"Blunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man, he is a very old soldier for an Indian, and is nearly worn out: he is anxious to get his discharge at the end of the year, when he will have served his twenty-one years, and be entitled to a decent pension. He is a very straight-forward, blunt, honest old fellow, and when he first joined was a very powerful man, and the best wrestler in the regiment, thereby proving his South Devon blood. He was ——'s servant when I joined, and I was delighted ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... Indies, and affairs of gallantry. He was a great refiner of sensual pleasures, had a passion for magnificence and display, and a real genius for court entertainments. He could eat and drink with the gayest courtiers, sing merry songs, and join in the dance. He was blunt and frank in his manners; but these only concealed craft and cunning. "It is art to conceal art," and Wolsey was a master of all the tricks of dissimulation. He rose rapidly after he had once gained the heart of the king. He became successively dean of York, papal legate, cardinal, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... greatly improved my health, which however was still looked upon as fragile. I was loaded with coats and comforters, and strolled out between Miss Marks and Mary Grace Burmington, a muffled ball of flannel. This alone was enough to give me a look of delicacy which the 'saints', in their blunt way, made no scruple of commenting upon to my face. I was greatly impressed by a conversation held over my bed one evening by the servants. Our cook, Susan, a person of enormous size, and Kate, the tattling, tiresome parlour-maid who waited upon us, on the summer evening I ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... public, and even many of those critics who had hitherto been hostile, united in its praise. Yet scandal was not silent; for Moliere was loudly censured, as having, in the person of Alceste, ridiculed the Duke de Montausier, a man of honor and virtue, but of blunt, uncourteous manners. The duke, informed that he had been brought on the stage by Moliere, threatened vengeance; but being persuaded to see the play, he sought out the author instantly, embraced him repeatedly, and assured him that if he had really ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... (JENKINS), into which Major-General Sir GEORGE YOUNGHUSBAND has gathered his "Recollections of People, Places and Things." The title truly indicates the character of the contents, which are exactly what you would expect from a plain blunt man, who loves his friends, and equally loves a good story about them, at his own or their expense, impartially. The anecdotes in the book are legion, and the actors in them range from troopers to generals, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... and conceited attorney. So miserable was my life rendered by these continued attacks that I was often obliged to lock myself up for days together, never seeing any person save my man Samuel Scrape, who was a very honest blunt fellow, a staunch Cameronian, but withal very little conversant in religious matters. He said he came from a place called Penpunt, which I thought a name so ludicrous that I called him by the name of his native ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... be closed, at the other end it might be open wide enough to allow the cotton to be pulled through by the combing cylinder, and made into waste. In Messrs. Dobson and Barlow's nipper there is neither cloth nor leather on the cushion plate. Its edge is made into a blunt ^, upon which the narrow flat surface of a strip of India rubber or leather fixed in the knife falls to give the nip. By this plan the cushion is applied to the knife instead of to the plate, which of course makes the cushion plate, after it has once been set, a fixture; it also dispenses with the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... have the advantage of centering well. The size is indicated on the tang in 32nds of an inch. They are useful in boring holes for short blunt screws as well as deep holes. They cannot be sharpened readily but ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... smoke-smudged coats, Lay funnelled liners, dirty fishing-craft, Blunt cargo-luggers, tugs, and ferry-boats. Oh, it was good in that black-scuttled lot To see the Frye come lording on her way Like some old queen that we had half forgot Come to her own. A little up the Bay ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... has represented it to be. These men do not, like you, get rich upon "wars and rumours of wars;" their high church zeal would not, like yours, treble their business, and bring them into possession of a tolerable fortune in a few years. It is to blunt the assassinating dagger of a marked, and hitherto privileged slanderer, against the character of such men that I admitted the paragraph in question into the Guardian. If you are not the associate of the city Editor in this "crusade ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... mixed the powder—it was empty! "The God of Righteousness hath punished him!" exclaimed Amine; "but O! that this man should have been my father! Yes! it is plain. Frightened at his own wicked, damned intentions, he poured out more wine from the flagon, to blunt his feelings of remorse, and not knowing that the powder was still in the cup, he filled it up and drank himself—the death he meant for another! For another!—and for whom? one wedded to his own daughter!—Philip! my husband! Wert thou ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... Government. In the midst of this entanglement, Slidell lost his head, for hope deferred when apparently within reach of its end is a dangerous councilor of state. In his extreme anxiety, Slidell sent to the Emperor a note the blunt rashness of which the writer could not have appreciated. Saying that he feared the Emperor's subordinates might play into the hands of Washington, he threw his fat in the fire by speaking of the ships as "now being constructed at Bordeaux and Nantes for the government ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... in his interesting work, 'Travels in Peru', translated from the German by Thomasina Ross, p. 170, 1847, describes strikingly the effect of an earthquake upon the native and upon the stranger. "No familiarity with the phenomenon can blunt this feeling. The inhabitant of Lima, who from childhood has frequently witnessed these convulsions of nature, is roused from his sleep by the shock, and rushes from his apartment with the cry of 'Misericordia!' The foreigner from the north of Europe, who ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... your unhappy spirit looked out of your eyes at me, and I've spoken to that. I couldn't keep silence. Forgive me, Doctor; I'm a blunt fellow, as you have reason to know. I haven't liked you, and you haven't liked me. We've fought each other all along the line. But your calling me now has touched me very much, and I find myself caring tremendously ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... the cottonwood of the massacre, with blunt white limbs outstretched and dead, as dead as those who were slaughtered at its base and whose very bones have long been dust. The old man walks about it as in a dream. He finds the spot where was the brush-heap beneath which ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... to hold down, and 500 under Fourie, De Wet, and De la Rey around them, the little band made rapid preparation for a desperate resistance: the prisoners were laid upon their faces, the men knocked loopholes in the mud walls of the kraal, and a blunt soldierly answer was returned to ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... It was insanity," said the old merchant leaning his head upon his hands. "It seems unkind of the lad to say so when he is so far away, but he was always plain and blunt. 