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More "Brusque" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 of the ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... itself no more to do with the State than it has with the Church. The faculties which fit a man to be a great ruler are not those of society; some great rulers have been unintelligible like Cromwell, or brusque like Napoleon, or coarse and barbarous like Sir Robert Walpole. The light nothings of the drawing-room and the grave things of office are as different from one another as two human occupations can be. There is no naturalness in uniting the two; ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... felt that the room was surcharged with hostility, and he found himself in the position of one who is ashamed of the acts of another. Major Cowan, altogether too brusque, failed utterly to impress McGee, whose service in the Royal Flying Corps had been with a class of men who thought more of deeds than of rank and who could enjoy a care-free camaraderie without becoming careless of discipline. Discipline, after all, is never ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... only momentary. With a few brusque words she brought the other two down to the level of ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sweetness, might have shed lustre on a court. All that he could himself do 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
... suspicious enough to throw out the meal prepared by Helene, and he 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
... was not an impulsive man, but he felt none the less deeply, as I know well. His reply to this generous offer was almost brusque, but it did not deceive ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... There was going to be a magnificent and unparalleled sensation in the town of Bursley ... He seemed for an instant dimly to perceive ways, or incomplete portions of ways, by which he might still escape ... Then with a brusque gesture he dismissed such futile scheming and yielded anew to the impulse which had suddenly and piquantly seized him, three hours before, when Leonora said: 'Uncle Meshach won't,' and he replied, 'I've fixed ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... 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
... 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 ways were really unbearable. ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... better fed, but he was calmer than either of the others by disposition, and his lean frame didn't use as much energy. So, when the big hulking spaceman appeared at the door of his office with his cap in his hands, he was inclined to be less brusque than he might ...
— Cum Grano Salis • Gordon Randall Garrett
... nervous during their conversation, for Regine did not think it necessary to refrain from brusque questioning or candid comment, and her brother was frequently embarrassed and annoyed by both, but he had learned from experience the uselessness of striving to check her open speech, so gave himself up to the inevitable with a sigh. Of course, among other things, she spoke of Willibald's ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... splendidly dressed, contrast unfavorably with Prussians;"—unfavorably, though the strict King was so dissatisfied. "Kaiser Joseph, speaking of Friedrich, always admiringly calls him 'LE ROI.' Joseph a great questioner, and answers his own questions. His tone BRUSQUE ET DECIDE. Dinner lasted ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... at this brusque assertion of her sentiments by his granddaughter. Her audacity seemed at least equal to her shyness. "Very good advice, Elizabeth; make him follow ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... yet she feared to see him again so soon. She felt an anguish which an unknown sentiment, profoundly soft, appeased. She did not feel the stupor of the first time that she had yielded for love; she did not feel the brusque vision of the irreparable. She was under influences slower, more vague, and more powerful. This time a charming reverie bathed the reminiscence of the caresses which she had received. She was full of trouble and anxiety, but she felt no regret. She had acted less through her will than ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... one donkey already in your party—careering around the desert with a little girl like this," he vouchsafed, and Arlee's eyes widened at his brusque nod at her. She was staring about her now with a curious interest, for all her aching tiredness, gazing wonderingly at the dazzling white walls with their strange and brilliant paintings. She saw they were in a ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... the tears gush from his heart to his eyes, and with a brusque movement repelled the baron. "Farewell!" he repeated hoarsely, then hurried with quick steps through the dining hall ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... Maxwell sharply. His opened mail lay like a bank of stage snow on his crowded desk. His keen grey eye, impersonal and brusque, flashed upon her ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... a tall, good-looking man, well past middle age, rather brusque of manner but kindly withal, and he looked up over his ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... have been Jimmie Carlisle's daughter and now seems to be the daughter of this old-timer Joe Ellison, for a little private sleuthing on my own hook," Barlow went on—for it was the instinct of the man to claim the conception and leadership of any idea in whose development he had a part. He spoke in a brusque tone—as why should he not, since he was addressing an audience he lumped together as just so many crooks? "Through this little stunt I pulled to-night, I've got on to your curves, Barney Palmer. And yours, too, ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... brusque response. 'I've hed enuff of Sleepy Hollow, an' bein' ordered round by an old man with his head in the moon. It's "Lemuel, do this," an' before I git started it's "Lemuel, do the t'other thing." You kin stand it ef you're a mind ter; ...
— A Princess in Calico • Edith Ferguson Black
... resented it less now that she knew him better. She began to wonder about him. Who was he? Why was he the hostler? Naturally, being wise in certain ways of men, she inferred that strong drink had "set him afoot"; but when she hesitantly approached her husband on this point, his reply was brusque: "I don't know anything about Kelley, and don't want to know. So long as he does his work his family ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... she appeared to him full of force and power, practical and resolute. To one of his sporting tastes she suggested a mettled steed whose high spirit was kept in check by thorough training. Her conversation was piquant, at times a little brusque, and utterly devoid of sentimentality. But now her choice of poetic thought and her tones revealed a wealth of womanly tenderness, and he was compelled to feel that her religion was not legal and cold, a system of duties, beliefs, and restraints, ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... to be somewhat reckless and brusque in his words and manner. Under the compulsion of circumstances she who would never graciously accord him opportunities must now be alone with him; but as a gentleman, he could not take advantage of her helplessness, to plead his cause, and he felt a sort of rage that he should be mocked with ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... 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 ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... "At Lexington a brusque man got on our car, and we entered with him into vigorous conversation. I did not hear his name on introduction, and I felt rather sorry that the Governor should have invited him into our charming seclusion. But the ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... whose voice was like liquid music, whose ways were gentle, whose eyes filled with tears at the recital of some tale of woe, and always about her was an air of gentle, womanly sweetness and dainty femininity. She had a friend who loved her, one whose voice was not so soft, whose manner was brusque, who was considered, "not quite good form, you know." My womanly woman allowed this friend to take upon herself the burden of a sin which she herself had committed, allowed her to bear the brunt of ...
— Wise or Otherwise • Lydia Leavitt
... 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 firmly fixed ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... 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 reward, and had a supreme contempt for money. His whole being was dominated ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... sha'n't let you. It makes me nervous to have somebody hanging over my shoulder and maybe jogging my elbow. If you're to stay you must sit," was the brusque but not unkindly answer. ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... many things that we ought not to do," answered he, with a brusque laugh. "However, I won't bite you; you needn't be ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... that is what took my fancy in you, Willis: that generosity, that real gentleness, in spite of the brusque way you have. Refinement of the heart, I ...
