"Abruptness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... say, and Maxwell did not attempt to make conversation. Hilary offered him his hand, and he said, as if to relieve the parting of abruptness, "If you care to look in on me again, later ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... from him, and, without even offering him her hand, said a friendly but curt good-bye: almost before he had time to return it, he saw her hurrying up the street, as though she had never vouchsafed him word or thought. The abruptness of the dismissal left him breathless; in his imagination, they had walked at least a strip of the street together. He stepped off the pavement into the road, that he might keep her longer in sight, and for some time he saw her head, in the close-fitting hat, bobbing ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... fully eighteen miles, and had attained an elevation of eighteen hundred feet. The lake itself was not visible until they stood upon its shores, as it lies bosomed in a deep hollow, among lofty and precipitous mountains which descend with startling abruptness to the very brink of its dark, deep waters. To cross the lake it is necessary to put one's trust in one's swimming powers, or in a curiously frail kind of boat, which the natives prepare with equal rapidity and skill. Madame Pfeiffer, however, was nothing if not adventurous. Whatever ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... and "infinite" 237 II. His "realism." Plasticity, acuteness, and veracity of intellect and senses 239 III. But his realism qualified by energetic individual preference along certain well-defined lines 245 IV. Joy in Light and Colour 246 V. Joy in Form. Love of abruptness, of intricacy; clefts and spikes 250 VI. Joy in Power. Violence in imagery and description; in sounds; in words. Grotesqueness. Intensity. Catastrophic action. The pregnant moment 257 VII. Joy in Soul. 1. Limited in Browning on the side of simple human nature; of the ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... rankled now that Charmian had spoken out with such almost impertinent abruptness. Had he then lost faith in Mrs. Mansfield? She had never said that she wished him different from what he was. And indirectly she had praised his music. He knew it had made a powerful impression upon her. Nevertheless, he could ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... the abruptness of the question which nothing in their previous conversation had led ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... looked at her daughter, but Lucy offered no explanation. Foster's abruptness disturbed her. He obviously wanted to understand the situation, but seemed to think he had ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... This turns and breaks the furrow slice. The degree to which the mouldboard pulverizes depends on the steepness of its slant upward and the abruptness of its curve sidewise. The steeper it is and the more abrupt the curve, the greater is its pulverizing power. A steep, abrupt mouldboard is adapted to light soils and to the heavier soils when they are comparatively dry. This kind of a plow is apt to puddle a ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... find few long reaches of sand where one may saunter, or meadows, save the brown and purple meadows of the sea, overgrown with slippery kelp, swashed and swirled in the restless breakers. The abruptness of the shore allows the massive waves that have come from far over the broad Pacific to get close to the bluffs ere they break, and the thundering shock shakes the rocks to their foundations. No calm comes to these shores. Even in the finest weather, when ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... he told her, leaning towards her with such abruptness that his sword struck clankingly against the table. "Beyond even the words of my babbling cousin—eh, Allah reward her!—but she did me a good turn ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Geddes of old days, I find. I well remember the fine view from the upper room—that looking down the steep hill, by the side of which runs the road you describe—that path was always my preferred walk, for its shortness (abruptness) and the fine old wall to your left (from the Villa) which is overgrown with weeds and wild flowers—violets and ground-ivy, I remember. Oh, me! to find myself some late sunshiny Sunday afternoon, ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... of the city came with startling abruptness. Suddenly he stood blinking, all about him men halted dazzled, and the world was incandescent. The light found him already upon the outskirts of the excited crowds that choked the Ways near the wind-vane offices, and the sense of visibility and exposure that came with it ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... still potent enough to divert the official attention, or he would have noticed the change in his visitor's face, and the abruptness ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... Verdun, the bulwark of the eastern frontier in ancient days, rises out of the meadows of the Meuse with something of the abruptness of the sky-scraper, and still preserves that aspect which led the writers of other wars to describe all forts as "frowning." It was built for Louis XIV by Vauban. He took a solid rock and blasted out redoubts ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds
... And then, with amazing abruptness, Jerry saw the whaleboat dimly emerge from the gloom close upon him, was blinded by the stab of the torch full in his eyes, and, even as he yelped his joy, felt and recognized Skipper's hand clutching him by the slack of the neck and ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... writer needed help of a peculiar kind and asked for a personal interview—a morning interview, since it was impossible for him to be absent from the house at night. The letter was dignified even to the point of abruptness, and it is difficult to explain how it managed to convey to me the impression of a strong man, shaken and perplexed. Perhaps the restraint of the wording, and the mystery of the affair had something to do with it; and the reference to the Anderson case, the horror of which lay still vivid in my ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... thought away from him with a "get thee behind me" abruptness, and putting on his coat, went ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... analogues. It is a story of parricide, and is narrated in a series of questions by the mother