'If the affair did not come off'—he must have some doubts about the matter, else he would not even suppose such a thing. God knows what I should do then. There are other ways—other ways." He passed his hand over his eyes as he spoke, as though to shut out some ugly vision. Such ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... own conscience. Much humor—less wit—has been expended upon the Emperor of Germany's supposed carefulness to reject arbitration because an infringement of his divine rights; a phrase which may well be no more than a blunt expression of the sense that no third party can relieve a man from the obligations of the position to which he is called by God, and that for the duties of that position the man can confidently expect divine guidance and help. Be that as it may, the divine right of conscience will, among Americans, ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... Some people claim that Shakespeare wrote the whole of this play. The intellect changes much in life; but never in kind, only in degree. Shakespeare's mind could play with dirt and relish dirt, but it was never base and never blunt. The base mind is betrayed by its conceptions, not by its amusements. Shakespeare's mind could never, at any stage of his career, have sunk to conceive the disgusting scene in which Joan of Arc pleads. Nor could he at any time have planned a play in which ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... from the black veil, against which the rays of the caldron fell blunt, and absorbed into Dark. "Behind us, the light of the circle is extinct; but there, we are guarded from all save the brutal and soulless destroyers. But, before!— but, before!—see, two of the lamps have died out!—see the blank of the gap in the ring! ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... of brotherhood such as we know to be deeply felt among our allies in Russia. Of this there must have been germs from the earliest appearance of mankind upon earth. It is one of those most precious things which the development of wealth and class and distinctive culture has tended to blunt in more elaborate civilizations. But when we consider that the full conception of Humanity involves a knowledge of man's evolution, his growth in power, and organization throughout history, as well as the simple but ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... children it must not be made the vehicle of too abstract instruction. In order to make the dictations simple, the child must be perfectly familiar with the terms of direction, up, down, right, left, centre; with the simple names of the planes (squares, half-squares, equal-sided, blunt and sharp-angled triangles, etc.); and he must learn to know the longest edge of each triangle, that he may be able to place ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... every thing about him corresponded with this cheerfulness. The perfect arrangement of his papers, books, and maps produced a favorable impression. His son, Heinrich Sebastian, afterwards known by various writings on art, gave little promise in his youth. Good-natured but dull, not rude but blunt, and without any special liking for instruction, he rather sought to avoid the presence of his father, as he could get all he wanted from his mother. I, on the other hand, grew more and more intimate with the old man, the more I knew of him. As he attended only ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... one, of as good a gentleman's family as any in England: But, continued he, if you can be contented, I'll do what I can to make you happy with him. I believe he loves you, and mutual love must make the marriage-state happy." Mr. Blunt, the owner or proprietor of Paradise, the house inhabited by Lord Mark Kerr, was then at my father's, and knew, if I am not mistaken, from whom the letter came. Be that as it will, no more passed on this subject at that time. The next post I informed Mr. Cranstoun, ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... from which all stones as large as a doubled fist are thrown out. For this purpose the miner uses a sluice-fork, which is like a large manure-fork or garden-fork, but has tines which are blunt and of equal width all the way down; the bluntness being intended to prevent the tines from catching in the wood, and the equality of width to prevent the stones from getting ...
— Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining • John S. Hittell
... suppose—this brief will show it,— Me, Serjeant Woodward,—counsel for the poet. Used to the ground, I know 'tis hard to deal With this dread court, from whence there's no appeal; No tricking here, to blunt the edge of law, Or, damn'd in equity, escape by flaw: But judgment given, your sentence must remain; No writ of error lies—to Drury Lane: Yet when so kind you seem, 'tis past dispute We gain some favour, if not costs of suit. No spleen is here! I see no hoarded fury;— ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... entering the house, was to release White. He was still lying where I had seen him last. He appeared to have made no headway with the cords on his wrists and ankles. I came to his help with a rather blunt pocket-knife, and he rose stiffly and began to chafe the ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... papilloma forceps. The broad blunt nose will scalp off the growths without any injury to the normal basal tissues. Voice-destroying and stenosing trauma are ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... Keeper of the Seals in plain terms, that if he continued to treat me as he had done hitherto, he should be obliged in honour to give his testimony to the truth. To which the Keeper of the Seals returned this blunt answer: "The Princes are no longer in sight of Paris; the Coadjutor must not therefore talk ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... stairs with this blunt invitation, and I followed him. So good was his disguise and make-pretence that the others, who were in the narrow hall, drew back, to let him go, not recognising him, and spoke to me, asking what I had done with him. Then I pointed to the new Perfect Fool, and without another word of explanation ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... dolefully, for her ludicrous mistakes and blunt remarks were the bane of her new teacher's methodical life, and many an hour she had been kept after school as a punishment ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... And shame possessed me. Here was the chrysoberyl that all day hides its secret in deeps of lucid green but when the night comes flames with its fiery ecstasy of crimson to the moon, and I—I had been complacently considering whether I might not blunt my own spiritual instinct by companionship with her, while she had been my guide, as infinitely beyond me in insight as she was in all things beautiful. I could have kissed her feet in my deep repentance. True it is that the gateway of the high places is reverence and he who cannot bow his head ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... individuated characterization soon to distinguish the mid-eighteenth century novel. The type is still his measuring-stick, but he calibrates it far less rigidly than a Rymer analyzing Iago or Evadne. A man can be A Flatterer or A Blunt Man and still retain a private identity: this private identity Gally recognizes as important. Gally's essay thus reflects fundamental changes in the English attitude toward human nature ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... the blunt declaration. She might have guessed that Echford Flagg would have repulsed a stranger; he had disguised his true sentiments under the excuse ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... the cup-bearer's blunt reply. Har-hat shrugged his shoulders and lapsed into silence. Rameses leaned toward Masanath again. The expression on his face during the talk and the tone he chose now showed that he had not heard, nor was even conscious of the ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... could feel it way down in my fingers, kind of—the madness. That's why he went to live at Schmitt's after my father got so he couldn't work much. They always had lots to eat at Schmitt's. I didn't ever work there myself," he added with his customary blunt honesty, "because ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... who will curtail their consumption if the price has fallen and it is they who constitute the seller's problem, and help to keep down prices for the rest of us. The rest of us—it is well to be quite blunt about it—simply do not count in this connection. We have no cause then to plume ourselves that we have disproved the truth of economic laws when we declare that we seldom weigh the utility of anything against its price. All that this shows is that our actions are too insignificant to be described ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... attention from us in a work for parents. In the language of Dr. Vogel, 'the effects of this malady are unpleasant, for the psychical development in particular suffers. The repeated punishments which these children undergo blunt their sense of honor considerably; they become cowardly and deceitful, and have no personal spirit. If great and expensive cleanliness is not practised, the bed, and even the whole room, acquires a urinous odor, which contaminates the atmosphere and ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... hard buffet in his right side. It wasn't a blow exactly; it was more like a clout from a heavily-shod blunt-ended brogan. His last registered impression as he collapsed on top of the captain was that someone, hurrying up to aid him, had stumbled and driven a booted toe into his ribs. Thereafter for a space events—in so far as Ginsburg's mind ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... Malipieri might have doubted the logic of the last statement; but at the present moment he was not very calm, and he turned a pencil nervously in his fingers, standing it alternately on its point and its blunt end, upon the blotting-paper beside him, and looking ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the human heart, to will to practice the understanding too, only on that which concerns our corporal needs, would be to blunt rather than to sharpen it. It absolutely will be exercised on spiritual objects, if it is to attain its perfect illumination, and bring out that purity of heart which makes us capable of loving virtue for its own ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... atonement for my soul?