— A Likely Story • William Dean Howells
... not to take offence at the brusque remarks, which she knew would be hurled at her, so, somewhat meekly, she took up the paper ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... 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. ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... With brusque directness, Madden caught the shock of tawny hair, jammed Caradoc's chin against the buoy and held him tight with little exertion for himself. Smith swung out as awkwardly as a turkey on a chopping block. The water was level with his ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... it taken in that way, Mr. Finn. Your brusque want of courtesy to me I have forgiven, but I shall expect you to make up for it by the alacrity of your congratulations to him. I will not have you uncourteous ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... Looking at him casually from the outside, one found small suggestion of the pathetic in his hard face and brusque manners; nearer companionship revealed occasional glimpses of a mood out of harmony with the vulgar pursuits and solicitudes which for the most part seemed to absorb him. One caught a hint of loneliness in his existence; his reticences, often very marked in the flow of his ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... 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 ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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
... punctuate these instructions in proper places with the obligatory "Yes, sir," ejaculated without enthusiasm. His brusque "Come along, John; make look see" set the Chinaman in motion at ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... riding-master, with a brusque laugh. 'Sick folk don't usually sit up till past two in the morning ready dressed. Hadn't we better stow that ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... tender-hearted, knew how to run the place. Her brusque, curt manner suited Bear Cat. She could be hail-fellow or hard as flint, depending on circumstances. The patrons at Gillespie's remembered her sex and yet forgot it. They guarded their speech, but they drank with her at the bar or sat across a poker table from her on equal terms. She was ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... the house of Bro. Hartman, was also Dr. Oliphant, father of the Bro. Oliphant with whom I had lodged. He was a brusque, blunt-spoken, honest, anti-slavery Northern Methodist preacher. He said bluntly at the table: "Well, Mr. Butler, they treated you rather roughly at At-Atchison, did they not?" I said, "Yes—" attempted to say more, broke down and left ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... is much anecdotage: most of the anecdotes turn on his shyness, his really exaggerated hatred of personal notoriety, and the odd and brusque things which he would say when alarmed by effusive strangers. It has not seemed worth while to repeat more than one or two of these legends, nor have I sought outside the Biography by his son for more than the biographer chose to tell. The readers ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... break into an angry reply to this brusque comment, but the chairman of the Electrical Company tapped his forehead to claim its indulgence for ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... why, excepting that the words had a kindly ring about them, in spite of the almost brusque quaintness of the address, that touched me keenly in the depressed state of mind in which I was; but, instead of answering the speaker's pertinent question as to the reason of my grief, I now bent down my head again on my arm, sobbing away as if my ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... 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 valid ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... retort that as soon as the girl would have him, he intended taking a small holding over at Scarsdale. Then she would give way, and for a while piteously upbraid him with her old age, and with the memory of all the years she and he had spent together, and he would comfort her with a display of brusque, evasive remorse. ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... lapsed instinctively into his brusque, professional style of comment. "Poor system of underpinning, badly fixed yonder. I am afraid you must find some other way down to the ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... "his seventy thousand pounds," and as "cross as two sticks," in some degree resembled old Mr. Ferrier, who was somewhat brusque and testy in his manner, and alarmed many people who were otherwise unacquainted with the true genuine worth and honesty of his character. Miss Becky is a poor old maid, saddled with commissions from all her friends of a most ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... 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 ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... pride. He was apparently the only individual in the Gezireh Palace Hotel who had come to Egypt for any serious purpose. A purpose he had, though what it was he declined to explain. Reticent, often brusque, and sometimes mysterious in his manner of speech, there was not the slightest doubt that he was at work on something, and that he also had a very trying habit of closely studying every object, small or great, that came under his observation. ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... was filled with sympathy for Christophe. The big boy of sixteen, serious and solitary, who had such lofty ideas of his duty, inspired a sort of respect in them all. His fits of ill-temper, his obstinate silences, his gloomy air, his brusque manner, were not surprising in such a house as that. Frau Vogel, herself, who regarded every artist as a loafer, dared not reproach him aggressively, as she would have liked to do, with the hours that he ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... amusement, and so he demanded, in a brusque and menacing tone, "Now, say—you get away from here quick! We don't want no crazy tramps ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... periodicals and nursing her husband, the two young people were thrown much together, and often walked out alone. One day Sir Alexander said to her: 'Miss Austin, do you know people say we are going to be married?' Annoyed at being talked of, and hurt at his brusque way of mentioning it, she was just going to give a sharp answer, when he added: 'Shall we make it true?' With characteristic straightforwardness she replied by the monosyllable, 'Yes,' and so they were engaged. Before her marriage ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... She wept spasmodically, like men who have striven hard to restrain their tears, but who can do so no longer and abandon themselves to grief, though still resisting. I sprang to my feet, moved at the sight of a sorrow I did not comprehend, and I took her by the hand with an impulse of brusque affection, a true French impulse which acts ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Then, gradually, she put on a new character altogether and relapsed into queer ancestral traits, stripping off, like so many worthless rags, the layers of laboriously acquired civilization. The refined and bashful girl became brusque, supercilious, equivocal. When sympathizing friends said that they had also lost lovers, she laughed and told them to look for new ones. There were better fish in the sea, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... radiance of her beauty as though he had brought faint memories—or none—to the meeting. His blood was tingling in his arteries with a rediscovery which substituted for the old sense of loss a new and more poignant realization. It would have been better had he been brusque, even discourteous, replying to the morning's invitation that he was too busy to accept. But he had come and except for that first moment of astonishment Conscience had been gay and untroubled. She at least was safe from the perils ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... one younger. She's highly respected by Lord and Lady Cumnor and their family, which is of itself a character. She has very agreeable and polished manners—of course, from the circles she has been thrown into —and you and I, goosey, are apt to be a little brusque, or so; we must ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a hasty word," said Berwin nervously. "I am glad of your company, although I seem rather brusque. You must go over the ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... 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, ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... peculiar. With a large, warm, generous heart, he possessed an enthusiastic nature, a quick, brusque manner, and a loud voice, which, when his spirit was influenced by the strong emotions of pity or anxiety for the souls of his flock, sunk into a deep soft bass of the most thrilling earnestness. He belonged to the Church of England, but conducted service very much in the Presbyterian form, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... too fat, and far too brusque in speech, especially to the young. I'll warrant me he has been addressing upbraiding words to you, finding fault, perhaps, with your manners and your ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a second scene—but one which was much more brief. My chief attempted to deal with me, and to him I spoke my mind. I am afraid I said many things which were so brusque that modern society would have reproved me. I told him that it was well known that he and every other man of position had been tremulously fearing death at every turn for weeks, and had been unwilling to do anything when they might have really saved the situation; merely ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... sa marche irresistible; mais la vie des individus et des peuples est devenue pour elle une chose sacree. Elle transforme plutot qu'elle ne detruit les choses qui s'opposent a son developpement; elle procede par absorption graduelle plutot que par brusque execution; elle aime a conquerir par l'influence den idees plutot que par la force des armes, un peuple, une classe, une institution qui resiste an progres.— VACHEROT, Essais de Philosophie Critique, 443. Peu a peu l'homme intellectuel finit par effacer ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... genteel, high-born; docile, tractable, tame, subdued; mild, quiet, peaceable, meek, unobtrusive; bland, soothing, pacific, clement, tender, humane; courteous, cultivated, deferential. Antonyms: drastic, refractory, vicious, brusque, harsh, rough, severe, rigorous, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... with a cabinet of Whigs and Peelites; his second administration furthered the cause of free trade, but made the mistake of allowing the Alabama to leave Birkenhead; he was Prime Minister when he died; a brusque, high-spirited, cheery man, sensible and practical, unpretending as an orator, but a skilful debater, he was a great favourite with the country, whose prosperity and prestige it was his chief desire to ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... occasions 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 fill a master's heart ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... to remember that he was holding her hands. Flushing, she gently withdrew them. Then she turned, and with a brusque ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... Bjoernson's character, there was too much dividing us at this time for any real friendship to have been established. Bjoernson was then still an Orthodox Protestant, and in many ways hampered by his youthful impressions; I myself was still too brusque to be able to adapt myself to so difficult and masterful ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... ladies were cordial. They did not seem to remark that the State chairman kept his seat and was brusque in his greeting. Political abstraction excused general disregard to conventions among the men-folks that morning. The Duke was there. He patronized them with ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... Doctor, and promised so faithfully to retire if I suffered too much, that Mrs. Badger yielded, like an angel, and I carried my point. The Doctor! We looked in vain at each other; I for my dandy friend in irreproachable broadcloth, immaculate shirt bosoms and perfect boots; he for the brusque, impulsive girl who in ordinary circumstances would have run dancing into the parlor, would have given him half-glad, half-indifferent greeting, and then found either occasion to laugh at him or would have turned elsewhere for amusement. We looked, I say, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... stretched a white cloth, so that their heads might not touch the spots sanctified by the heads of the mighty departed. They rarely spoke to one another, but exchanged regards of mutual distrust and scorn; and if by chance they did converse it was in tones of weary, brusque disillusion. They could at best descry each other but indistinctly in the universal pervading gloom—a gloom upon which electric lamps, shining dimly yellow in their vast lustres, produced almost no impression. The whole establishment ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... indeed, present at the church, as Hamilton had dreaded; and the two duelists gave each other a rapier-like eye-thrust. Neither spoke, however, and Clark immediately demanded a settlement of the matter in hand. He was brusque and imperious to a degree, apparently rather anxious ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... officer who, already well-known from the earliest wars of the revolution, had been almost continually in command of various Corps during those of the empire; so that it was surprising that he had not yet been awarded the baton of a marshal; withheld perhaps because of his brusque and abrupt manner. His detractors said, after his defeat, that his desire to obtain this coveted honour had driven him, with no more than 20,000 men, to stand rashly in the path of 200,000 of the enemy, with the aim of barring their passage; but the truth is that having ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... 