture his life and his figure, then bow him my "au revoir," and march back. That he was specially disagreeable and brusque in his manner, which would make me quarrel with him immediately, was ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... worthy clergyman had seemed, if his memory was to be trusted, to have been the shining centre of a group whose life threw the life of young Athens, as represented by Plato, into the shade. The man in question seemed, in later years, a sturdily built clergyman, slow and cautious of speech, brusque and even grim of address, sensible, devoted to commonplace activities, and with a due appreciation of the comforts and conveniences of life. His conversation had no suggestiveness or subtlety. He was grumpy in the morning and good-humoured in the evening. He seemed impatient of new ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... eight months younger than myself, a handsome, intelligent, high-spirited girl, rather wanting in polish, and perhaps in the protecting sense of decorum. She was well-born, of course—she was Welsh. She was really well-bred too, though somewhat brusque. The young lady fell hopelessly in love with my father at Bath. She gave out that he was not to be for one moment accused of having encouraged her by secret addresses. It was her unsolicited avowal—thought by my aunt Dorothy immodest, not ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of it present itself to your mind?" asked Allerdyke in his brusque, downright fashion. ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... perhaps, at this buoyancy of temperament, that enabled me to get over so quickly the disappointment and dejection I was suffering from at Mrs Clyde's brusque rejection of ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... was to show by his own manner to Mrs Kenrick the affection and respect with which he regarded her. When he hinted to Kenrick, as delicately and distantly as he could, that he thought his manner to his mother rather brusque, Kenrick reddened rather angrily, but only replied, "Ah, it's all very well for you to talk; but you don't live ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... princess presumptuous and humiliating. She confessed to herself that the prince's manners were not in the least improved by his long campaign—that they were somewhat brusque. He took her hand tenderly; leading her to a divan, and seated himself beside her, but suddenly jumping up he left her, and returned in a few moments with his ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... it, I have found out to-day," and she grew more and more assured as she went on. Stamfordham started, then looked incredulous again. "I have come to tell you who did it, that you may know my husband is innocent." Then she became aware of Lady Adela, who, having at first been much annoyed at her brusque intrusion, was now suddenly roused to interest, even to sympathy. Rachel turned to her. "I must say this," she said. "Don't you see, don't you understand, what it is ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... did not treat the Dictator with the same brusque spirit of camaraderie which she showed to most of her friends. Her admiration for the public man, if it had been very enthusiastic, was very sincere. She had, from the first time that Ericson's name began to appear in the daily papers, felt a keen interest in the adventurous Englishman ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... blood systems is the natural consequence. In natural infection, insidious and increasing amounts of poison come quite gradually into play, and for this reason, perhaps, hypoleucocytosis in the normal course of infectious diseases is much rarer than in the brusque conditions of experiment. ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... At a brusque sign from Chauvelin, Brogard had hurried back to the inner room, and the former now beckoned to the man who ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... home with her and had not mentioned it. He had been too talkative as a protector and too silent as a man. And, all day, there was a bitter taste in his mouth, and, at evening, as he sat alone in the office he cut himself with a cynical smile. Warren came in, bright and brusque. ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
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