—It hath been told thee, O man, what is good, and what Jehovah requireth of thee. Nay, it is to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly before thy God." Although the blunt statement of the contrast between cultus and religion is peculiarly prophetic, Micah can still take his stand upon this, "It hath been told thee, O man, what Jehovah requires." It is no new matter, but a thing well ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... hard the rock of Sardonix; The steel but grinds, it breaks not, nor grows blunt; Then seeing that he cannot break his sword, Thus to himself he mourns for Durendal: "O good my sword, how bright and pure! Against The sun what flashing light thy blade reflects! When Carle passed ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... from the optical distances the one that appeared equal to the cutaneous distance. This process furnished the judgments on open spaces. For the filled spaces, immediately after the two-point distance was given a blunt stylus was drawn from one point to the other, and the subject then again selected the optical distance which seemed equal to this distance filled ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... charms approved, But looking liked, and liking loved. The sight could jealous pangs beguile, And charm Malbecco's cares a while; And he, the wandering squire of dames, Forgot his Columbella's claims, And passion, erst unknown, could gain The breast of blunt Sir Satyrane; Nor durst light Paridel advance, Bold as he was, a looser glance. She charmed at once, and tamed the heart, Incomparable Britomarte! So thou, fair city! disarrayed Of battled wall, and rampart's aid, As stately seem'st, but lovelier ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... who chip stones and carve names and spoil the look of Stonehenge." It does not seem to occur to them that barbed wire and a policeman rather spoil the look of Stonehenge. The scratching of a name, particularly when performed with blunt penknife or pencil by a person of imperfect School Board education, can be trusted in a little while to be indistinguishable from the grayest hieroglyphic by the grandest Druid of old. But nobody could get a modern policeman into the ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... at her escort. "But even if I were, Mr. Pounce, I am in London, not in the dark ages, and as sure of respect here, at the doors of a theatre, as I am in my own drawing-room. I believe, by the way," she added lightly, not liking to hurt him by too blunt a snub, "I believe this is the only big city in Europe of which so much can be said; and English women may thank themselves for it. We demand not protection, but respect. Here is the carriage. Good night!" She stepped in as she spoke, and ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... spiritual and moral development of Jim Hartigan. The author assures us that most of the characters are drawn from life, and that some of the main events are historical. All which I can easily believe, for Mr. SETON'S blunt method of describing Jim Hartigan's evolution from an unhallowed stable-boy to a muscular Christian continually suggests reality. It is not a stylish method, but it gets home, and in a tale of this kind that is the main, if not the only, matter of importance. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... the matter was, and the men came, too, and pretty soon some one found an arrow in the grass, and then they knew that it was a stray arrow that had hit Jim Leonard on the side of the foot, after missing one of the dimes that was stuck in the ground. It was blunt, and it had not hurt him that anybody could see, except rubbed the skin off a little on the ankle-bone. But Jim Leonard began to limp away towards home, and now, as the Indians had all gone back to their boats, and the fellows had nothing else to do, they ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... joint commission to select the sites for the permanent forts and navyyard of California. This commission was composed of Majors Ogden, Smith, and Leadbetter, of, the army, and Captains Goldsborough, Van Brunt, and Blunt, of the navy. These officers, after a most careful study of the whole subject, selected Mare Island for the navy-yard, and "Benicia" for the storehouses and arsenals of the army. The Pacific Mail Steamship Company also selected Benicia as their depot. Thus was again revived ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... vial, which contained nothing but pure water, and in surprise turned to the emissary for an explanation. But it was too late. The emissary dealt him a blow with a blunt instrument that stunned him and, as he reeled back and grasped at a table, the other thugs rushed from the hall and rained blow after blow on his venerable head and beat him to the floor. A convulsive shudder—a long-drawn-out sigh—and he ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... you and I ought to be," said the big fellow with simple earnestness. "We're out here in a savage land, but we don't want to grow into savages, nor yet to be as blunt and gruff as two bears. I'm not going to forget that the dear old governor at home is a gentleman, even if his sons do rough it ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... Austria-Hungary was notified that Dr. Konstantin Theodor Dumba was no longer acceptable as that country's envoy in Washington. The American note dispatched to Ambassador Penfield at Vienna for transmission to the Austrian Foreign Minister was blunt and direct. After informing Baron Burian that Dr. Dumba had admitted improper conduct in proposing to his Government plans to instigate strikes in American manufacturing plants, the United States thus ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... blunt sincerity, no longer able to be silent, "he has acted like an honest man! I beg your pardon, Mr. Dashwood, but if he had done otherwise, I should have thought him a rascal. I have some little concern in the business, as well as yourself, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Methodists." He was moreover a pure Christian gentleman and a churchman of the straightest sect. There was no cant superstitions or affectation in his make-up, and what he said he meant. It was doubtful if he ever had an evil thought, and while his manners might have been at times blunt, he was always sincere and his language chosen and chaste, with the possible exception during battle. The time of which I speak, the enemy was making a furious assault on the right wing of the Eighth, and as the Major would gently rise to his knees and see the enemy so stubbornly contesting ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... for the mode of reception, when I take mine ease at mine inn, than I do, for old soldiers are not very fastidious, and old travellers still less so; but give me sturdy John Bull, with his blunt plainness and true independence, before the silly insolence of a fellow, who thinks he shows his equality, by lowering the character of a man to that of a brute, in coarse exhibitions of assumed importance, which his vocation of extracting ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... branches are tufts of flat, sword-like, sweet-scented leaves 3 or 4 ft. long and about an inch wide, closely arranged in two rows as in the true Flag (Iris); the tall, flowering stems (scapes), which very much resemble the leaves, bear an apparently lateral, blunt, tapering spike of densely packed, very small flowers. A long leaf (spathe) borne