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
... in the dining-room of the Eagle Hotel, Dunbury's one hostelry, it seemed to Phil that his host was distinctly nervous, with considerably less than his usual brusque, dogmatic poise of manner. ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... with her faithful Avice to unpack it. Her mother would have 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 ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not so sure that it was habit," she said thoughtfully. "I think that Mr. Andrew is not quite what he represents himself to be. No one who had not education and experience of nice people could behave quite as he does. Of course, he is rough and brusque at times, I know, but then many men are ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... at her now, remembering that he'd been hurried and possibly brusque. It ought not to matter—though it did—since she was hardly a lady entitled to courtesy. She hardly looked like anything, after hours crouched inside ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... 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 a matter ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... confidence in Herr Schwager, who from the beginning of our acquaintance attached himself in a most brotherly way to our fortunes, proving himself in every particular a rare honor to his sex. However gross and brusque the German character may be, I must for ever make an exception of our Herr, whose genuine politeness, delicacy of kindness, refinement and manliness I have rarely seen equalled ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... would have liked to have Marius throw himself into his arms. He was displeased with Marius and with himself. He was conscious that he was brusque, and that Marius was cold. It caused the goodman unendurable and irritating anxiety to feel so tender and forlorn within, and only to be able to be hard outside. Bitterness returned. He interrupted Marius ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... son. The pathos of this scene, though designed and interpreted with a very sensitive restraint, was comparatively obvious—a commonplace, indeed, of these heart-rending days. There was a far more subtle and original note of pathos in the contrast between the brusque humour of the man's casual acceptance of the situation and the timorous, adoring, dog-like devotion of the woman. Here tears and laughter were never ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... the sentimentality of the words, and the brusque and defiant anger of his tone, is so abrupt, that I am sorry to say, I laugh again: indeed, I retire from the balcony into the saloon inside, throw myself into a chair, and, covering my face with ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... 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, I capitulated. Says he, 'Sir Lupus, if a painful misunderstanding has kept us ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... he experienced a warm, cosy drawing near, as though beneath the commonplace remark lay something hidden and subtle to which each must bend the ear of the spirit gently. This was the soul of it, a supreme inner gentleness one to the other, no matter how boisterous, how laughing, how brusque might be the spoken word. And in correspondence all the beautiful sunlit summer world took on a new softness and splendour and glory in which they walked, but whose source they did ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... 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 face a ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... light of friendship in his broncho's eyes, as well as at the pony's neigh of welcome, back there at the yard, he had felt a boundless pleasure in his veins. He patted the chestnut's neck, in his rough, brusque way of companionship, and the ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... misery of vague apprehensions. He must know something of her thoughts, have a token from her of some feeling like his own; and, waiting, he stopped the Italian on the stairs. The latter knew his purpose immediately, without a spoken word; and he followed Howat's brusque gesture to his room. He hastily wrote a note; and the latter brought him back a reply, only partly satisfactory, with an air of relish. For the first time the affair had the hateful appearance of an intrigue, ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... middle-aged woman, who always wore a head-handkerchief, and kept her sleeves rolled up, displaying her plump, black arms, winter and summer. She never hesitated to exercise her authority, and the younger negroes on the place regarded her as a tyrant; but in spite of her loud voice and brusque manners she was thoroughly good-natured, usually good-humored, and always trustworthy. Aunt Tempy and Uncle Remus were secretly jealous of each other, but they were careful never to come in conflict, and, to all appearances, the most cordial ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... the last words and paused. His face was impassive, and he kept still like a man in a trance. Hollis sat up quickly, and spread his elbows on the table. Jackson made a brusque movement, and accidentally touched the guitar. A plaintive resonance filled the cabin with confused vibrations and died out slowly. Then Karain began to speak again. The restrained fierceness of his tone seemed to rise like a voice from outside, like a thing unspoken but heard; ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... fashionable women he had painted, the truth was that Markham both feared and misunderstood them. Their changing moods, their unaccountable likes and dislikes, their petty ambitions and vanities he accepted as part of the heritage of a race of beings apart form his own, and he hid his timidity under a brusque manner which gave him credit for a keener penetration than he actually possessed. And, strangely enough, Fate, with sardonic humor, had given him a knack, which so few painters possess, of catching on canvas the elusive charm of his feminine ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... dance against the wainscot. I paused a moment at the landing to look back, but I could see nothing in the dark pit of the hall below us. Was it possible I could remember it alight with candles, whose flames made soft halos on the polished floor? Brutus touched my shoulder, and the brusque grasp of his hand turned me ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... 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 English. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... good-naturedly, for Belle's snapping eyes and brusque ways were beginning to interest him. "Oh, I forgot that you American working-women are all ladies. I am told that you speak of certain of your number ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... to the handle with a leather thong, and flung the other piece of brass to the professor. The latter was not sure but there was something to pay, still he quite correctly assumed that if there had been the somewhat brusque man would have had no hesitation in mentioning the fact; in which surmise his natural common sense proved a sure guide among strange surroundings. There was no false delicacy ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... this whatever it was—protected him from those who might entertain covetous and ulterior designs upon his inheritance even better than though he had been brusque and rude; while those who sought to question him regarding his plans for the future drew from him only mumbled and evasive replies, which left them as deeply in the dark as they had been before. Altogether, ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... at first uncertain as to the enemy with which he had to deal; but he was not the man to submit tamely to conduct so brusque and uncourteous as was that of the videttes. His resistance ended in putting both of them hors de combat; but the circumstances of the encounter, for certain reasons, had been ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... not repeat my 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 ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... Ralph's position—there were plenty—but she had determined by a final and swift decision to disregard them and believe in him. It was a last step in a process that continued ever since she had become interested by this strong brusque man; and it had been precipitated by the fanatical attack to which she had just been a witness. The discord, as she thought it, of Ralph's character and actions had not been resolved; yet she had decided in that moment that ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... 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 ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... very often to help her, and put her in the right way of doing things. At first she found her rather short and unapproachable, and could get nothing but "yes" or "no" from her; and there was something almost offensive in the brusque way in which she would turn with an impatient flush from her mentor when she sometimes didn't understand what was meant, and would do the thing in her own way. She wouldn't see at first the various little good turns which the other did her in her quiet, considerate way; but they were acknowledged ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... the inhabitants of Cuba to the natives of Mexico, and in Vera Cruz to those of the interior. The name is also applied to shrewd and brusque persons. (New Velazquez Dictionary.) ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... gentleman with iron-grey whiskers, writing very long, very able letters to "The Times" about the Repeal of the Corn Laws. Yes, Byron would have been that. It was indicated in him. He would have been an old gentleman exacerbated by Queen Victoria's invincible prejudice against him, her brusque refusal to "entertain" Lord John Russell's timid nomination of him for a post in the Government... Shelley would have been a poet to the last. But how dull, how very dull, would have been the poetry of his middle age!—a great unreadable mass interposed between him and us... ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... 