and answers by the son. The commonest form, however, was a mixture of epic and dramatic, or direct relation with dialogue. A frequent feature is the abruptness of the opening and the translations. The ballad-maker observes unconsciously Aristotle's rule for the epic poet, to begin in medias res. Johnson noticed this in the instance of "Johnny Armstrong," but a stronger example is found in ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... on, March Marston galloped to Dick's cave, and startled poor Mary not a little by the abruptness of his entrance. But, to his mortification, Dick was not at home. It so chanced that that wild individual had taken it into his head to remain concealed in the woods near the spot where he had parted from ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... here in his happy home, which he made the home always of genial and open-hearted hospitality—here among his neighbors and fellow-citizens of every class and description, all of whom knew him and all of whom loved him—that the intelligence of his death came with the most painful and startling abruptness. They could not comprehend it. But yesterday he was among them in perfect health, and now he is dead. Men wept in our public streets. I do not believe he had a single personal ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... are so actually to some extent—a double defect, for it is not enough in architecture that a thing should be strong enough, it is necessary that it should appear so, architecture having to do with expression as well as with fact. We will, therefore, strengthen this projecting angle, and correct the abruptness of transition between the column and the bed plate, by brackets (Fig. 7) projecting from the alternate faces of the column to the angles of the bed plates. As this rather emphasizes four planes of the octagon column at the expense of the other four, we will bind the whole together just under ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... is fat. The trees are thick and round—a world of leaves; the hills are round; the forms are all blunt; and the grass is so deep as to have almost the effect of snow in smoothing off all points and curving away all abruptness. England is almost as blunt as a machine-made moulding or a piece of Early-Victorian cast-iron work. And on all this we have, of set purpose, improved by our invention of the country park. There all is curves and masses. A little more is added to the greenness and the softness of the forest ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... Bray gathered up the pieces. They sent out strange gleams like rude gems. Myra and the caller watched sympathetically the eager abruptness of her departure. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... would not yield; she treated his proposition like a spoiled child's demand for the moon, and, after condescending to tease like a boy, he woke suddenly to the fact of being ridiculous. He dropped the subject with the abruptness that causes the opponent nearly to topple ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... various works and treatises of Eusebius, I have not found one which is closed by any termination of the kind; on the contrary, they all end with remarkable suddenness and abruptness, precisely as this comment would end, were the sentence under consideration removed. Each, indeed, of the books of his Ecclesiastical History, is followed by a notice of the close of the book, in some cases too that notice involving a religious sentiment: for example, at the close of the ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... Bobus,—Pardon my abruptness. In medias res is the rule, you know, formose puer, my excellent old boy! Bring out the Saint Peray, if there be a bottle of that flavorous and flavous tipple in your extensive cellars,—which I doubt, since ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... does not abolish courtesy. The message is not to be blurted out in defiance of even conventional forms. Zeal for the Lord is no excuse for rude abruptness. But the salutation of the true apostle will deepen the meaning of such forms, and make the conventional the real expression of real goodwill. No man should say 'Peace be unto you' so heartily as Christ's servant. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... sister, Lady Georgina, who spent her silent life in alternately admiring and despising the younger. Lady Georgina was short, thin, and nearly white-haired. She had a deep voice, which she used with a harsh abruptness, startling to the newcomer. But she used it very little. Cynthia's friends, were used to see her sitting absolutely silent behind the tea-urn at breakfast or tea, filling the cups while Cynthia handed them and Cynthia talked; and they had learned that it was no use at all ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ponderously upon the hilltops, blacking out the twilight with an abruptness which must have held deep significance for men less occupied. But the dominant overcast of their minds was the coming of the sheriff. For many of them it was far more ominous than any storm ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... Mabeuf, who was easily terrified, and who was, as we have said, quick to take alarm, was able to reply by a single syllable, this being, whose movements had a sort of odd abruptness in the darkness, had unhooked the chain, plunged in and withdrawn the bucket, and filled the watering-pot, and the goodman beheld this apparition, which had bare feet and a tattered petticoat, running about among the flower-beds distributing ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... was so sharp that she could not finish her sentence, but clutched at his arm to steady herself; before she could reproach him for his abruptness he had caught up his hat and left the room. She stood there quivering. "He would be happier and love me more, if we had a child!" she said again. She thought of the joy with which, when they first went to housekeeping, she had bought that foolish, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... he said, "you will excuse the abruptness of my manner in our late interview. I was so little prepared for the communication you had to make, that I was, perhaps, unsuitably discomposed. Will you allow me to ask whether you were requested by any of the parties to communicate to me what ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... principle of endurance than Marian had ever dared to put before him. She was more pleased than she had been for