immediately below the spike forms an apparent continuation of the scape, though really a lateral outgrowth from it, the spike of flowers being terminal. The plant has a wide ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... was aware of her inquietude, and when they rose at length to leave their secluded corner, he turned and spoke with a certain blunt chivalry ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... glistening with choyas and some other and more numerous white bushes, and here and there towered a green cactus. This region was only a splintered and more devastated part of the volcanic slope, but it was miles in extent. Yaqui peeped over the top of a blunt block of lava and searched the sharp-billowed wilderness. Suddenly he grasped Gale and pointed across a deep ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... have Cap'n Smollett work us back into the trades at least; then we'd have no blessed miscalculations and a spoonful of water a day. But I know the sort you are. I'll finish with 'em at the island, as soon's the blunt's on board, and a pity it is. But you're never happy till you're drunk. Split my sides, I've a sick heart to sail with the likes ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... can look only to the people. We count on you, and we shall come to you. If you sustain us we shall take effectual steps to prevent such a deadlock ever occurring again. That is the whole policy of his Majesty's Government—blunt, sober, ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... explainable; the exasperating coolness of the man, as much as anything. This morning the boys were teasing Muffin Fan [a small mulatto girl who used to bring muffins into camp three times a week,—at the peril of her life!] and Jemmy Blunt of Company K—you know him—was rather rough on the girl, when Quite So, who had been reading under a tree, shut one finger in his book, walked over to where the boys were skylarking, and with the smile of a juvenile angel on his face lifted Jemmy out of that and set him down ...
— Quite So • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... where the outlaw seems to have balanced his burden, show that he wore leather gloves," Will continued. "You can see the blunt mark where he threw up a hand to steady himself. The fingers of a cloth glove ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... on beating his breast. His forehead was wrinkled in dried- up folds, his brows bristled fantastically into shaggy, dirty tufts. His heavy, blunt nose, powdered with hairs at the tip, stood out obstinately between two deep folds on either side. These folds overhung the corners of his mouth, and were joined below the chin by a network of pallid veins. A noise, light as a beetle's ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... had smiled at Miss Standish's blunt questions; but here, in the depression of spirits caused by overwork and the deadened atmosphere, the words came back to her with overwhelming force. When she rose on the morning after seeing Flint standing in the window at Delmonico's, she found more than one importunate question ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... a man who might have been of peasant origin. An inky black beard hid the lower part of his face, but his nose was blunt and pugnacious, and his eyes were like black shoe-buttons sewn close together. He stuck out his stomach importantly, and the care with which his uniform and decorations were painted strengthened the impression that he had made his career himself ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... that she may get into the saddle before the usual kicking scene commences; once there, he may do what he likes, she is part of her horse, and enjoys his gambols as much as himself. When in female garments, though somewhat brusque in manners and blunt in speech, she is a true woman, and as feminine in heart as the fairest and most delicate among the sex. Madame, the governess, must occupy our attention the next. She was the kindest, best, most loving guardian over her flock, and seemed to have but one unhappiness in the world, and that ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... doubt if you in terms direct had asked Whether beloved the mountains, true it is That with blunt repetition of your words He might have stared at you, and said that they Were frightful to behold, but had you then Discoursed with him . . . . . . . . Of his own business and the goings on Of earth and sky, ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... or some semblance of a struggle. Of his many wild doings I recall well the time when—fired by my tales of hunting—he went out to attack the young bull in the paddock with a bow and arrow. It made small difference to the bull that the arrow was too blunt to enter his hide. With a bellow that frightened the idle negroes at the slave quarters, he started for Master Nick. I, who had been taught by my father never to run any unnecessary risk, had taken the precaution to provide as large a stone ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... was first called to the subject whilst at work on his figure of Puck, to which he had given pointed ears. He was thus led to examine the ears of various monkeys, and subsequently more carefully those of man. The peculiarity consists in a little blunt point, projecting from the inwardly folded margin, or helix. When present, it is developed at birth, and, according to Prof. Ludwig Meyer, more frequently in man than in woman. Mr. Woolner made an exact model of one such case, and sent me the accompanying drawing. (Fig. ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... seeing at his elbow a mere lad, Of a high spirit evidently, though At present weighed down by a doom which had O'erthrown even men, he soon began to show A kind of blunt compassion for the sad Lot of so young a partner in the woe, Which for himself he seemed to deem no worse Than any other scrape, a thing ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Falconer returned in blunt belief. "Linking your name with that Turk fellow; hinting you were in the palace—he might have started a ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... irretrievably lost before they are aware of it. Let them beware how they take the first step. It is by degrees that men become intemperate. No man ever became so all at once—it is an impossibility in the nature of things. It requires time to harden the heart, to do away shame, to blunt the moral principle, to deaden the intellectual faculties, and temper the body. The intemperance of the day is the natural and legitimate consequence of the customs of society—of genteel and respectable society. It is the common and ordinary ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... with a sudden round-up, on India. I had been trusting to vague outlines of history; I felt when he began to talk that I was dealing with a man who not only knew history, but had lived it. He talked in the fewest but directest words, and waxed eloquent in a blunt and colossal way. But seeing his wife's eyes fixed on him intently, he suddenly pulled up, and no more did I get from him on the subject. He stopped so suddenly that in order to help over the awkwardness, though ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... dull to wonder at it. As for me, the boy, I took the changing phenomena of life pretty well for granted, and wasted little of my golden time speculating about such things. But as I look back now on the blunt end of those Urkey days, I seem to see Minister Malden growing smaller as he comes nearer, and Mate Snow growing larger—Mate Snow browbeating the congregation with a more and more menacing righteousness—Minister Malden, in his protecting shadow, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... over-timid at the outset. Be discreet and sparing of your words. Awkwardness is a great misfortune, but it is not an unpardonable fault. To deserve the reputation of moving in good society, something more is requisite than the avoidance of blunt rudeness. Strictly keep to your engagements. Punctuality is the essence ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... which it was sufficiently plain that the purpose of his Majesty was not to bestow peace and tranquillity upon the Netherlands. The names of Fuentes, Clemente, Ybarra, were sufficient in themselves to destroy any such illusion. They spoke in blunt terms of the attempt of Dr. Lopez to poison Queen Elizabeth, at the instigation of Count Fuentes for fifty thousand crowns to be paid by the King of Spain: they charged upon the same Fuentes and upon Ybarra that they had employed the same Andrada