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, she was deeply conscious ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... or other he appeared to be powerfully excited, though he was evidently trying to control himself and to conceal his emotion. He pointed once or twice at my relic with his stubby thumb before he could recover himself sufficiently to ask what it was and how I obtained it—a question put in such a brusque manner that I should have been offended had I not known the man to be an eccentric. I told him the story very much as I had told it to Harton. He listened with the deepest interest, and then asked me if I had any idea what the stone was. I said I had not, beyond that it was meteoric. ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... flower longs for light, she was yet the only girl out of all her set who had never had any especial attention. Perhaps it was because she was no flirt. Bell Masters said no girl could get along who did not flirt. Perhaps because in her excessive truthfulness she was sometimes blunt and almost brusque; it is dreadfully out of place not to be able to lie a little at times. Even Mrs. Upjohn, the female lay-head of the Presbyterians, who was a walking Decalogue, her every sentence being a law beginning with Thou shalt not, admitted practically, if not theoretically, that without ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... rather difficult also to see wherein the character of Mittler is reminiscent of Sterne. Mittler is introduced with the obvious purpose of representing certain opinions and of aiding the development of the story by his insistence upon them. He represents a brusque, practical kind of benevolence, and his eccentricity lies only in the extraordinary occupation which he has chosen for himself. Riemann also traces to Sterne, Fielding and their German followers, Goethe's occasional use of the direct ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... the 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 ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... 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 ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... bowed over the work so near him, the lovely hand 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. The sturdy ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... woman to the cottage, he reflected after she had gone, instead of sending her in this brusque manner. He had not seen Mrs. Preston since his return, and he did not know what had happened to her in the meantime. To-morrow he would find time to ride down there and see how things were going ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... to how she was to carry out her resolution; she pondered over it through much of the night. She was painfully anxious to make Elsmere understand without a scene, without a definite proposal and a definite rejection. It was no use letting things drift. Something brusque and marked there must be. She quietly made ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... palpitating from the poet's heart. There is no smoothness, no gradual unfolding of a theme, no rhetorical exposition, no fanciful embroidery, no sweetness of melodic cadence, in his masculine art of poetry. Brusque, rough, violent in transition, leaping from the sublime to the ridiculous—his poems owe their elevation to the intensity of their feeling, the nobleness and condensation of their thought, the energy and audacity of their expression, their brevity, ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... young artist!' 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
... out on deck, Lanyard ascended to the conning tower and waited there, listening. He could not quite make out what was said; but after a few brusque words of command two pair of boots rang on the gangplank and thumped away down the stage. At the same time Lanyard let himself noiselessly ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... her orphan asylum. Why not go ask him for a subscription? She wondered if he would be very brusque; insulting, even. The possibilities fascinated her. She felt that she would like a passage at arms with him. He was a man worth worsting. Under such circumstances Fred Starratt would be either liberal beyond his means or profusely apologetic. Not by any chance would he ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... was heard, and looking toward the sound, I perceived the Chancellor cantering down the road. When abreast of the carriage he dismounted, and walking up to it, saluted the Emperor in a quick, brusque way that seemed to startle him. After a word or two, the party moved perhaps a hundred yards further on, where they stopped opposite the weaver's cottage so famous from that day. This little house is on the east side of ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... The burly youth had by his brusque manner and rude remarks included Racey in his ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... 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, to find fault with a teacher's method of explanation, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... Rather it was the balance of emotions that made her so meek and so obedient to her friend's tranquil assumption that she must come in as the squire said. She was aware of a strong resentment to his brusque order, as well as to the thought that it was to the house of an apostate that she was going; yet there was a no less strong emotion within her that he had a sort of right to command her. These feelings, working upon her, dazed as she was by the sudden sharpness of her fall, and the ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... himself more pronounced there by his assurance than his culture. Of the latter quality he has so little that the best clubs of which he is a member tolerate rather than accept him. In most cases he is deplorably curt of speech and brusque of deportment. Suavity, repose, that kindliness which is the very marrow and pith of high-breeding, shock you in his manners as acutely by their absence as if they were rents in his waistcoat or gapes in his boot-leather. The "bluff," impudence, and swagger of the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... of poor Sarah!" Mrs. Lessways answered the implied rebuke of Hilda's brusque question. "I shall go and see ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... While there a brusque, loud-mouthed man came in and asked for Donohue, announcing in a loud way what he had done at Harper's Ferry. I told him he was a fool, and that I would not have anything to do with the business if such as he ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... the young man, with brusque kindness. "You know I want you to haunt me always. Good-by now, little sister. I shall be de trop if I stay any longer. You'll be better in the morning, and to-morrow evening I'll remain home and ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... was already wearing his own overcoat. It was, thank God, too warm an evening for a Shuba. The men shook hands, and Grogoff saying something rather deferentially about the meeting, Lenin, in short, brusque tones, put him immediately in his place. Then they went out together, the door closed behind them, and the flat was as silent as an aquarium. He waited for a while, and then, hearing nothing, crept into the hall. Perhaps ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... house of his employer, Mr. Slade, who had treated him with marked kindness, not only inviting him to his own house, but introducing him to many of his friends—an unusual civility Oliver discovered afterward—not many of the clerks being given a seat at Mr. Slade's table. "I like his brusque, hearty manner," Oliver wrote to his mother after the first visit. "His wife is a charming woman, and so are the two daughters, quite independent and fearless, and entirely different from the girls at home, but most ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... camels, and monstrous eagles followed the caravan. The scenery was magnificent, line upon line of snow-white pinnacles stretched southward and westward under a bright sun. The descent was "long, brusque, and rapid, like the descent of a gigantic ladder." At the lower altitude snow and ice disappeared. It was the end of January 1846, when at last our two travellers found themselves approaching the longed-for city ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... well-carried (bien porte) dress. Now what a totally different picture presents itself when we turn to George Sand, who says of herself, in speaking of her girlhood, that although never boorish or importunate, she was always brusque in her movements and natural in her manners, and had a horror of gloves and profound bows. Her fondness for male garments is as characteristic as Chopin's connoisseurship of the female toilette; it did not end with her student life, for she donned them ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... every-day life once more, brusque, blunt and practical. As he turned away to put the glass back on the table, he was debating whether it would not be wise to call up Maria. A woman would understand better what to do for another woman. He knew that Arithelli would never ask ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... a hearty curse or two on the pride and ingratitude both of mother and son. It may be supposed, however, that his second thoughts were more gentle, since that evening, though he did not go himself to the widow, he sent his "Harry." Now, though Harry was sometimes austere and brusque enough on her own account, and in such business as might especially be transacted between herself and the cottagers, yet she never appeared as the delegate of her lord except in the capacity of a herald of ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 'phone all he was required, all he was permitted, to do was to read the figures and to quote time of delivery. If this resulted in an order the Sales Manager took the credit. An open quotation, on the other hand, made Mitchell the subject of brusque criticism for offering a target to competitors, and when he lost an order he was the goat, not the ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... extravagance if it added point to his statement; but in such cases the keen eye took a merry twinkle accentuated by the crow-foot lines in the corner, so that the real geniality and kindliness that underlay the brusque exterior were sufficiently apparent. The general effect was of a nature of intense, restless activity, both physical and mental. In conversation he poured out a wealth of original and striking ideas, from a full experience, observation, and reading; his assertions ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... Pilgrims themselves, in none of their various accounts, ever mention the incident of the landing described above, or the rock. In fact they are so entirely silent about it that historians—besides discrediting the pretty part about Mary Chilton and John Alden, in the brusque fashion characteristic of historians—have pooh-poohed the whole story, arguing that the rock was altogether too far away from the land to be a logical stepping-place, and referring to the only authentic record of that first landing, which merely ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... Clerk Crosby came, and Mr. Magoun, as lean, brusque and mosquito-like as his partner is elephantine; and after a few words with them I was called into the Judge's private room, where a great lump rose in my throat when I tried, and miserably failed, to thank him for all his ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... you may rely on him, but wild and extravagant, courting adventures and dangers, and with a very strange, short, rough manner, an exaggeration of that short manner of speaking which his poor brother had. He is shy in society, which makes him still more brusque, and he does not know (never having been out of his own country or even out in Society) what to say to the number of people who are presented to him here, and which is, I know from experience, a most odious thing. He is truly attached to the Orleans family, particularly to Aumale, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... penitent. I had possibly committed unwittingly a breach of good breeding, according to French ideas, which almost justified the brusque severity of the ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Roosevelt's brusque way of bringing the Alaska Boundary Question to a quick decision, may be criticised as not being judicial. He took the short cut, just as he did years before in securing a witness against the New York saloon-keepers who destroyed the lives of thousands of boys and girls by making ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... can remember them, the words (very characteristic of Captain Kent's genial but rather brusque style) ran ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... Brusque was the contrast between the vivid verdure of Sylvania, the Isle of Wood, and the grim nudity of north-eastern Tenerife; brusquer still the stationary condition of the former compared with the signs, of progress everywhere evident in the latter. Spain, ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... a very sick boy. I lost some hours finding him. They did not want to let me see him. But I implored—said that I was engaged to his sister—and finally I got in. The nurse was very sympathetic. But I didn't care for the doctors in charge. They seemed hard, hurried, brusque. But they have their troubles. The hospital was a long barracks, and ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... view of the whole situation. The mystery in it, after all, if there was any mystery, was one of my own making. To ask a man who had been dining with you to come to your lodging was neither a suspicious nor an unusual thing. Besides, while he had been often brusque, and at times curt, he had shown me nothing but kindness, and had tried ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... 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