a long time, when as they were walking together in the plantations, after evening service, he said with some abruptness and yet with some hesitation, "Marian, didn't you once read something with Gerald in ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... verified by the appearance of two riders. A moment later Thorne and California John dismounted at the hitching rail, some distance removed among the azaleas, and came up afoot. The younger man had dropped all his dry, official precision, his incisive abruptness, his reticence. Clad in the high, laced cruisers, the khaki and gray flannel, the broad, felt hat and gay neckerchief of what might be called the professional class of out-of-door man, his face glowing with health and enthusiasm, ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... abruptness. "I took this girl for her sake. Her short life was not wasted if another's is built upon it. That's one of my fantastic fancies, I suppose. Stop ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... regarded her with a cool stare, without any gesture of salutation, and Mile. Schmaeling amused herself with looking at the pictures. "So you are going to sing me something?" at last said royalty with military abruptness. ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... fell away from him, and he was unduly ruffled by their secession. "It is time," exclaimed the Liberal leader, "to have done with this fooling"; and though he was blamed by the Balfourites for his abruptness of speech, the country adopted his opinion. Gradually it seemed to dawn on Mr. Balfour that his position was no longer tenable. He slipped out of office as quietly as he had slipped into it; and the Liberal party entered on ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... at my sudden and strange abruptness: he looked at me astonished. "Oh, that is nothing yet," I muttered within. "I don't mean to be baffled by a little stiffness on your part; I'm prepared to go to considerable lengths." I continued, "You observed it closely and ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... anyway, he knew, yet in his absurd self-consciousness he was glad that her last suggestion had relieved him of a sense of reckless compliance. He assented eagerly, when with a wave of her hand, a flash of her white teeth, and the same abruptness she had shown at their last parting, she caught Lucy by the arm and darted away in a romping race to her dwelling. Jarman started after her. He had not wanted to go to her father's house particularly, but why was SHE evidently as averse to it? With ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... contemplating the consequences that awaited us. My unfledged fancy had not hitherto soared to this pitch. All was astounding by its novelty, or terrific by its horror. The very scene of these offences partook, to my rustic apprehension, of fairy splendour and magical abruptness. My understanding was bemazed, and my senses were taught to ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... to your visitor, ma'am, and don't mind me," said Kingston, turning her back on the girl with unusual abruptness. "It isn't much that I've got to be sorry for, ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... in awe-struck wonder at the Miss Smiths as they moved with conscious grace and certainty through the various figures of the dance, now curtsying haughtily to each other, now with sudden abruptness turning their backs and pirouetting down the room on the very tips of their toes; now advancing, now retreating, now on the very point of reconciliation, and now bounding apart as though nothing were further from their thoughts. Finally, after the spectators for some time ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... entitled, "The Man Out of Work," is very brief, but apparently not the effort of a tyro. It would probably hold the attention even if it were much longer and we are almost inclined to regret its extreme abruptness. Nevertheless, it is complete as it stands and an artistic whole. "Still At It," by Mr. Lindquist, gives us interesting information regarding the editor and also some sound advice as to finding congenial employment. Mr. Lindquist ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... had been frequent difficulties, the nature of which he had since learned entirely to comprehend; controversies with white-waistcoated proprietors of hotels and voluble tradespeople, generally followed by a severance of hastily-cemented friendships, and a departure of apparently unpremeditated abruptness. ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... you suppose we would?" she queried, rather incoherently. "Do you think I'm doing this for fun?" Then she abruptly disappeared from sight again. The abruptness was caused by the terrible fear that if she stood looking at that sour old visage another moment she would have to spoil everything ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... the change was made. She had admired Blackleg—she was in love with him now that he belonged to her, but she was afflicted with a sudden speechlessness over the abruptness with which he had made the gift. She wanted to thank him, but she felt it was not time. Besides, he had not waited for her thanks. He had placed the halter on the horse she had ridden to the Diamond K, had looked on saturninely while Kelton had helped her into the saddle, and had then carried ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... aspects of action, its ease or difficulty, its advance or retrocession, its home coming or its wandering, its hesitation or its surety, its conflicts and its contrasts, its force or its weakness, its swiftness or slowness, its abruptness or smoothness, its excitement or repose, its success or failure, its seriousness or play. Then, in addition, as we shall see, all modes of emotion that are congruous with this abstract form may by association be poured into its mold, ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... with an inquiring inflection, is much better than simply "What?" when you do not hear what is said. The abruptness of the latter savors ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... did she hear from him, nor indeed from any member of the family. When he came in from his work his first words were for her: some cheery little speech, yet uttered in rather an undertone, lest his natural abruptness unchecked should startle her. The best massive arm-chair, and the snuggest nook by the kitchen fire, were hers; and by the Bible, which was her