to murder ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... wrote from Cairo to Paris, telling me that he still had confidence in the moderation of the progressist party represented by Arabi and the Colonels, and that he was managing them through Wilfrid Blunt, who was acting as a go-between; but a little later on the relations between Blunt and Malet became such as to show that each had thought he was using ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... of Livonia, came to Sweden in 1521 to enlist under the banner of Gustavus. He writes like a blunt soldier who revels in the story of a battle. His Beraettelse seems to have been written for the king. It is chiefly a chronicle of Swedish wars, running from 1518 to 1536. The original MS. is in the University Library at Upsala, and seems to have run later than the ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... tug a pause of sickening agony, and then that slow, red-hot suffering again, as if a blunt augur was being made to form a channel beneath the teeth, so that the aching pains, as of hot lead, might run round without let ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... way to the forefront of the younger generation of his profession until, at the age of thirty-five, he had become recognized as one of the most able children's specialists in America. A "man's man," blunt of speech to the point of often offending at first the cultured women with whom his labors brought him into contact, he was worshipped in hundreds of homes as an angel of mercy in strange guise, and was the idol of hundreds ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... change of circumstances, perhaps owing to some improper conduct when in Flanders, the proprietors now took the chief command from Shelvocke, and conferred it upon Clipperton, a man of a blunt, rough, and free-speaking disposition, but of a strict regard to his duty and rigid honesty. Though somewhat passionate, he was soon appeased, and ever ready to repair any injury he had done when heated with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... words seemed to come from a great distance as he said: "Here, you see, he was stabbed. The knife went to the heart. Here he was hit with something heavy and blunt; but it had enough of an edge to cut the scalp and lay the cheek open. The ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... and spare parts should be kept on hand to replace accidental breakage or loss. Other useful syringes are those of 2 c.c., 5 c.c., 10 c.c., and 20 c.c. capacity. A good supply of needles must be kept on hand, both sharp-pointed and with blunt ends. To sterilise the syringe, fill it with water, loosen the packing of the piston and all the screw joints, place it in the steriliser and boil for at least five minutes. Disinfect the syringe after use, in a similar ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... the Englishman, touched in his blunt nature by this extraordinary magnanimity. "I will report your consideration to my ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... him When the fray is fierce and grim, And blunt the point of every sword That turns its hate on him. Where round the torn yet dear green flag The brave and lovin' throng— But the lasses of Glenwherry smile At me for ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... leaving to-day and whatever his feelings, he had so far been outwardly the beneficiary of Tollman's hospitality. Nothing was to be gained, except a sort of churlish satisfaction, by assuming at the eleventh hour a blunt and ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... met by the wind, Burton anticipated that his own, with its blunt faithfulness to the original and its erotic notes, would be met by whirlwind. Considering the temper of the public [386] at the time he thought it not improbable that an action would be brought against him, and in fancy he perceived himself ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... Caleb's blunt expression of resentment again awakened the mirth of the company, which, by the way, he regarded not only as an aggression upon the dignity of the family, but a special contempt of the eloquence with which he himself had summed up the extent of their supposed losses. "A description of ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... courts ought to have sessions in the forest; in the forest man's heart remains sound; there one knows what is right and what is wrong without Ifs and Buts. With their secret tricks they have put a string of Ifs and Buts to it; in their dusty, moldy offices it has become sick and blunt and withered, so that they can turn and twist it as they like. And now what is right must be put in writing and have a seal to it, otherwise it is not to be recognized as right. Now they have deprived a man's word of all value ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... a jest,' as Shakespeare tells us, lies less in its own merit than 'in the ear of him that hears it.' If he should happen to be unusually obtuse, the wittiest jest perishes—the most pointed is found blunt. So, with regard to books, should the reader on whom we build prove a sandy and treacherous foundation, the whole edifice, 'temple and tower,' must come to the ground. Should it happen, for instance, that the reader, inflicted upon ourselves for our sins, belongs to that class of people ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... a wooden box, made the size of the canvas bale, which is suspended therein by hooks from the open top; the box has a movable side, which is loosened out to give exit to the bale when pressed. The pressing is done by the feet, assisted by a blunt spade, and the bales are generally very creditably turned out, the sheep-farmer priding himself on a neatly pressed bale. When pressed the end is sewn up and the bale rolled over to a convenient place for branding, when it is ready for loading on ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... occurred deep beneath the surface, and have been brought into view by an enormous superincumbent mass having been denuded. If a large and deep box were filled with layers of damp paper or clay, and a blunt wedge was slowly driven up from beneath, would not the layers above it and on both sides become greatly convoluted, whilst those towards the top would be only slightly arched? When I spoke of the Andes being comparatively recent, I suppose that I referred ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... robbers, who were executed with him. After Eagles had mounted the ladder, and been turned off a short time, he was cut down, before he was at all insensible; a bailiff, named Wm. Swallow, then dragged him to the sledge, and with a common blunt cleaver, hacked off the head: in a manner equally clumsy and cruel, he opened his body and tore out ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... a person has to proceed to adopt a baby," was the blunt and surprising remark that came from the one who held the infant. Bansemer ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... was plain and blunt. His was an unattractive front. Yet children loved him; babe and boy Played with the strength he could employ, Without one fear, and they are fleet To sense injustice and deceit. No back door gossip linked his name With any shady tale of shame. ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... indeed a grand fight! The unlucky monster had got thoroughly embayed, and was evidently in a state of consternation, for in its efforts to regain deep water it rushed hither and thither, thrusting its blunt snout continually on some shoal, and wriggling off again with difficulty and enormous splutter. The shouts of men, shrieks of women, and yells of children co-mingled ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... had suffered in rebellion before, a fellow rough and daring, comes boldly to the Prince when the Council rose, and asked him, if he were resolved to engage? He told him, he was. 'Then,' said he, 'give me leave to shoot Philander in the head.' This blunt proposition given, without any manner of reason or circumstance, made the Prince start back a step or two, and ask him his meaning of what he said. 