... athletic and about forty-five years of age, a soldier, haughty and sometimes very irritable and brusque in speech when excited. Carteret was shorter and fat, good-natured and affable, with polished manners which he had learned by being much at court. He entered the governor's room with Bollen, the commissary ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... counsel, declaring that if "that giraffe" was 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
... 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 neither respectful ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... throw cold hands," Mr. Ottinger interrupted, "chop the trimmings. We're here for the stuff, ain't we?" He was immediately reprehended for his brusque, unsociable manner. ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and my Sunday evenings were seldom without some specimen that roared, if somewhat gently, yet audibly enough, for my visitors. When Arthur Vibert was introduced to Ellenora Bishop, I recognized the immediate impact of the girl's brusque ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... 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 mystified ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... cigar carefully with a club tool, and pushed the match-stand across the table with a brusque gesture. George would not thank him for ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... 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 took them philosophically. Arthur Chicksands had kept the table ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was a secret, a new secret, hidden behind the curt words and brusque manner. I could restrain myself no longer, and sprang forward, saying: "What is it? Tell ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... 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 clearly, ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... professor 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
... to do with God.” Whether he had studied Descartes or not, he evidently did not share the enthusiasm of Arnauld and others for his philosophy. He even spoke of it as “useless, uncertain, and troublesome—nay, as ridiculous.” {177} He has added, in that brusque, rapid, forceful style characteristic of many of his Thoughts, that “he did not think the whole of philosophy worth an hour’s trouble.” Again: “To set light by philosophy is the true philosophy.” When we look at such expressions, and ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... vivacity, but with his usual ease. The first quarter of an hour passed well enough. But soon it was observable that Mrs. P. was drinking glass after glass of wine, to an extent few gentlemen did, even then, and soon that she was actually excited by it. Before this, her manner had been brusque, if not contemptuous, towards her new acquaintance; now it became, towards my mother especially, quite rude. Presently she took up some slight remark made by my mother, which, though, it did not naturally mean anything of the sort, could be twisted into some reflection upon England, ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... very unhappy about having lost my father's money in that speculation, for he advocated the plan very strongly, believing it was a good investment. I'm afraid your mistake about paying him all that money upset him. Don't mind if he was a little brusque, sir. Bob West is a simple, kindly man, whom my father fully trusted. It was he that loaned me the money to get ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... and declarative to the highest degree, while her sister was naturally inclined to the elegiac and the pathetic, indulging herself in sentimental poetry, and keeping a store thereof in her thread-case, which she had cut from the "Christian Mirror." Miss Roxy sometimes, in her brusque way, popped out observations on life and things, with a droll, hard quaintness that took one's breath a little, yet never failed to have a sharp crystallization of truth,—frosty though it were. She was one of those ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... habitue of the salon was to sing, dance, and converse artistically and with refinement. A reaction against the general social state immediately set in, even the brusque warriors acquiring a refinement of speech and manners; and as conversation developed and became a power, the great lords began to respect men of letters and to cultivate their society. Anyone who possessed good manners, vivacity, and wit was admitted to the salon, where a new ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... radical element which has been introduced on the Democratic side of the Senate Chamber, they manifest evident impatience with these regulations. That fine old term "senatorial courtesy" has lost much of its meaning as a result of the brusque and breezy manner of the time. No longer is it said that the young Senator must be seen rather than heard. Indeed, while formerly the spectacle of a Senator rising to make a speech before the close of his second year in the Senate was regarded as unusual, it recently ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... I do not admire your friend, Mr. Ham. I think he is a coarse snob; and under an exterior of brusque frankness I believe he is deceitful and—cowardly. I should consider your union with such a person ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... 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 by me—that she preferred him to all ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and for several days had behaved in an unusual and peculiar manner. She neglected her work, was brusque with her master, and wept without apparent motive. One evening she went out, saying that she intended going to the parish church to say her prayers. At nine o'clock Don Rocco, as she had not returned, went philosophically to bed, and never knew at what ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... part. But not satisfied with this Napoleon demanded from King William a promise that he should at no time permit his cousin to accept the Spanish throne. These demands of the French were promptly refused by the King of Prussia, and Bismarck and Von Moltke saw to it that the message as delivered was brusque and calculated to excite France to anger. Indeed, opinion was so deeply stirred that Napoleon felt compelled to ask for a declaration of war. On July 19, 1870, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... genius does overdo things; was brusque, entirely immersed in his great scheme. Sometimes he even laughed to himself over this. "They don't know what I'm up to!" he would declare to himself, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... all comes to the ear of Reuben, who writes back in a very brusque way to the Doctor: "Why on earth, father, don't you cut all connection with the parish? You've surely done your part in that service. Don't let the 'minister's pay' be any hindrance to you, for I am ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... on leaving the house, said grimly after his fashion: "Not Mab but Ariadne—excuse a soldier's bluntness..... Good-bye!" and with a brusque salute he had ridden away. What he meant she did not know and could not ask. The thought instantly came to her mind: Not Sergeant Fones; but who? She wondered if Ariadne was born on the prairie. What knew she of the girl who helped Theseus, her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... whiskers, writing very long, very able letters to "The Times" about the Repeal of the Corn Laws. Yes, Byron would have been that. It was indicated in him. He would have been an old gentleman exacerbated by Queen Victoria's invincible prejudice against him, her brusque refusal to "entertain" Lord John Russell's timid nomination of him for a post in the Government... Shelley would have been a poet to the last. But how dull, how very dull, would have been the poetry of his middle age!—a great unreadable mass interposed between ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... come to," though I have forgotten. But we lost sight of the ignoble features of the occasion when the sublime office for the Burial of the Dead began. When it was ended I understood one of Betty's brusque remarks, which had puzzled me when it came out ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... guttural voice broke the silence of the house, and the heavy curtain over the door at the nearer end of the ante-room was thrust back by a brusque hand, and a tall, high-shouldered, handsome man, dressed as if he were about to attend some Court function, stood in the opening. Behind him Rallywood caught sight of ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... much of a night owl to be an early riser, but next morning he was awakened by the tramp of hurried feet along the deck to the accompaniment of brusque orders, together with frequent angry puffing and snorting of the boat. From the quiver of the walls he guessed that the Hannah was stuck on a sandbar. The mate's language gave backing to this surmise. Divided in mind between his obligation to the sleeping passengers and his duty to get the boat ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... and daughter, for an hour, went their different ways, and Mrs. Otway, as she walked home alone, told herself that anxiety became Mrs. Haworth, that it rendered the Dean's wife less brusque, and made her pleasanter and kindlier in manner. Poor Edith was her ewe lamb, the prettiest of the daughters whom she had started so successfully out into the world, and the one who was going to make, from a worldly point of view, the best marriage. Yes, it would ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... to confess that Elizabeth had a few—nay, not a few—most obstinate faults; that no child tries its parents, no pupil its school teachers, more than she tried her three mistresses at intervals. She was often thoughtless and careless, brusque in her manner, slovenly, in her dress; sometimes she was down-right "bad," filled full—as some of her elders and betters are, at all ages—with absolute naughtiness; when she would sulk for hours and days together, ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... navy budget taking thirty or forty per cent of every man's income. Who wants to live in such a country? We are fighting the greatest war that history has ever seen, not merely in numbers but in principle. We are fighting to get rid of the most hateful survivals from the past. The overlord, the brusque and arrogant soldier, is the dominating factor in society and the government, the turning of men's thoughts away from the pursuit of the things of art and beauty and social beneficence into the one channel of making everything serve the ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... glanced quietly up from her book and smiled. "We have known Dr. Sturgis many years," she said. "He is brusque, yet very much thought of ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... Deleah could comply another arm was proffered, and proffered in a manner so brusque and