constant companion, and lay on a little table which stood beside her, a few bright flowers, as their season came round, were placed ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... as much of this brutal tragedy as made his allusions barely intelligible, but on attempting to gain any further information from him, he relapsed, as he generally did, into his usual abruptness of manner. He now passed down towards the cultivated country, at a pace which I was once more obliged to request ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... doubtful about my story of the auto. Most likely, said they, it was a late Store delivery van. I had imagined so much. They paid detestable tribute to my imaginative powers. Married people are like this. With disconcerting abruptness, they wheel round together and go off at some incalculable tangent, serenely unconscious of any need for explanation. They made matters worse by harping on my imagination. And they capped all by declaring that I was a bad man and hoped I would keep my evil thoughts to myself ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... at his own hands, opening and closing the fingers with a savage abruptness. They ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... Mr. Francis Ardry, you enter with considerable abruptness, sir," said one of two men who were seated smoking at a common deal table, in a large ruinous apartment in which we now found ourselves. "You enter with considerable abruptness sir," he repeated; "do you know ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Staniford, with characteristic abruptness, "is a type that is commoner than we imagine in New England. We fair people fancy we are the only genuine Yankees. I guess that's a mistake. There must have been a good many dark Puritans. In fact, we always think of Puritans ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situation of the preacher. For I could not conceive how he would be able to let his audience down from the height to which he had wound them, without impairing the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. But—no: the descent was as beautiful and sublime as the elevation had ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... at Alan with grim reproach when she was shown into his study, and as soon as they were alone she began with her usual abruptness, "Mr. Douglas, why have you given up coming ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Instantaneity — N. instantaneity, instantaneousness, immediacy; suddenness, abruptness. moment, instant, second, minute; twinkling, trice, flash, breath, crack, jiffy, coup, burst, flash of lightning, stroke of time. epoch, time; time of day, time of night; hour, minute; very minute &c, very time, very hour; present time, right time, true time, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... child, and produced the condition shown by this entry when she was a few years older: 'When I came in, past 7 at night, my wife met me in the Entry and told me Betty had surprised them. I was surprised with the Abruptness of the Relation. It seems Betty Sewall had given some signs of dejection and sorrow; but a little while after dinner she burst into an amazing cry which caus'd all the family to cry too. Her mother ask'd the Reason, she gave none; at last said she was ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... for its abruptness, and plunging into the subject all at once[1184]. But such arts as these have no merit, unless when they are original. We admire them only once; and this abruptness has nothing new in it. We have had it often before. Nay, we have it in the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... my knowledge there were charges lying against young Mr. Mackenzie—though not pronounced—which pointed to a thief in his employment and presumably in his confidence. You will remember, sir, that when I had the honour of meeting you at Mr. Mackenzie's table, I took my leave with much abruptness. You remarked upon it, no doubt. But you will no longer think it strange when I tell you that there—under my nose—were a dozen apples of a sort which grows nowhere within twenty miles of Ardlaugh but in my own Manse garden. The tree was a new one, obtained ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... the first and last appearance on the suffrage platform of Miss Kate Field, who was introduced by Miss Anthony with her characteristic abruptness: "Now, friends, here is Kate Field, who has been talking all these years against woman suffrage. She wants to tell you of the faith that is in her." Miss ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... vision Gayarre was the fiend; and I thought that after a while he endeavoured to drag Aurore from me. A struggle followed, and then the scene ended with confused abruptness. ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... real abruptness here, and the author's observations are apt and sound; but the fact remains that they are not essential and so a strict observance of ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... indeed any opportunity of continuing his unpleasant execution, for the enraged Lord Mayor had seized the wide ends of the sailor's trousers and had dragged him down with such abruptness and goodwill that the over-venturesome son of Neptune, dropping his knife, lay upon the ground volunteering expressions which at least had the merit of showing that his travels must have been indeed varied and extensive to have ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... her to regard him as a possible lover; and now that he was an actual lover, a declared lover standing before her, waiting for an answer, she was so astonished that she did not know how to speak. All her ideas too, as to love,—such ideas as she had ever formed, were confounded by his abruptness. She would have thought, had she brought herself absolutely to think upon it, that all speech of love should be very delicate; that love should grow slowly, and then be whispered softly, doubtingly, and with infinite care. Even had she loved him, or ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... begun with a certain abruptness of expression due to the suddenness with which the subject suggested itself to me. It is as though I were building a loose wall in which one must be content to pile the stones haphazard without filling the interior with rubble, levelling the front, or making all lines true to rule. ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... so Amy declared afterwards. The car, which fortunately had decreased its speed to negotiate an abrupt turn in the road, suddenly shot down a slope at the left, turned around once and stopped with a disconcerting abruptness, its radiator against a four-inch birch tree. Clint and Amy picked themselves from the bottom of the tonneau and stared, more surprised than frightened. Behind them, on the level road, a wheel—present investigation showed that it was the forward left one—was proceeding firmly, independently ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... "you will excuse my abruptness; but I judge you from your appearance to be pre-eminently a man of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... breakout came, the overdrive field must collapse and the Duhanne cells down near the small ship's keel absorb the energy which maintained it. Then Esclipus Twenty would appear in the normal universe of suns and stars with the abruptness of an explosion. She should be somewhere near the sun Tallien. She should then swim toward that sol-type sun and approach Tallien's third planet out at the less-than-light-speed rate necessary for solar-system travel. And presently she should signal down to ground and Calhoun set about ...
— The Hate Disease • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... blunt woman by nature, and it was only by great effort that she had become fine-edged. So she said to Miss West, with a sort of naive abruptness, "I'll tell you what, Miss West, we'll have cake to tea, because there are only you and I, and it is the first night of the holidays; and we'll have a strong cup, since we have all the teapot to ourselves. I think I shall try my hand this week at some of my old ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... There was no abruptness in the transition. Every day had contributed its little toward widening the gap. There was no coolness, no consciousness of separation; simply the slow formation of the habit of complete independence each ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... fish making shift to live precariously with other small fish in a pool where big fish swam lazily. If one small fish now and then disappeared with mysterious abruptness, the other small fish would perhaps scurry here and there for a time, but few would leave the pool for the ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... as wrong as you can be," he said, looking down on her half-lifted face, from which a quick wave of color was subsiding; for the abruptness of Richard's ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... parting kindness touched her and thoughtfully hastened the farewell. She took his hand in both her own and murmured a few broken words of gratitude. "Trust me to do my best," he said—and, turning away with a merciful abruptness, left her. In the broad, cheerful sunshine he had come in to reveal the fatal truth. In the broad, cheerful ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... immense lakes in them, although the surface of those vast sheets of fresh water is often as rough as that of any salt sea. The waves, it is true, are not so long and high; but they are very awkward to deal with, from their abruptness, and the rapidity with which they get up when a breeze ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... the tears rising, and she left Miss Betty with an abruptness that made her ashamed of herself as she recalled it. After the exertion of climbing the hill she stopped to rest on the rustic seat just inside her own gate. "I wonder," she asked herself, "if there is anything much harder to bear than seeing a house you love going to ruin and not to be able ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... of a rifle shot split the air with significant abruptness. The sound banished the last of her half-angry causing. The moment had come. She raised herself up for no other reason ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... anticipated approach had occasioned all this abruptness, was coming down the hill when Sweetwater left the gate. As this detective of ours was as careful in his finish as in all the rest of his work, he called ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... the quiet curve of river below, with all the river-side details: the three great purple-tiled masses of Saint Germain, Saint Pierre, and the cathedral of Saint Etienne, rising out of the crowded houses with more than the usual abruptness and irregularity of French building. Here, that rare artist, the susceptible painter of architecture, if he understands the value alike of line and mass of broad masses and delicate lines, has "a subject ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... generous of her to have greeted him as though she had not noticed the abruptness of his departure from Arles. It was generous of her to have clipped out the newspaper advertisement and to have called his attention to it. He mentally apologized to ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... precipitous sides of jungle-covered mountains, where the ground is so steep that a man is forced to cling to the underwood for support, the elephants still plough their irresistible course. In descending or ascending these places, the elephant a always describes a zigzag, and thus lessens the abruptness of the inclination. Their immense weight acting on their broad feet, bordered by sharp horny toes, cuts away the side of the hill at every stride and forms a level step; thus they are enabled to skirt the sides of precipitous hills and banks with comparative case. The trunk is the wonderful ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... 