'Sir,' replied the Captain, 'if you will be safe, Philander must ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... modern literature was easy and intimate, and as he perfected himself in his art, he caught the grand manner and high bred ways of the society he frequented. But even to the last he did not quite shake off the blunt rusticity of phrase that was habitual with the generation that preceded him. In the fifth book of the "Faery Queen," where he is describing the passion of Britomart at the supposed infidelity of ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... have been remarked that Mr. Yorke varied a little in his phraseology. Now he spoke broad Yorkshire, and anon he expressed himself in very pure English. His manner seemed liable to equal alternations. He could be polite and affable, and he could be blunt and rough. His station then you could not easily determine by his speech and demeanour. Perhaps the appearance of his residence ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... is not entirely shaken off.) There is the casualty return, and a report on the doings of the enemy, and another report of one's own doings, and a report on the direction of the wind, and so on. Then there are various indents to fill up—scrawled on a wobbly writing-block with a blunt indelible pencil by the light of a guttering candle—for ammunition, and ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... hints and insinuations, that the kingdom had been purposely left unprovided; and that the natives of South Britain had been formerly subdued and expelled by a body of Saxon auxiliaries, whom they had hired for their preservation. In a word, the doubts and suspicions of a people naturally blunt and jealous, were inflamed to such a degree of animosity, that nothing would have restrained them from violent acts of outrage, but the most orderly, modest, and inoffensive behaviour by which both the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... she broke down at last, with a gulp of relief. "It's been an awful evening! Mrs. Cole was detestable. Do you know what she did?" and then came out the whole story pell-mell: all told in Nan's blunt, uncompromising way, and giving Miss Blake a better idea than anything else could have done of just how right she had been in opposing the girl's going under such ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... book. It was Joseph Louden, reasserted Eskew, a little taller, a little paler, incredibly shabby and miraculously thin. If there were any doubt left, his forehead was somewhat disfigured by the scar of an old wound—such as might have been caused by a blunt instrument in the nature of ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... already been briefly referred to, and is considered by some critics the greatest of the thirteen. Probably no such sublime ocean has ever been painted. How thoroughly it appeals to those who best know the sea is illustrated by the blunt but expressive compliment bestowed upon it by Admiral Hopkins of the English navy when, in 1892, he saw it in the Union League Club of New York, where it was being privately shown. After silently studying it for some minutes he turned to Mr. Joseph H. Choate, whose guest he was, ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... It was a bold, blunt compliment, yet it was uttered with evident sincerity; but she had turned the locket so that she could see the likeness and did not catch the double meaning of his words. So she only answered calmly and earnestly, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... the world of men, Among the wielders of the sword and pen I have, as 'twere, detractors by the score,— Reject me not for faults that I deplore And fain would alter,—though, if I were wise, I'd blunt the edge thereof in some disguise Approved of thee! For I've a kind of hope That we'll be ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... flagrant example of the abuse of the rights of conquest. We have been but too familiar, indeed, with similar acts of political injustice, and on a much larger scale, in the present civilized age. But, although the number and splendor of the precedents may blunt our sensibility to the atrocity of the act, they can never constitute a legitimate ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... the hedge of splinter'd teeth, Yet strangers to the tongue, and with blunt stump Pitch-blacken'd sawing the air, said the maim'd churl, "He took them and he drave them to his tower— Some hold he was a table-knight of thine— A hundred ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... strings tones that had either the sweetness or brilliancy of such as are drawn from them by means of the bow or quill. But, notwithstanding it is represented so massive, I should rather suppose it to have been a quill, or piece of ivory in imitation of one, than a stick or blunt ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... enabled him to shelter himself against these blasts. With all his experience of Courts, Hyde never learned the arts of a courtier. He was naively unconscious how little the steadfast honesty of his purpose could render his blunt plainness of diction palatable to a master, the chief feature of whose character was callous selfishness, and whose self-love might for the moment allow him to overlook, but never permitted him to forget, the liberty that presumed ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... her hand over her brow. Tom's blunt words did much to counteract Josiah Crabtree's strange ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... very strong," pursued Mary, who had a blunt downright sort of manner; "I wonder if India will agree with you; I wonder if you ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... girl became inseparable. At night he slept under her bed, reaching his head up in the gray dawn, and licking her face until she covered him up warm beside her. When the trains passed he would stand up on his hind legs, his paws on the sill, his blunt little nose against the pane, whining at the clanging bells, or barking at the great rings of steam and smoke coughed up ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the short- faced Tumbler with its small conical beak, the Pouter with its great crop, long legs and body, the Fantail with its upraised, widely-expanded, well- feathered tail, the Turbit with its frill and short blunt beak, and the Jacobin with his hood. Now, if this same person could have viewed the pigeons kept before 1600 by Akber Khan in India and by Aldrovandi in Europe, he would have seen the Jacobin with a less perfect hood; the Turbit apparently without its frill; the Pouter with shorter ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... all his final investigations as to Arthur Ferris' secret career in New York City. As the months rolled along he saw the justice of the blunt police officer's judgment, for Miss Alice Worthington seemed to be an administering talent of ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... like Rubislaw granite; his hair short, hard, and close, like a lion's; his body thick set, like a little bull—a sort of compressed Hercules of a dog. He must have been ninety pounds' weight, at the least; he had a large blunt head; his muzzle black as night, his mouth blacker than any night, a tooth or two—being all he had—gleaming out of his jaws of darkness. His head was scarred with the records of old wounds, a sort of series of fields of battle all over it; one eye out, one ear ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... have prepared a hotchpotch of information of human follies, of contrasts, and of blunt stupidities of which he intended to make a very entertaining series of pages. I have not his talent for bringing such things together, but it may amuse the reader if I merely put in their order one or two of the notes which ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... the account of Tacitus. We expect that they will be as brave; but ruder. Still, the details which we get from the life of Agricola are few. They fought from chariots, and their swords were broad and blunt. As the swords of the Bronze period were thin and pointed, this is an argument in favour of iron having become the usual material for warlike weapons as far north as the Grampians. The historical testimony to the inferior civilization of the North ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... been revolting to an English audience: the passion of love, represented on the stage, is certain to be insipid or disgusting, unless it creates smiles or tears: Amelia's love, by Kotzebue, is indelicately blunt, and yet void of mirth or sadness: I have endeavoured to attach the attention and sympathy of the audience by whimsical insinuations, rather than coarse abruptness—the same woman, I conceive, ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald
... learnt with the stick are invaluable to the swordsman. The true way to meet the difficulty would be to supplement stick-play by a course with broad-swords, such as are in use in different London gymnasiums, with blunt edges and ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... When the Synod met the senators demanded that Sigismund should accept the Augsburg Confession as a condition for his election to the throne. To this Sigismund sent the only reply that a good Catholic and an honest man could send, namely, a blunt refusal. His uncle, Duke Karl, the acting regent of Sweden, took steps to seduce the Swedish people from their allegiance to their lawful king, and to prepare the way for his own accession. He proclaimed himself the protector of Lutheranism and endeavoured to win over the bishops ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... house, which is entirely open in front. The roof and sides must be covered. For this purpose the trunks of great spruces are skinned. The woodman rims the bark near the foot of the tree, and again six feet above, and slashes it perpendicularly; then, with a blunt stick, he crowds off this thick hide exactly as an ox is skinned. It needs but a few of these skins to cover the roof; and they make a perfectly water-tight roof, except when it rains. Meantime busy hands have gathered boughs of the spruce and the feathery balsam, and shingled the ground ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... "Blunt enough," admitted Mr. Hammond, but without excitement. "Let's see: You have a paper of some kind, I suppose, to ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... The words were blunt; really I think there was no intention to offend, only the simple statement of a fact; but I could see Cummings beginning to ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... next in this pigs-in-clover railroad puzzle," was the blunt statement of the need. "Our freight contract with the Transcontinental is about to expire, and I'd like to get it renewed on the same ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... the reins. Then, with his broken thigh, that boy mounted the horse (which was not much hurt), rode home, and read a book whilst waiting for the doctor to come and set his limb. Another boy I knew in Australia was bitten by a snake on the finger; with his blunt pocket-knife he cut the finger off and walked home. He suffered no ill ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... grass and examine for a minute, quietly, its narrow swordshaped strip of fluted green. Nothing, as it seems, there, of notable goodness or beauty. A very little strength, and a very little tallness, and a few delicate long lines meeting in a point—not a perfect point either, but blunt and unfinished, by no means a creditable or apparently much cared for example of Nature's workmanship; made, as it seems, only to be trodden on today, and tomorrow to be cast into the oven; and a little pale and hollow stalk, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... even the inner jar could blunt Roy's keen anticipation of the whole affair. Miss Arden was his partner in one of the few mixed events. He was to wear her favour for the Tournament—a Marechal Mel rose; and, infatuated as he was, he saw it for a ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... revenge was not yet come; it was his deep design to lay the foundation for his own dark actions strong on a rock of apparent confidence and devotion. A long torture and a great over- whelming was his design. He knew himself to be in the scheme of a master-workman, and by-and-by he would blunt the chisel and bend the saw; but not yet. Meanwhile, he hated, admired, schemed, and got a sweet taste on his tongue from aiding David to foil Achmet—Higli and Diaz were of little account; only the injury they felt in seeing ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the leader under whom Eustace hoped to serve his king, and learn the art of war. His friend, Monthault, was a transcript of all Lord Goring's faults, to which he added the most cool and determined treachery, under the garb of blunt simplicity and unguarded frankness. ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... quite perfect, while many are more or less impaired by modern uses, for which they were not originally intended. In nearly all instances they are grooved, and a few are provided with double splitting or cutting edges; but as a rule these axes were made with one end blunt for pounding or hammering, while the opposite end is provided with an edge. The large pestles and mortars were designed for crushing grain and food, the small ones for grinding and mixing mineral pigments for ceramic ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of the Collections Obtained from the Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona in 1881 • James Stevenson
... to give a second and not-forgetting look at. The third was the biggest of the three, and though lame, nimble, and all rough and alive with power; had you met him anywhere else, you would say he was a Liddesdale store-farmer, come of gentle blood; "a stout, blunt carle," as he says of himself, with the swing and stride and the eye of a man of the hills,—a large, sunny, out-of-door air all about him. On his broad and somewhat stooping shoulders was set that head which, with Shakespeare's ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... on that catastrophe which seemed to wreck all Captain Dornton's hopes and blunt his only purpose for declaring himself, hurriedly reassured her, yet was not sorry his agitation had been misunderstood. And what was to be done? There was no train back to London for four hours. He dare not telegraph, and if he did, could he trust to his strange ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... whereas holy men, holding that the subjugation or annihilation of the passions is essential to final beatitude, accomplish this object by bodily austerities, and by avoiding temptation, he proceeded to blunt the edge of the passions with excessive indulgence. And he jeered at the pious, reminding them that their ascetics are safe only in forests, and while keeping a perpetual fast; but that he could subdue his passions in the very presence of what they ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... its remarks and opinions in a sugar-coating, so that the real truth never reaches us. We gradually find, then, that an opinion that soothes our personal vanity and self-esteem is a very pleasant opinion. So long as we cherish that falsehood, so long do we blunt our faculties of progress. Now it seems a very extraordinary thing to me, who have long been accustomed to investigate and direct the psychic side of nature, to find such numbers and numbers of people who don't believe in any psychic ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... to close my fist and then placed one pencil lengthwise so that an end of it was between my first and second finger and the rubber-tipped end lay across my wrist. The other pencil he thrust crosswise so that the pointed end stuck out between the second and third finger and the blunt end between the index ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... every person in the rendezvous had come up, and waited with breathless anxiety. We stood face to face, more like two men about to engage in deadly duel than a pair of amateurs with blunt foils. My antagonist was evidently a practised swordsman. I could see that as he came to guard. As for myself, the small-sword exercise had been a foible of my college days, and for years I had not met my match at it; but just then I ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... lost of us twain, Once bound in mirroring thought. She had flung me to dust in her wake; And I, as your convict drags His chain, by the scourge untaught, Bore life for a goad, without aim. I champed the sensations that make Of a ruffled philosophy rags. For them was no meaning too blunt, Nor aspect too cutting of steel. This Earth of the beautiful breasts, Shining up in all colours aflame, To them had visage of hags: A Mother of aches and jests: Soulless, heading a hunt Aimless except for the meal. Hope, with the star on her front; Fear, with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to my work as well by his impure French as the length of his details."—"We are afraid," said some of those visitors to BAXTER, "that we break in upon your time."—"To be sure you do," replied the disturbed and blunt scholar. To hint as gently as he could to his friends that he was avaricious of time, one of the learned Italians had a prominent inscription over the door of his study, intimating that whoever remained there must join in his labours. The amiable MELANCTHON, incapable of a harsh ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... activities in which the best women were cooeperating usefully with men—cooeperating equally as human beings, and no nonsense; not as women at all. There was something mysteriously inviting in this. She had felt a bracing absence of sex in Pond's hectoring catechism and blunt rejection of her. Yes, and in the cool declaration of war from Dr. Vivian, who had grown so hard since May. Busy and serious beings these, who would not be deterred by the flutterings of the ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Henry of Bearn, young Conde, and all our leaders, though making use of less blunt speech, were of the same opinion, but the Admiral cared little for his own safety, when there was a ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... will not forego the use of it without an evil greater than to use it, then take it in such a quantity as will be sure to nauseate and prostrate. This will put the next dose farther off; and two or three doses thus administered, will so blunt the appetite, that quitting the practice will appear to be quite a moderate degree of self-denial. Those who never felt the appetite may laugh at such directions as these; but those who know its power, will at least think them worth ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister
... Amyas, in his blunt simple way, had told him the whole story about Rose Salterne and his brother,—"yes, sweet lad, thou hast chosen the better part, thou and thy brother also, and it shall not be taken from you. Only be strong, lad, and trust in God that He will ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... subject to high-strikes, and don't want Flattery salve," said the boy, in his blunt, simple manner; "all I want is to know whether you, Matty, will go with us to ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... the crimes of Timasius was delegated to Saturninus and Procopius; the former of consular rank, the latter still respected as the father-in-law of the emperor Valens. The appearances of a fair and legal proceeding were maintained by the blunt honesty of Procopius; and he yielded with reluctance to the obsequious dexterity of his colleague, who pronounced a sentence of condemnation against the unfortunate Timasius. His immense riches were confiscated in the name of the emperor, and for the benefit of the favorite; and he was ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... messengers had been despatched to him, Scudilo the tribune of the Scutarii arrived, a very cunning master of persuasion under the cloak of a rude, blunt disposition. He, by mixing flattering language with his serious conversation, induced him to proceed, when no one else could do so, continually assuring him, with a hypocritical countenance, that his cousin ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... the malice of a Jew. Now Mrs. Downe Wright has a real heartfelt satisfaction in saying malicious things, and in thrusting herself into company where she must know she is unwelcome, for the sole purpose of saying them. Yet many people are blessed with such blunt perceptions that they are not at all aware of her real character, and only wonder, when she has left them, what made them feel so uncomfortable when she was present. But she has put me in such a bad ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... affront you, my dear," said Mr. B., "although he'll say to you, and to me, and to my sister too, blunt and rough things. But he'll not stay above a day or two, and we shall not see him again for some years to come; so we'll bear ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... were doing your best, and letting me win all the same, of course; though if I caught you at it I should be furious. But what's the use of trying to teach a blunt creature like you tact? My dear Morris, I assure you I do not believe that your efforts at deception would take in the simplest-minded cow. Why, even Dad sees through you, and the person who can't impose upon my ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... politeness. You know the man who is awkward, shy, clumsy, but who, nevertheless, impresses you with a sense of dignity and force. Why? Because mingled with that awkwardness and so forth *is* dignity. You know the blunt, rough fellow whom you instinctively guess to be affectionate— because there is "something in his tone" or "something in his eyes." In every instance the demeanour, while perhaps seeming to be contrary to the character, is really in accord with it. ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... Coombe-Crombie, twelfth Earl of Dreever ("Spennie" to his relatives and intimates), a light-haired young gentleman of twenty-four, but in reality the possession of his uncle and aunt, Sir Thomas and Lady Julia Blunt. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... most blunt, pleasant creature, And slander itself must allow him good nature; He cherish'd his friend, and he relish'd a bumper, Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper. Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser; I answer No, no, for he always was wiser; Too courteous, perhaps, or ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... blunt?" responded Charles, but no one save the traveller at the small table caught the play on words, the Cockney cant term for money being unfamiliar to American ears. He smiled, and then studied the bond-servant with more interest than ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... when ordered in debate, With hands uplifted, calm and meek, If honour and reward he seek. Or, when some prudent course he sees Which, spoken, may his king displease He should by hints of dexterous art His counsel to his lord impart. But prudent words are said in vain When the blunt speech brings grief and pain. A high-souled king will scarcely thank The man who shames his royal rank. Five are the shapes that kings assume, Of majesty, of grace, and gloom: Like Indra now, or Agni, now Like the dear Moon, with placid brow: Like mighty Varun now they show, Now ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... express the discord and gradual atonement of two lovers, or a man and his wife: and he was disgusted that every one did not see what was meant: in truth, it expresses any resistance gradually overcome—Dobson shaving with a blunt razor, for instance. Music is so far the most universal language, that any one piece in a particular strain symbolizes all the analogous phenomena spiritual or material—if you can talk of spiritual phenomena. The Eroica symphony describes ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... August bears come down to an ancient and now brushy bark-peeling near by for blackberries. But the creature that most infests these backwoods is the porcupine. He is as stupid and indifferent as the skunk; his broad, blunt nose points a witless head. They are great gnawers, and will gnaw your house down if you do not look out. Of a summer evening they will walk coolly into your open door if not prevented. The most ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... far from me a meteor—a cloud divided into smaller clouds, some of which were of an azure color, some opaque, and as it were in collision together. They were streaked with translucent irradiations of light, which at one time appeared sharp like the points of swords, at another, blunt like broken swords. The streaks sometimes darted out forwards, at others they drew themselves in again, exactly like combatants; thus those different colored lesser clouds appeared to be at war together; but it was only their manner of sporting with each ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... your work, oncle? You ain' got no chicken wing for arm if you lif' this.—Ah, be dam! I see what you lif' him with. All same stove-lid." Talking and swearing to himself cheerfully, Bonny applied the end of a broken whiffletree to the blunt lip of the old hearthstone which marked the stage-house chimney. He had tried a step-dance on it and found it hollow. More fresh digging, and marks upon the stone where some prying tool had taken hold and slipped, showed he was not the first ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... began walking about the room, and talking with considerable vehemence, but no more in anger. He would tell her what cause there was for this silly gossip. He would tell her who this girl was who had been lightly mentioned. And in his blunt, frank, matter-of-fact way, which did not quite conceal his emotion, he revealed to his cousin all that he thought of Wenna Rosewarne, and what he hoped for her in the future, and what their present relations were, and then plainly asked her if ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various |