so determined that the young Forcus fell ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... was 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 mystified by ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... first 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 ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... a pair of deep blue eyes. Following upon a sigh, he thrust his papers aside with a brusque movement of relief. Then he raised a hand to his broad forehead and smoothed his disheveled fair hair, which seemed to have undergone some upheaval as a result of the mental disturbance his efforts had inspired in the brain beneath. The handsome eyes smiled a reassuring smile into the ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... was suspicious enough to throw out the meal prepared by Helene, and he 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 with care ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... good-fellowship which united them in one. Consequently, I began to feel attracted towards them, and made up my mind that, come what might, I would become of their number. The kind and honourable Operoff I knew already, and now the brusque, but exceptionally clever, Zuchin (who evidently took the lead in this circle) began to please me greatly. He was a dark, thick-set little fellow, with a perennially glistening, polished face, but one that was extremely ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... from a lady's muff Art thou, my Towser. In the Park Thy form occasions 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, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... that they are so far astern. As I have mentioned Cullingworth, I may as well say first the little that is to be said about him. I answered his letter in the way which I have, I think, already described. I hardly expected to hear from him again; but my note had evidently stung him, and I had a brusque message in which he said that if I wished him to believe in my "bona-fides" (whatever he may have meant by that), I would return the money which I had had during the time that I was with him at Bradfield. To this I replied that the sum was about twelve pounds; that I still retained ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... especially by one. Marion Andrews had not been in the raid—Delia often uneasily pondered the why and wherefore. She came up to town a week after it, and was then constantly in Gertrude's room. Between Delia, and this iron-faced, dark-browed woman, with her clumsy dress and brusque ways, there was but little conversation. Delia never forgot their last meeting at Maumsey; she was often filled with dire forebodings and suspicions; and as the relation between Gertrude and Miss Andrews became closer, they grew ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Anglican orthodoxy. The accession of James was seized by them as an occasion for the presentation of a great petition for a modification of church government and ritual. The petition bore no fruit, however, and in a religious debate at Hampton Court in 1604 James made a brusque declaration that bishops like kings were set over the multitude by the hand of God, and, as for these Puritans who would do away with bishops, he would make them conform or "harry them out of the land." From this time forth he insisted on conformity, and deprived many clergymen of their offices for ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... folds. Morgan was beginning to think that she must have deemed it best to omit the innovation, when Cleo rose languorously, took a step towards the great mirror, and, standing erect, inspected herself therein. "Yes, I am worthy of him," she said to herself proudly, then, with a brusque movement, she disengaged the garment from her shoulders and it slipped to the ground and lay there in a soft heap. The spectators then became aware that, save for a sort of transparent web of floating serpentine drapery, it had been her sole covering, ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... Peter's way of saying of course jarred upon her so much. He had always been brusque and abrupt; it was the family fashion. Was it because she had grown accustomed to the tactful and gentle methods of John Crewys that it seemed to have become suddenly such an intolerable fashion? Sir Timothy had quite honestly believed ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... for a few days, Pamela 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 took them philosophically. Arthur Chicksands had ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Still, the lad continued very weak, and Thorne said he had never seen so slight an attack followed by such extreme prostration. Then it did my heart good to see how my chum transformed himself into the tenderest, the most efficient of nurses. He laid aside entirely his brusque manner, talked in the softest tones, stole noiselessly about our rooms, and showed all the tender solicitude, all the quiet "handiness" of a gentle woman. I could see that Clarian loved to have him at his bedside, and to ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... With his brusque declaration Necia realized her position—that she was a weak, lonely girl, just come into womanhood, so cursed by good looks that men wanted her, so stained by birth that they would not take her honestly; realized that she was alone with a dissolute creature ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... visit to Mr. Wilmarth, and leaves Dolly at home. Now there is a rather curious desire of secrecy on her part; the whole thing is so much more charming enveloped in mystery. Mr. Wilmarth receives her with a brusque sort of cordiality, as if he was rather striving against himself, and she sees it, as he means she shall. The drawings are satisfactory, and he expresses his ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... man, Jacob, but too fat, and far too brusque in speech, especially to the young. I'll warrant me he has been addressing upbraiding words to you, finding fault, perhaps, with your manners and your parts ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a good deal against the submarine boy's grain to be so brusque with an inquisitive stranger, but there seemed to be ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... emergencies, though full of irritating taunts and desperate indolence. Such books keep our spirits up in these days of national calamity and domestic losses. Their charm is indescribable. Their style is sharp and brusque, but telling of wide culture; keen, but tender; clear as mountain brook, but varied and full as a river. Gail Hamilton will write of the daily trifles of which life is made, then boldly grapple with the highest truths; she mounts from the hut to the skies, and pours ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... day of my life. We celebrated our betrothal in the Rectory of Veilbye. My future father-in-law spoke to the text, "I gave my handmaid into thy bosom" (Genesis xvi, 5). His words touched my heart. I had not believed that this serious and sometimes brusque man could talk so sweetly. When the solemnity was over, I received the first kiss from my sweet betrothed, and the assurance of her great ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... 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 vehemently shaking all our hands, to make up for Harold's not being fit to touch, he ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... most women would have felt at liberty to do. And besides speaking loudly and boldly, she looked loudly and boldly; and she employed a determined smile which seemed to say, "I'm old enough to do as I please." Her brusque informality was expected to carry itself off—and much else besides. "Of course I simply can't be half so intrepid as I seem!" it said. "Everybody about us understands that, and I must ask your recognition too for an ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... in which the Holy Spirit dwells will always be characterized by gentleness, lowliness, quietness, meekness, and forbearance. The rude, sarcastic spirit, the brusque manner, the sharp retort, the unkind cut—all these belong to the flesh, but they have nothing in common with the gentle ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... panting truth was there. It confused them. They feared the brusque intrusion of some divinity. They were happy and unhappy. They nestled as close together as they could. They brought to each other as much as they could. But they did not suspect what it was that they were bringing. They were too small, too young. They had not lived long enough. Each ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... life as a planter should read his diaries with their brief, and one might almost say brusque, entries from day to day.[1] Washington's care involved not only bringing the Mount Vernon estate to the highest point of prosperity by improving the productiveness of its various sections, but also by buying and annexing new pieces of ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... manners 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 ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the first I was told of, and fell fortunately. I described the nature of the wound, so far as I knew it, and told him the bullet was still there. He got the necessary instruments and we drove back to Rozel in his two-wheeled gig. Dr. Le Gros wore a great blue cloak, and his manner was brusque, but cloak and manner covered a very kind heart. Moreover, he had had a very large experience in gun-shot wounds, and he was a ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... conceive herself related to his variations of mood; still less did she realise the inward struggle of which she was the cause. She was vaguely aware that he had external worries, for all his grandeur, and if he was by turns brusque, affectionate, indifferent, playful, brutal, charming, callous, demonstrative, she no more connected herself with these vicissitudes than with the caprices of the weather. If her sun smiled once a day it was enough. How should she know that ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... 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 play very ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 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, her note ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... epoch still called itself a Republic; and of all Italian commonwealths it was by far the most democratic. Its history, unlike that of Venice, had been the history of continual and brusque changes, resulting in the destruction of the old nobility, in the equalisation of the burghers, and in the formation of a new aristocracy of wealth. Prom this class of bourgeois nobles sprang the Medici, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... the nurse, the cook, and the 365:1 brusque business visitor sympathetically know the thorns they plant in the pillow of the sick and the heavenly 365:3 homesick looking away from earth, - Oh, did they know! - this knowledge would do much more towards ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... him casually from the outside, one found small suggestion of the pathetic in his hard face and brusque manners; nearer companionship revealed occasional glimpses of a mood out of harmony with the vulgar pursuits and solicitudes which for the most part seemed to absorb him. One caught a hint of loneliness in his ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... Doctor," said St. John, changing his manner at once from the pensive to an easy and somewhat brusque familiarity,—"with all my heart; but I am glad to hear you are a convert to champagne: you spent a whole evening last week in endeavouring to dissuade me from the ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... cellars, bee-hives, clothes-presses, and poultry-yards. They eat, drink, and break, giving themselves up to it heartily, not only in the town, but in the neighboring villages. One detachment goes to Brusque, and proceeds so vigorously that the mayor and syndic-attorney scamper off across the fields, and dare not return for a couple of days.[3218] At Versol, the dwelling of the sworn cure, and at Lapeyre, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of excitement that she had created in him by her brusque rudeness, her high spirits, even the jarring of her loud laugh, was beginning to lose its effect; or rather the effect was changed. Instead of ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... 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