'I don't mean that you're to get out. Forgive my abruptness. The fact is I was thinking aloud a moment. I meant—I mean that you've explained a lot to me I didn't understand before—had never thought about, rather. And it's rather wonderful, you see. In fact, it's very wonderful. Minks,' he added, with the grave ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... laughter, and to the rapid interchange of volleys of "Hear, hear" from opposite sides of the House, which Chiltern says is the most exhilarating sound that can reach the ear of a speaker in the House of Commons. Mr. Lowe sits down with the same abruptness that marked his rising, and rather gets into his hat than puts it on, pushing his head so far into its depths that there is nothing of him left on view save what extends below the ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... to be a great diversity of opinion both among the people on the balcony and those below. Keith listened attentively for a time, then, with the abruptness that had characterized his movements and decisions since the moment he had heard the news of King's ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... spoken of Maria in this way. Even her voice seemed to be changed. Instead of betraying the usual angry abruptness, her tones coldly indicated impenetrable contempt. In the silence that ensued, she looked up, and saw Carmina's eyes resting on ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... came from between her lips. She scarcely noticed the abruptness with which he ended the interview, and returned his bow almost with cordiality. Foyle only stayed long enough to thrust a few papers into the safe, and then followed her out. Two resounding smacks called his attention ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... tired mother should be relieved and the perplexed and wearied man beguiled into forgetfulness of the sources of anxiety. Jack would have indulged in a perpetual howl during the journey had not his attention been diverted by Madge's unexpected expedients, which often suspended an outcry with comical abruptness, while her remarks and questions made it impossible for Mr. Muir to toil on mentally in Wall Street. By reason of the heat the majority of the passengers dozed or fretted. She heroically kept up the spirits of her little band, oblivious of the admiring eyes that ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... common dress, than any masquerade habit could have made her. The novelty of the scene, however, joined to the general air of gaiety diffused throughout the company, shortly lessened her embarrassment; and, after being somewhat familiarized to the abruptness with which the masks approached her, and the freedom with which they looked at or addressed her, the first confusion of her situation subsided, and in her curiosity to watch others, she ceased to observe how ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... equal abruptness, his mouth taking a stern line, 'and unless I am forced to do so I never shall. That you understand, I know, for I spoke to you about it in Paris. My past died for me when I asked Lucy to be my wife. I do not ask you to remember this. I ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... if the temper and spirit in which the Duumvirate discharged its self-set functions had been free from hauteur and softened by modesty. But the magisterial wording in which its decisions were couched, the abruptness with which they were notified, and the threats that accompanied their imposition would have been repellent even were the authors endowed ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... jostle against each other as in the dark. The whole play is an unruly chaos of strange and forbidden things, where the ground rocks under our feet. Shakespeare's genius here took its full swing, and trod upon the furthest bounds of nature and passion. This circumstance will account tor the abruptness and violent antitheses of the style, the throes and labour which run through the expression, and from defects will turn them into beauties. 'So fair and foul a day I have not seen,' &c. 'Such welcome and ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... news of Miss Puttenham's collapse with a sigh—checked at birth. He asked few questions about it; so Mary reflected afterward. He would come in again on the morrow, he said, to inquire for her. Then, with some abruptness, he asked whether Hester had been much seen at the cottage during the ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the Rhine as a foreground to the scenery of the opposite bank, and this you lose by water; and the bank you travel on is much more grand from its towering above you, and also from the sharp angles and turns which so suddenly change the scenery. Abruptness greatly assists the picturesque: the Rhine loses half its beauty viewed from a steam-boat. I have ascended it in both ways, and I should recommend all travellers to go up by land. The inconveniences in a steam-boat are many. You arrive late and find the hotel crowded, and you are forced ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... threw my Father into prison, as honest a painstaking Shoe-maker as any in Cordova; and when He went away, He had the cruelty to take from us my Sister's little Boy, then scarcely two years old, and whom in the abruptness of her flight, She had been obliged to leave behind her. I suppose, that the poor little Wretch met with bitter bad treatment from him, for in a few months after, we received intelligence ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... typhoid fever, or a sharp local lung-trouble like pneumonia, really do make these minute changes approximate in abruptness to death. You weigh, let us say, one hundred and eighty pounds, and you drop in three weeks of a fever to one hundred and thirty pounds. The rest of you is dead. You have lost, as men say, fifty pounds, but your debt to disease, ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... will perhaps remain the crux of the climb. The ice-wall rises forty or fifty feet sheer, and the broken masses below it are especially difficult and precipitous, but with care and time and pains it can be surmounted even as we surmounted it. And wind and sun and storm may mollify the forbidding abruptness of even this break in the ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... that the baggage was wet, and therefore it was necessary to abandon them, and go by land. They therefore crossed the plains, and at the distance of twelve miles came to the river, through a cold storm from the northeast, accompanied by showers of rain. The abruptness of the cliffs compelled them, after going a few miles, to leave the river and meet the storm in the plains. Here they directed their course too far northward, in consequence of which they did not meet the river till late at night, after having travelled twenty-three miles since noon, and halted ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... intention of committing an army, destined for the invasion of England, to the conqueror of Italy. He wholly disapproved of their rashness in breaking off the negotiations of the preceding summer with the English envoy, Lord Malmesbury, and, above all, of the insolent abruptness of that procedure.