... samurai a 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. ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... Jowett, distributing brusque nods to the women present. "What I want is a bit of thick string." (His wife's delicate drawing-room hardly seemed the place to look for such a thing.) "No, no tea, my dear. I told you I wanted a bit of thick string.... ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... 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 ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... 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 at them or with them; ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... with the facts of that case. Still, I fancy it is far from such a bad case as the amiable ladies made it out to be; and in your place I should not suffer it to interfere with my projected visit to the Werve. Miss Mordaunt has been accused, in my presence, of brusque manners, imprudent behaviour, and so forth; but she is renowned for her plain and straightforward dealing, which has brought her into disrepute with her female friends, they preferring to say the most impertinent ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... called on Clara to make some other arrangements. His tone was brusque, and Clara noticed with surprise that he was inclined to blame her for Ray's mishap. He seemed to forget everything when it was a question of his son. But all of the Duchess in Clara came to the surface in her annoyance, ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... 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
... be alone that afternoon in his great bare studio, where no soft background or dim lights conspired to hide her dejection. She had sung badly. She knew it, but she could not answer such a brusque attack, could not defend herself ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... proud to make advances in the face of Constance's marked avoidance, 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
... of power would lie in the family itself. It would be no longer possible to front the political dogmatist of the hearth-rug with a social and religious dogmatism as brusque and unreasonable as his own. The balance of power which woman has slowly built up in home would be roughly disturbed, and new forms of social and domestic life would emerge from the chaos of such a revolution. From sweeping changes of this sort the very temper of woman, her ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... often comes too late." And so I took my homeward way. Deeming distrust of human kind the only lesson of the day. Just two days later, as I sat, half dozing, in my office chair, I heard a timid knock, and called in my brusque fashion, "Who is there?" ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... nobody but his own chemist could make up, he had expedients of treatment that never occurred to any other man, and then he had a way with him that used to bring people up from the gates of death and fill despairing relatives with hope. His arrival in the sick room, a little man, with brusque, sharp, straightforward manner, seemed in itself to change the whole face of things and beat back the tides of disease. He would not hear that any disease was serious, but he treated it as if it were; he would not allow a gloomy face in a sick room, and his language to women ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... was a stern and masterful man, brusque of manner and harsh of voice, and Jan was none too pleased at the thought of having to talk ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... weal. His rapid promotion in military rank, already referred to, was not appreciated in the country, and was mercilessly lampooned in Punch; and attention was attracted to the fact that from that time forward the Duke of Wellington always prefixed the initials "F.M." in his short, brusque third-person letters. "H.R.H. F.M. Paterfamilias" was for some time one of the chief of Punch's stock jests. The Prince was pursued into his private apartments, and shown as a pere de famille in not the most respectful spirit. In one picture he is represented ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... 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 ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... merely conjectured the object of the schoolmaster's visit; she is certain it concerns herself. It is not simply that which troubles her spirits. Left to herself, she would make light of such a suitor, and give him his conge with a brusque promptitude. But her father—why does he yield to the solicitations of this man? This is the mystery she ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... 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 valid ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... 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 ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... 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 ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... 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
... 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
... naturally prejudiced the vice-consul against his visitor, and Stuart's appearance did not call for confidence. Moreover, the boy's manner was against him. He was excited and resentful over his brusque treatment by the clerk. Boy-like, he exaggerated his own importance. He was bursting with ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... 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 ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... and dots upon the ground; similarly, the Yankee whittles to hide the trick that lurks in his eyes. Khizr tents in the Hisma, and his manners are wild and rough as his dwelling-place; possibly manly, brusque certainly, like the Desert Druzes of the Jebel Hauran. He paid his first visit when our Shaykhs were being operated upon by the photographer: I fancied that such a novelty would have attracted his attention ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... estimate of Bjoernson's character, there was too much dividing us at this time for any real friendship to have been established. Bjoernson was then still an Orthodox Protestant, and in many ways hampered by his youthful impressions; I myself was still too brusque to be able to adapt myself to so difficult and masterful ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... Groves screwed up his eyes and readjusted his pince-nez, for the deliberate way in which his companion had changed the conversation was unmistakable. However, Cairn's brusque manners were proverbial, and Sir Elwin accepted ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... dripping overhead. At the corner before him, a cabman, motionless under his unshapely covered hat and glistening rubber cape, sat perched aloft on his seat, apparently asleep. Thorpe hailed him, with a peremptory tone, and gave the brusque order, "Strand!" as ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... 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, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various
... it, whatever it may be," she broke in, with that brusque arrogance that marked her bearing. "The time for flowers of rhetoric is not now. There is trouble ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... it,—certain tricks of phrase, certain modes of expression,—even the pronunciation of familiar words, even the modulation of an accent. A man of the most refined bearing may not have these peculiarities; a man, otherwise coarse and brusque in his manner, may. The slang of the beau monde is quite apart from the code of high breeding. Now and then, something in Waife's talk seemed to show that he had lighted on that beau-world; now and then, that something wholly vanished. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... that my neighbor had the air of trying to avoid me. I resolved to put the suspicion to the test, and one forenoon, when he was sauntering along on the opposite side of the road, in the vicinity of Fisher's sawmill, I deliberately crossed over to address him. The brusque manner in which he hurried away was not to be misunderstood. Of course I was not going ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • 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
... of Mrs. Wallis's—I had just been telling them what I could about the auction. She told me that she had died the spring before, and said how much they missed her; and Hannah broke in upon her regrets in her brusque, downright way: "I should have liked to kep' her if she'd lived to be a hundred, but I don't wish her back. She'd had considerable many strokes, and she couldn't help herself much if any. She'd got to be rising eighty, and ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... 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 ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... I answered, and, I am sorry to say, it sounded brusque. For the little thing blushed, fearful lest she had been indiscreet....(Oh, I assure you the qualities of good breeding are there! Some of my factory and mill friends can teach the set in which I ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... fruits meet for repentance.' I am rich enough to give sound advice," said the brusque old physician, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... 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 ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... held converse with God and his own heart, 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
... letter form, Richardson's framework, and has all of Smollett's earlier power of characterization and brusque wit, together with a more genial, mellower tone, that of an older man not soured but ripened by the years. Some of its main scenes are enacted in his native Scotland and possibly this meant strength ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... letter published in The Alleynian—a very characteristic bit of writing. There were very few fellows or masters either who ever got at Kitter's inner nature. He was always somewhat of a mystery to most people. This was accentuated by his taciturn temperament, his rather distant manner, and short, brusque way of speaking. But he certainly was one of the very best masters I can remember at Dulwich, and of the Corps he was a wonderful O.C. There have been many tributes to Kitter, but I scarcely think that people have done full justice ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... republican, that is greater than having had a king for a tenant. The Marshal, as you may know, although he took a title and served an Emperor, was always a republican and in the early days of the empire often offended Napoleon by his frankness and brusque truths. But enough of old ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... The poor woman had to bear 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 spoke with that fluent clearness of girls ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... decorated work. All would be entirely new in this part of the world, and our idea was, to take orders from the near towns for their Holiday trade. It was now only May and we would have plenty of time. Cal, who, with her brusque, honest ways, determined face, and curly, short hair, was our man of business, took samples of our work in to the various towns, receiving large ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... size, from a visitor's point of view, that I know. Venice always reminds me of a beautiful and charmingly gowned woman, perpetually young, interested in art, in music, in literature, always ready for a stroll, a dance or a flirtation. Trieste, on the contrary, is a busy, preoccupied, rather brusque business man, wholly self-made, who has never devoted much time to devote to pleasure because he has been too busy making his fortune. Venice says, "If you want a good time, let me show you how to spend your money." But Trieste growls, "If you ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... faltering. At that moment there was a brusque movement beside him, and he turned to behold there a young man, dressed in knee-breeches, wearing a purple waistcoat and velvet coat, as like unto himself as ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... his midst, the enemy decided to brusque matters and attack. He left his trenches shouting, "Vive la France! En avant! Aux armes, mes citoyens! ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... ever felt so queer in my life!" answered Collins, in a melancholy tone, strongly in contrast with his habitual brusque gaiety; "but, as you say, it's no use. The poor lad is dead enough at last, and my only comfort now is to bury him, and sometimes ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... at him upon this brusque interrogation, seemed not to understand, and then, suddenly recalling, they declared very naturally that they had left them on the garden table and had not thought ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... to the town. Davidson, being stout, was much preoccupied with coolness and inclined to immobility. He lingered awhile, as if irresolute. Schomberg, at the door, looking out, affected perfect indifference. He could not keep it up, though. Suddenly he turned inward and asked with brusque rage: ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... name given by the inhabitants of Cuba to the natives of Mexico, and in Vera Cruz to those of the interior. The name is also applied to shrewd and brusque persons. (New ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... Miss Muller, who nodded down on Catharine from the heights of brusque sincerity of the Woman's Rights people: "Come and see me, my dear. You and I shall get on very comfortably, I dare say;" to which Kitty replied with her old-fashioned manner, which had a fine courteous quality in it, whether it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... doctor with whom Toole had been closeted, reading the secret in the countenance and by-play of their crony. When it had been with tall, cold, stately Dr. Pell, Toole was ceremonious and deliberate, and oppressively polite. On the other hand, when he had been shut up with brusque, half-savage, energetic Doctor Rogerson, Tom was laconic, decisive, and insupportably ill-bred, till, as we have said, the mirage melted away, and he gradually acquiesced in his identity. Then, little by little, the irrepressible gossip, jocularity, and ballad minstrelsy ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... 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 ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... replaced by the hale and vigorous snorting of the Trades, the roll of breakers to landward, and the unremitting gallop of the unnumbered multitudes of gray-green seas, careering silently past the schooner, their crests occasionally hissing into brusque eruptions of white froth, or smiting broad on under her counter, showering her decks with a sprout of icy spray. It was cold; at times thick fogs cloaked all the world of water. To the east a procession of bleak hills defiled slowly southward; lighthouses were passed; ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... certain 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 imagination ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... manner is brusque, yes, even rude. But I understand and I forgive. Come, we will take counsel together. Tell ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... except an unusual predominance of the sexual instincts. He exhibited no signs of that love of evil for its own sake, so characteristic of criminals, above all, of murderers. According to all accounts, he was a jovial individual, fond of making merry, but at the same time, brusque and violent and easily roused to passionate fury. His extreme susceptibility to the attractions of the opposite sex made him regardless of all moral considerations. In order to gratify this weakness, he became a deserter, dissipated all the money he had ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... him into the secret, the Prince would be most likely to stride straight into the Princess's rooms with the brusque words: "Gottfried has seen a letter come to you from ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... his speech failed him through the brusque manner in which he was addressed. Taking advantage ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... between the sentimentality of the words, and the brusque and defiant anger of his tone, is so abrupt, that I am sorry to say, I laugh again: indeed, I retire from the balcony into the saloon inside, throw myself into a chair, and, covering my face ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... endured such as refused to be silenced by their brusque non-committalism. Benny, at first welcoming everything with the enthusiasm he would accord to a circus, soon sniffed his disdain, as at a show that had ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... receiving the enthusiastic acclaim of his soldiery. This done, he dismounted and talked long and earnestly with Grouchy, Gerard, and others on the state of political parties at Paris. They listened with ill-concealed restlessness. At Fleurus Grouchy asked for definite orders, and received the brusque reply that he must wait. But now, towards 11 o'clock, the Emperor hears that Wellington is still at Quatre Bras, that Pajol has captured eight Prussian guns on the Namur road, and that Excelmans has seen masses of the enemy at Gembloux. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... he is very much nicer than he seems, mamma. Uncle said, you know, in his letter last week, that he had written to Dr. Wade to look after me, if, as he thought probable, he might be coming out in the same ship. He said that he was a little brusque in his manner, but that he was a general favorite, and one of the ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... five years in the house when one day he entered his master's private office with the brusque air of a timid person who has suddenly ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... check to the handle with a leather thong, and flung the other piece of brass to the professor. The latter was not sure but there was something to pay, still he quite correctly assumed that if there had been the somewhat brusque man would have had no hesitation in mentioning the fact; in which surmise his natural common sense proved a sure guide among strange surroundings. There was no false delicacy about ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... 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
... thought a somewhat brusque word, lacking in polish. To use it frequently is a mark of lack of 'savoir-faire! Indeed to speak of it at all is as archaic as to speak of the Ichthyosaurus. But sin is a root-fact of the life of man. ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... that Lamarck, who was frank and at times brusque in character, had made some enemies, and that he had been represented to the Emperor as a maker of almanacs and of weather predictions, and that Napoleon, during a reception, showing to Lamarck his great dissatisfaction with the annuals, had ordered ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... perdant nos deux cheres eleves, nous ne devons pas vous cacher que nous eprouvons a la fois et du chagrin et de l'inquietude; nous sommes affliges parce que cette brusque separation vient briser l'affection presque paternelle que nous leur avons vouee, et notre peine s'augmente a la vue de tant de travaux interrompues, de tant de choses bien commencees, et qui ne demandent ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to look beneath the surface of things, and he had gained the impression from Miss Warren's words that she was inclined to make light of their danger on that occasion, and to laugh at me generally. In his sturdy championship in my behalf he had been growing cold and brusque toward one whom he now associated with the wealthy middle-aged banker, and city style generally. Reuben was a genuine country lad, and was instinctively hostile to Fifth Avenue. While Mr. Hearn was polite to his father and mother, he quite naturally ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... his face changed. Clemency slipped out as soon as she could, saying that she was tired. Then Gordon turned abruptly upon James. "There is something between you two, Clemency and you," he said in a brusque voice. ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... wonder that busy Dr. Bainbridge was surprised when he discovered her in this strange mood as he came puffing and panting up the hill toward town, for she was so completely lost amid her dreams that she did not see him nor hear his brusque greeting until he stepped directly in her path and clutched her arm. Then she started as if suddenly awakened from a sleep, and exclaimed, "Why, Dr. Bainbridge, what do you mean by making me jump so? I nearly lost my skin! I never saw ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... And I—was 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 ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... you'd one donkey already in your party—careering around the desert with a little girl like this," he vouchsafed, and Arlee's eyes widened at his brusque nod at her. She was staring about her now with a curious interest, for all her aching tiredness, gazing wonderingly at the dazzling white walls with their strange and brilliant paintings. She saw they were in a long, deep chamber, from ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... 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, ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... shock to find herself face to face with a priest, on her own doorstep; and before she could quite control her nerves, she broke out with a brusque, "What do ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... even the realities. China rigid against the West was not a semi-barbarism resisting civilization, but an excessively perfected culture resisting the raw energies of one still young and, in its eyes, still with the taint of savagery: brusque manners, materialistic valuations. ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... hesitated before replying. This man's almost brusque manner of driving straight to his point was somewhat alarming. He gave her no loophole. If she discussed the matter with him at all it must be fully, or she ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... to break into an angry reply to this brusque comment, but the chairman of the Electrical Company tapped his forehead to claim its indulgence for the crankiness of ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... her brusque petulance in arms again; she hated that he should imagine she had sacrificed her fete-day to Leon Ramon, because the artist-trooper was dear to him; she hated him to suppose that she had waited there all the hours through on the chance that he would find her at her post, and admire ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... acolytes; the Madonna was seated on a rich throne or under a canopy, with altar-candles, wreaths of roses, flowering lilies. It is characteristic of Michelangelo to adopt a conventional motive, and to treat it with brusque originality. In this picture there are no accessories to the figures, and the attendant angels are Tuscan lads half draped in succinct tunics. The style is rather that of a flat relief in stone than of a painting; and though ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... hair, low forehead and regular firm features, proper to the noblest Roman type. The head is thrown backward from the throat; and there is a something of menace or defiance or suffering in the suggestion of brusque movement given to the sinews of the neck. This attitude, together with the tension of the forehead, and the fixed expression of pain and strain communicated by the lines of the mouth—strong muscles of the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... 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 ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... searching blue eyes toward Agatha again, a courteous but eager inquiry underneath his brusque manner. ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... 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
... with brusque cheerfulness. "You're not so bad off as you think you are, Bibbs. You're on the mend; and it won't do you any harm to ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
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