[22] But the die was cast; and he willingly accepted the appointment now pressed upon him by the government, who, in truth, were anxious about nothing so much as to occupy his mind with the matters of his profession, and so prevent him from taking a prominent part in the civil ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... has no fellow for sternness and abruptness on the earth. Huge headlands, stubborn cliffs, precipitous hills rise suddenly from the sea, bold, harsh, immitigable, yet softened by their aspect of gray endurance. Hacked and scored, tossed, fissured, and torn, weather-beaten and bleached, their bluntness becomes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... and was expected back, as usual, to luncheon after her walk. But luncheon passed, and there were no tidings of her; and, at dinner-time, a brief note by the post announced her leave-taking, excusing its abruptness, on the ground of a sudden and urgent call into the country. This was, no doubt, the subject which the angry shadows on the blinds had been so vehemently discussing the night before. So violent an infraction of etiquette would have ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... he heard her voice speaking inside, harshly, with an agitated abruptness of tone; and in answer there were groans and broken murmurs of exhaustion. She spoke louder. He heard her saying violently—"No! ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... drove along by the banks of the Aber lake, to Ischel. One tall, sharp, and spirally-terminating rock, in particular, kept constantly in view before us, on the right; of which the base and centre were wholly feathered with fir. It rose with an extraordinary degree of abruptness, and seemed to be twice as high as the spire of Strasbourg cathedral. To the left, ran sparkling rivulets, as branches of the three lakes just mentioned. An endless variety of picturesque beauty—of trees, rocks, greenswards, wooded ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Englishman well acquainted with Weimar and its court, "placed herself on the top of the staircase to greet him with the formality of a courtly reception. Napoleon started when he beheld her, Qui etes vous? he exclaimed with characteristic abruptness. Je suis la Duchesse de Weimar. Je vous plains, he retorted fiercely, J'ecraserai votre mari; he then added, 'I shall dine in my apartment,' and rushed by her. The night was spent on the part of the soldiery in all the horrid excesses of rapine. In the morning the duchess sent to inquire concerning ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... all over his shaveless face, went over backward with great abruptness. His head hit the floor with an audible and satisfying whack, and then his limbs settled and he remained there, sprawled ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... The abruptness with which the subject was introduced irritated Sansevero, and he answered sulkily: "I told you, when you first spoke to me, that it was a matter Miss Randolph would have to decide for herself. An American girl never allows other people to arrange her marriage ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... the breakfast the next morning, when the captain came into the room, and she told him Guy was gone to settle their plans with Arnaud. After lingering a little by the window, Philip turned, and with more abruptness than was usual ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... directions, and that he belongs to a family of remarkable intellectual gifts. So it was not surprising that he said some things which pleased the company, as in fact they did. The reader will not be startled to see a certain abruptness in the transition from one subject to another,—it is a characteristic of the squinting brain wherever you find it. Another curious mark rarely wanting in the subjects of mental strabismus is an irregular and often sprawling and deformed handwriting. ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... he, with abruptness, "are out of the question. I have ordered a post chaise to be here at night, and if till then you will stay, I will promise to release you without further petition if not, eternal destruction be my portion if I live to see the scene which your ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... purpose, it is evident) overlap one another without an end-pause where in Italian it is almost universal, namely, after the sixth line. The result of the innovation is far from successful: it destroys the flow of the verse and gives it an air of abruptness. Of the liveliness, vivacity and pungency of the tale, no idea can be given by quotation: two of the stanzas in which the moral is enforced, the two finest, perhaps, in the poem, are, however, severable ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... appeal, and make her rest satisfied with what another was doing for the man whom she had vowed to love in sickness as well as in health. He knew that his scrap of a letter must prove startling by its abruptness; but he had no wish that it should be otherwise. These startling words might rouse her to a sense of her duty; if they did not, he felt that ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... ushers in a passion at its full height, he so contrives to throw the mind back or around upon various predisposing causes and circumstances, as to carry our sympathies through without any revulsion. We are so prepared for the thing by the time it comes as to feel no abruptness in its coming. The exceptions to this, save in some of the Poet's earlier plays, are very rare indeed: the only one I have ever seemed to find is the jealousy of Leontes in The Winter's Tale, and I am by no means sure of it even there. This ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... His abruptness and hoarseness were expressive, but she felt that there was something lacking and she answered with a ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... description of the manifold brightness of the divine nature is introduced in this psalm with singular abruptness. It is set side by side with a vivid picture of an evildoer, a man who mutters in his own heart his godlessness, and with obstinate determination plans and plots in forgetfulness of God. Without a word ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of the Zid appeared on the dock before them with demoniac abruptness—crouched to leap, twin tails lashing and its ten-foot length bristling with glassy magenta bristles. It had a lethal pair of extra limbs that sprang from the shoulders to end in taloned seizing-hands, and its slanted red eyes burned malevolently ...
— Traders Risk • Roger Dee
... as white as the nun's coil upon her brow; her breath came in a faint moan, she stiffened, and swayed upon her feet, and caught at the back of a prie-dieu to steady and save herself from falling. He saw that he had blundered by his abruptness, that he had failed to gauge the full depth of her feelings for the Hidden Prince, and for a moment feared that she would swoon under the shock of the news ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... dear Tresham, a man aged about sixty, in a hunting suit which had once been richly laced, but whose splendour had been tarnished by many a November and December storm. Sir Hildebrand, notwithstanding the abruptness of his present manner, had, at one period of his life, known courts and camps; had held a commission in the army which encamped on Hounslow Heath previous to the Revolution—and, recommended perhaps by his religion, had been knighted about the same period by the unfortunate ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... in nature to the Devil's Postpile, but vastly greater in size and sensational quality, forms one of the most striking natural spectacles east of the Rocky Mountains. The Devil's Tower is unique. It rises with extreme abruptness from the rough Wyoming levels just west of the Black Hills. It is on the banks of the Belle Fourche River, which later, encircling the Black Hills around the north, finds its way into the Big ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... "Mrs. Beaumont—pardon my abruptness," continued Captain Walsingham, "but you see before you a man whose whole happiness is at stake. May I beg a few minutes' conversation ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... long as there was whiskey in the decanter he wouldn't dream of going. So she left Radway in the middle of her sentence, walked straight up to Lady Halberton and said, "Good-night," with a staggering abruptness, and before he knew what had happened Lord Halberton was handing Jocelyn ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... in his pocket and left the little tavern with an abruptness that astonished his host, setting out upon his ride with increased haste and turning eastward, intending to reach the railroad at the nearest point where he could take a train ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... have a bit of supper afterwards. Excellent. Meet me at the Savoy at eleven-fifteen. I'm glad I didn't hit you with that loaf. Abruptness has been my failing through life. My father was just the same. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... a late and lazy breakfast next morning, Roger ascended to his father's room. He found the old man lying tranquil if weak, his temperature fallen to normal with that curious abruptness characteristic of typhoid. The nurse, very fresh in a clean apron and cap, was putting the room to rights. She smiled at Roger, who was no longer a stranger, for the two had had a long talk over their coffee the evening before, ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... leading the rising frenzy, with convulsive shiverings and tremblings tears of his skin garments so that he is quite naked save for a girdle of eagle-claws about his thighs. His long black hair flies about his face. With an abruptness that is startling, he ceases all movement and stands erect, rigid. This is greeted with a low moaning ...
— The Acorn-Planter - A California Forest Play (1916) • Jack London
... from the same stock, all shades of complexion in the skin, and variety in the form of the skull, should have arisen? Experience assures us that these are changes assumed only by slow degrees, and not with abruptness; they come as a cumulative effect. They plainly enforce the doctrine that national type is not to be regarded as a definite or final thing, a seeming immobility in this particular being due to the attainment of a correspondence with the conditions to which the type is exposed. ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... to surrender all the stateliness of her resentment. Mr. Falkland, however, drew so interesting a picture of the disturbance of Count Malvesi's mind, and accounted in so flattering a manner for the abruptness of his conduct, that this, together with the arguments he adduced, completed the conquest of Lady Lucretia's resentment. Having thus far accomplished his purpose, he proceeded to disclose to her every ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... coming through, and Blowout was to be a city with that mysterious and rather disconcerting abruptness with which tiny Western villages do become ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... Clarendon to come in, moved a chair towards her, and stood breathless with anxiety. Miss Clarendon sat down, and resuming her abruptness of tone, said, "I feel that I have no right to expect that you should have confidence in me, and yet I do. I believe in your sincerity, even from the little I know of you, and I have a notion you believe in mine. ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... this concluding sentence. The hot day, the summer costume—possibly the shaded room also—combined to strip away a good ten years from her record. Any hardness, any faint sense of annoyance, which Damaris experienced at the abruptness of her guest's intrusion melted. Henrietta in her existing aspect, her existing mood proved irresistible. Our tender-hearted maiden was charmed by her ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... a little scared at the abruptness and tone of this question, and he answered very quietly, 'My father was busy last night, and I could not speak to ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... had made to the war of 1859. It is always a thorn in the flesh of those of our neighbors from beyond the Alps who do not love us. The pride of the Garibaldian was not far behind the generosity of the former zouave. With an abruptness equal to that of Montfanon, he took up the volume and grumbled as he turned it over and over ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... An attempt to fully discuss a topic, under such circumstances, is not successful once in a hundred times. The best course is to follow an apt story by some proverb, a popular reference, or a witty turn, and then to close. But no abruptness will be disliked by your hearers half so much, as the utterance of a string of commonplaces, after you have once secured their attention. The richness of the dessert should come at the close, not at the beginning, of ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger |
