"Bluff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... near, and the bullets passed much higher. Roosevelt, who had picked up a carbine and was firing to give the direction to the others, determined upon a charge. Wood, at the other end of the line, decided at the same time upon the same manoeuvre. It was called "Wood's bluff" afterward, for he had nothing to back it with; while to the enemy it looked as though his whole force was but the skirmish-line in advance of a regiment. The Spaniards naturally could not believe that this thin line which suddenly broke out of the bushes and from behind trees and came cheering ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... shop are jealous of me, and one thing and another. Well, now I'll go down and spit the old man in the eye couple o' times, and get canned, unless I can talk him out of his bad acting. Oh, I'll throw a big bluff. I'll be the little misunderstood boy, but I don't honestly think I can put anything across on him. I'm— Oh, hell, I guess I'm getting old. I ain't got the pep I used to have. Not but what J. Eddie Schwirtz can still sell goods, but I can't talk up to the ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... frequently described is that known as the Basket trick, which is in my opinion the chef d'oeuvre of the Indian Jadoo-wallah. It is a wonderful bluff ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... passing call from the Sun, than Mr. Bindloose at this unexpected visit of his old client. In one breath he rebuked the inquisitive impertinence of his clerks, in another stimulated his housekeeper, old Hannah—for Mr. Bindloose was a bluff bachelor—to get tea ready in the green parlour; and while yet speaking, was at the side of the whiskey, unclasping the curtains, rolling down the apron, and assisting his ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... face paled visibly. He did not like the look in Paul's eye, nor the stern countenances of his friends. But he hoped to bluff ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... side of the passage which led from the main-deck to the saloon. The latter was a comfortable room, the panelling tastefully done in oak and mahogany, with a rich Brussels carpet and luxurious settees. I was very much pleased with the accommodation, and also with Tibbs the captain, a bluff, sailor-like fellow, with a loud voice and hearty manner, who welcomed me to the ship with effusion, and insisted upon our splitting a bottle of wine in his cabin. He told me that he intended to take his wife and youngest child with him on the voyage, and that he hoped with good luck ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... while up between them run the gloomy fiords, sometimes to the length of twenty, thirty, and even forty miles. Anything more grand and mysterious than the appearance of their solemn portals, as we passed across from bluff to bluff, it is impossible to conceive. Each might have served as a separate entrance to some poet's hell—so drear and fatal seemed the vista one's eye just caught receding between the endless ranks ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... office on the second floor, the Commissioner greeted us cordially in his bluff and honest voice which both of us came to know and like so well later. Garrick had met him often and the cordiality of their relations was well testified ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... hungry dogs responding to the howls of prowling coyotes, and saw, by the flickering lights, the smoky lodges of the warriors. The men crept up to within a few hundred yards of the slumbering camp, when they again crossed the creek down which they had been marching, and ascended its eastern bluff. Here they encountered a large herd of ponies, some of whom neighed anxiously as the strange apparition filed past them, but luckily ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... could not get the drift of it exactly—it seemed to be the continuation of some former quarrel about an oak leaf or something. Anyway, Th' Ole Man silenced his opponent by smothering his batteries—all of which will be better understood when I explain that Th' Ole Man was large in stature, bluff, bold and strong-voiced, whereas Cobden-Sanderson is small, red-headed, meek, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... during an intermittent rain is a run of about a mile up to the "hennery," which buds and blossoms with the dearest little ducks of ducks, broad-billed, downy, toddling, tumbling in and out of a trough of water, and getting continually lost on the bluff outside; little chickens and turkeys, and great turkeys, not pleasant to the eye, but good for food, and turkey-gobblers, stiffest-mannered of all the feathered creation; and geese, sailing in the creek majestic, or waddling on the grass dumpy; ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... a barque of some four or five hundred tons, with a broad, bluff- bowed hull that rose well out of the water on account of her not having completed loading her cargo. There was a long row of white ports along her side; and, as she rolled with the motion of the ground-swell, now setting inshore ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... for treatment and comes home full of talk about damage suits and that sort of thing. Well, sir, she just bluffed him down. Told him she had fixed 'em all right, but when he was drunk he had torn the tendons loose and was tryin' to lay the blame on her. She made her bluff stick, too. Funny, ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... against a rocky bluff so high it dwarfed the whole ranch to pygmy size when one gazed down from the rim, and so steep that one wondered how the huge, gray bowlders managed to perch upon its side instead of rolling down and crushing ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... the Hawkinses were 'the master spirits' of Plymouth, and of them all Sir John Hawkins was the most famous. His character was a curious medley of incongruous features, bluff straightforwardness and crooked diplomacy, faithful affection—such as his bold schemes to help his captured comrades proved—balanced by a hard indifference that ignored the misery of the wretched negroes he sold to West Indian planters. Pluck and daring were the only qualities he ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... one blue, one brown, on the opposite slope. They were Haught and his son Edd slowly and laboriously climbing up the steep bluff. How like snails they climbed! Theirs was indeed a task. A yell pealed out now and then, and though it seemed to come from an entirely different direction it surely must have come from the Haughts. Presently ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... the coast, from one end to the other, varies but slightly in appearance. It is everywhere low, and either sandy or marshy. An occasional bluff of moderate height is to be seen. A large proportion of the line is skirted by low sandy islands, sometimes joined by narrow necks to the mainland, forming inland sounds of considerable extent, access ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... other evening. Arthur and I were sitting at the table in the restaurant waiting for the rest of the crowd when in she canters, dressed up regardless like a queen in a book, in a low-neck gag. She run a bluff as if she just had it made, but if a certain K. & E. wardrobe mistress ever catches her with it on this party is due to get pinched for petty larceny. As soon as she spotted me she rushed over and yelped, 'Oh, Sabrina, I'm charmed to ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... at Lord Arthur, an' see that Hammy's bluff had stuck, so he girded up his loins an' sez, "Sir, it gives me great pleasure to make your acquaintance. My uncle, Silas Martin, the late copper king, has just died, leavin' me as his sole heir; an' I have been ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... the Bluff loomed to south-east. Soon a game of pitch-and-toss precluded our access to harbor. At last we transshipped, all three of us, boy and dog and I, to a steam-launch, and were soon ashore. No, I won't say four of us. The presence did not make itself felt as taking ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... table however enter decidedly tiresome very butt Solomon infection bluff Czar short although Caesarism ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... was a shaggy-browed, bluff Scotchman, who evidently took me in my tartan disguise for a Highland lad. Whether he meant, "How are you," or "Who are you," I was not certain. Afraid my tongue might betray me, I muttered back an indistinct ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... came, Frank and Bluff, for I want your opinion. Jerry has just sprung an astonishing idea on me, and I'm so dazed I hardly know what to say. Are you ready for the question? All in favor of spending the two weeks' additional vacation out in camp back of ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... celerity before the gales. The slow ships of commerce, indeed, are often days in traversing the distance between one port and another, for they wait for the wind to blow abaft, and being heavy, deeply laden, built broad and flat-bottomed for shallows, and bluff at the bows, they drift like logs of timber. In canoes the hunters, indeed, sometimes pass swiftly from one place to another, venturing farther out to sea than the ships. They could pass yet more quickly were it ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... seized the others, as they thought that he had been overtaken and killed by hostile Indians. Day after day the woods were scoured in the hope of finding the missing companion, but it seemed vain. A fort was erected for the protection of the party on a high bluff, and named for the lost hunter, Prudhomme. At last they met some Chickasaw Indians, and messages of amity were exchanged through them with the people of their village, not far distant. Soon afterwards Prudhomme was discovered, half-dead ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... point of view or another. In fact, the surest way to fix an audience's attention is to introduce your hero, or to display your opening chorus in the lobby or along the facade of a hotel. The life, the movement and colour, the drifting individualities, the pretence, the bluff, the self-consciousness, the independence, the ennui, the darting or lounging servants, the very fact that of those before your eyes seven out of ten are drawn from distant and scattered places, are sufficient in themselves to ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... all sorts of games, from tag and jumping rope, to blindman's bluff and hide-and-seek. Snap was made to do a number of tricks, much to the amusement of the teachers and children. Danny Rugg, and some of the older boys, got up a small baseball game, and then Danny, with one or two chums, went off in a deeper part of the woods. Bert heard one of ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... River bluff, looking over on a free State, and as far north as my eyes could see, I have eagerly gazed upon the blue sky of the free North, which at times constrained me to cry out from the depths of my soul, Oh! Canada, sweet land of rest—Oh! when shall I get there! Oh, that I had the wings of a dove, ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... all the time," muttered Jimmie. "You may have been in America a while, but you haven't got wise to the great game of 'bluff' the Americans pull off once in ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... my eyes to see the house in which I lived in my youth. It stood in the city of Penn, back from the low bluff of Dock Creek, near to Walnut street. The garden stretched down to the water, and before the door were still left on either side two great hemlock-spruces, which must have been part of the noble woods under ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... led a hard life, and had hastened his end by strong drink. He could neither tell the commonly accepted truth out of respect to the deceased, nor lies out of regard to morality. However, one favorable point in the character of the deceased, upon which people were agreed, was his geniality and bluff heartiness of good-humor. That the minister so enlarged and displayed to the light of admiration that he almost made of it the aureole of a saint. He was obliged then to take refuge in the broad field of generalities, and discourse upon his text of "All flesh is as grass," ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... between them and the hill I was on, and meandering along through this valley from the west I could trace the course of the Finke by its timber for some miles. To the east a mass of high and jumbled hills appeared, and one bluff-faced mount was more conspicuous than the rest. Nearer to me, and almost under my feet, was the gorge through which the river passes, and it appears to be the only pass through this chain. I approached the precipice overlooking the gorge, and found the channel so flooded ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... he stayed away. It could not be that he was afraid, for he had shown the utmost fearlessness in bringing to justice and transportation the four ringleaders in the attack on the mill. He had now returned, and one day as he rode over Rushedge Moore from Stilbro' market with a bluff neighbour, he unbosomed himself of the reason why he had remained thus ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... remarkable hills on both sides of the Gregory River, about half a mile above the junction with the O'Shanassy, which I have named the Prior Ranges. At 4.48 we returned to a point opposite Mount Kay. At 5.26 made two miles up the river to where there are remarkable bluff hills on both sides of the river (the lower hills of the gorge). At 5.50 we observed that we had passed the camp and, as the river is difficult to cross even at its best fords, we went to the camp ford, which the horses knew, as we had crossed there in the ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... unrestrainedly when Billy bade her a bluff and friendly farewell, and he was practically driven from the room by Isabel; who then returned to her charge, gathered her close in her arms, and sat with her so, rocking her gently ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... "A bluff! Some of my friends secured that old unused van and wished to make the attempt. But I considered it impractical without the concurrence of a number of unusual circumstances. However, I found it useful to carry ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... with portentous deliberation—"Or no, first I must explain something. You see, in bringing out a company, you can't put up too stout a bluff. I mean, you've got to behave as if you were rolling in wealth—as if everything was coming your way, and fortunes were to be made by fastening to you. I don't know that it often fools anybody very much, but it's part of the game, and you must play it. Well, accordingly, my ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... his sentence was ordered to be carried into effect three days afterwards. I was then with a company of New York volunteers, sent to reinforce General Stark, and I was enabled to gratify my desire to witness the execution of a man I detested. The gallows was put up on the high bluff a few miles south of Fish Creek, near our barracks. When the day arrived, I found that our company was on the guard to be posted near the gallows. It was a gloomy morning, and about the time the tory colonel was marched out to the gallows, and we were placed in position at the foot of the bluff, ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... the turkeys stood in momentary suspense, the sunlight gilding their bronze feathers to a brighter sheen, there was a movement in the dense undergrowth. The flock took suddenly to wing,—a flash from among the leaves, the sharp crack of a rifle, and one of the birds fell heavily over the bluff and down ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... worth while to illustrate our meaning by an instance or two, to show that, far from being hypercritical, our canon of criticism is extremely indulgent, and that we never take the bluff and surly objection—it cannot be!—until the improbability has reached the core of the matter. In the first story, "The Birth Mark," we raise no objection to the author, because he invents a chemistry of his own, and supposes his hero in possession of marvellous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... father—the weapon that had first given him his real ascendancy over the beasts of the jungle; but he hoped not to be forced to use it, knowing as he did that more jungle battles were settled by hideous growling than by actual combat, the law of bluff holding quite as good in the jungle as elsewhere—only in matters of love and food did the great beasts ordinarily close with ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... fierce because she loved him most and she had nothing, nothing to give him. For he had to go back, oh, he had to go back to-morrow, and he hated it so—they all hated it—the best of them! How clearly she saw through the superb, pitiful bluff, that it was all sport, "wonderful"! Wonderful? She knew, but she would never dare let Leonard ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... next of delights to having her beside him.—She wrote of; 'Thoughts that are bare dark outlines, coloured by some odd passion of the soul, like towers of a distant city seen in the funeral waste of day.'—His bluff English anti-poetic training would have caused him to shrug at the stuff coming from another pen: he might condescendingly have criticized it, with a sneer embalmed in humour. The words were hers; she had written them; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to me, Roy Pell." The miser sank back on the grass, while Roy hurried to the edge of the bluff and making a trumpet ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... question was not accustomed to nice ethnic distinctions, and grouped all of the representatives from Continental Europe under the comprehensive title of "Dutchmen." When the attache in question came to say farewell, the General responded with a bluff heartiness, in which perhaps the note of sincerity was more conspicuous than that of entire good breeding: "Well, good-by; sorry you're going; which are you anyhow—the German or ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... house last night," Dorothy went on, "blustering around about having come back late, saying that she'd shown what a bluff the whole excuse business is, and that now, after she has proved that it's perfectly easy to cut over at the end of a vacation, perhaps some of us timid little creatures will dare to follow her lead. But perhaps you've heard her talking ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... that letter. I advised your wife to let me keep it for possible emergencies. I have it in this office along with the other evidence. I don't bluff—shall I ring and have my ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... Street shark, sure." "Does Jimmy Grayson mean to hobnob with a man like that?" "Then we can't trust him either. He's going to be a monopolist, too, and his claiming to be champion of the people is all a bluff." ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... watched him with an amused, uncomprehending interest. Why was he so anxious to be off? After all, he, the Big Man, found it a pleasant place, after the wearisome life from hotel to hotel. He liked the boys; they were kind to him, and looked after his moral and spiritual welfare with bluff but affectionate solicitude. It is true, one was always hungry, and only ten and a half hours' sleep was a refinement of cruelty unworthy of a great institution. But it was pleasant running over to the jigger-shop and doing errands for giants like Reiter and Butcher Stevens, with the privileges ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... present," replied Mr. Pawle. "It seems evident—unless, indeed, it was all a piece of bluff, and it may have been—that this man is, or was when you saw him, just as ignorant as the landlord of that place was that the man who used to drop in there and Ashton were one and the same person. No, let ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... their course up the river, and being joined by other bands, a concerted and deliberate attack was next made on Fort Ridgely. Like too many of our frontier forts, it is a fort only in name. Situated on a projecting spur of the river bluff, it is almost completely encircled by deep and wooded ravines, the edges of which are within a stone's throw of the buildings. A long, two story stone building with an ell, standing in the centre, and a number of log and frame houses ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... pearly light over the sea. The great plain of Biguglia lay to the left under a soft blanket of mist, as deadly they say, as any African miasma, above which the distant mountains raised summits already tinged with rose. Ahead and close at hand, the old town of Bastia jutted out into the sea, the bluff Genoese bastion concealing the harbour from view. De Vasselot had never been to Bastia, which Casabianda described as a great and bewildering city, where the unwary might soon lose himself. The man of incomprehensible speech was, ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... where he was going, for in his imagination he was on horseback, looking on at a mighty, seething crowd making a bold rush at the cavalry escort round some carriages. But he was brought to himself directly after by a bluff voice saying: ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... there's always something sickening about the thought that I have been obliged to go back to them; and usually in my dream I am just about to start into a black shadow without being able to tell whether it is Selma bluff, or Hat Island, or only a black ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... carelessly. "He has no claim on Thunder Mountain; has he? And we want to call his bluff, if it was one. So just make up your mind we're in for a new experience. It may pan out a heap of fun for us. And it will be worth while if we can settle the question that has been giving these superstitious cowmen the ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... been much indebted for any position I hold in literature. In more private matters I am greatly indebted to his counsels. His reading is extensive. What faults he has lie on the surface. He is sometimes bluff to rudeness. But all such faults of manner (and they are his only ones) are but trifling inequalities in a nature solid and valuable as a block ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... 1863, the Confederates held the Mississippi River only from Vicksburg to Port Hudson. The capture of these two towns would complete the opening of the river. Grant, therefore, determined to capture Vicksburg. The town stands on the top of a bluff which rises straight and steep from the river, and had been so strongly fortified on the land side that to take it seemed impossible. Grant, having failed in a direct advance through Mississippi, cut a ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... was limitless prairie straight on in front of me. I walked for days, and slept at night wherever I could find a bluff. I could hear the little grasses whispering when I lay half-awake, and it was comforting to know that there were leagues and leagues of them between me and the city. I drove a team for a farmer ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... rose again, and curved off toward woods in the distance. Scarcely had our line reached this point, when the enemy "came down like the wolf on the fold." Judging from the promptness and vigor with which they assailed us, they evidently counted on making our enterprise another Ball's Bluff affair. ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... influenced by his likable personality, made a hero of Schley, but his fellow naval officers felt differently. A court of inquiry held in 1901 found Schley to be at fault, but despite this decision he retained his public popularity, a tribute to his affability and bluff, hearty manner. ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... faces are commonplace, with bourgeois cunning written on the heavy features; one is bluff, another stolid, a third bloated, a fourth stately. The sculptors have dealt fairly with all, and not one has the lineaments of utter baseness. To Cristoforo Solari's statues of Lodovico Sforza and his wife, Beatrice d'Este, the palm of excellence in art and of historical interest must be ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... a military empire soldiers are more necessary than peasants and artisans. Already in 1815 Mecklenburg could claim the glory of having produced the greatest Junker soldier of the age, bluff and rough Prince Bluecher, the victor of Waterloo. The achievements of the Grand Ducal regiments have fully proved that Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz have in the present war remained true to the glories of their military past and have remained ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... the south side of the city. The citizen soldiers were quietly directed to get behind their sandbags, while a mounted body was ordered out to anticipate events, and, if practicable, to knock over a few of the clansmen. But it was only bluff again. Our women folk, although they dreaded a fracas, were particularly impatient of this time-honoured game. During the day, a good many shells were expended on the Premier Mine. The mines, it may be said, were the objectives of special bombardments until ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... comfort and cheer the despondent soul, but seemed only to make matters worse, and at length, disheartened at her apparent failure, she stole away from the brown house on the bluff, and with Gloriana following silently at her heels, set out for home. Not a word passed between them as they hastened down the main street of the town, until, just as they reached the dingy telegraph station, the sound of the busy, clattering key caused Tabitha to halt ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... an old wallet, unstraps it careful, and shoves over a cashier's check. No bluff about it. He had ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... colony. With eager and unselfish hopes of a noble service to be rendered to humanity, the generous soldier embarked with a picked company of one hundred and twenty emigrants, and on the 12th of February, 1733, landed at the foot of the bluff on which now stands the city of Savannah. The attractions of the genial climate and fertile soil, the liberal terms of invitation, and the splendid schemes of profitable industry were diligently advertised, and came to the knowledge of that noble young ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... happened, from next morning's breakfast the Meadowcrofts sat next to us. Hilda was on one side of me; Lady Meadowcroft on the other; and beyond her again, bluff Yorkshire Sir Ivor, with his cold, hard, honest blue North Country eyes, and his dignified, pompous English, breaking down at times into a North Country colloquialism. They talked chiefly to each other. Acting on Hilda's instructions, I took care not to engage in conversation ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... rifle and started off with the hunters. Presently the pain left my hips, or, more properly speaking, my feet got so sore from the constant walking over sharp rocks that my mind was diverted in that direction solely. While resting on the top of a high bluff overlooking the lakes, I heard a faint "halloo," which seemed to come on the wind from an immense distance. I called "Sam's" attention to it, and he immediately dropped behind a rock, out of the wind, until it ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... Cromwell, like many another bluff and gruff man, was a deal more tender-hearted than he was willing to admit. The death of his daughter broke the heart of Old Noll—he could not live without her. So passed away Oliver Cromwell in his sixtieth year. The very human side of his nature was shown in his supposing that his son Richard ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... the two rounded the southern end of the white bluff, and when Hiram, following, rounded it also, they were ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... agreement with Lord Pirrie, and prepared to support Home Rule on "Liberal," if not on avowedly "Nationalist" principles, and that the policy for which Carson, Londonderry, and the Unionist Council stood was a gigantic piece of bluff which only required to be exposed to ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... lay a vessel of about 300 tons burden, with bluff, rounded bows sitting high up out of the water, a long, straight waist, and a bridge and cluster ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... the dagos in Mexico say. This is a hot place by reason of the sun that shines above us, and likewise it is hot because of the niggers that swarm around us. I figure, if we get out of this portion of the African continent inside our skins, that we will have put up a pretty good bluff, and pulled ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... fallen on each other's necks, and, amid tears and kisses, have sealed their reunion by ignominiously making the Black the scapegoat of their bygone quarrel, and wreaking on him the spite which they had purposed to expend on each other. But God had higher ends, to which a Bull Run, a Ball's Bluff, a Gaines's Mill, a Groveton, were indispensable: and so they came to pass, and were endured and profited by. The Republic needed to be passed through chastening, purifying fires of adversity and suffering: so these came and did their work and the verdure of a new ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... too great. The hurrying voice petered out, and the shack was silent again. Husky made a bluff of continuing his game. Jack and Shand stared into the fire. Joe lay ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... little further and found a flat rock not far below the top of the bluff. The fireplace was nearly as they had left it, and only required a few stones to make it as good as new. Molly viewed it with a satisfied air as her uncle topped it with a final stone. "There," she exclaimed, "it is ready for our first afternoon tea! We'll toast marshmallows, ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard
... who is, at the same time, the worst enemy of the legitimately-trading innkeeper. No one, indeed, has better cause than the labourer to exclaim, 'Save me from my friends!' To do the bulk of the labourers bare justice it must be stated that there is a certain bluff honesty and frankness among them, a rude candour, which entitles them to considerable respect as a body. There are also men here and there whose strength of character would certainty have obtained ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... laugh and joke. And this morning he went right into the bar-room, where all the sports were setting, and said he was going in to town to see some friends; and as he starts off he laughs an' says, 'This don't look as if I was afraid of seeing people, does it?' but Dad says it was just bluff that made him do it, and Dad thinks that if he hadn't said what he did, this Mr. Carleton wouldn't have left his room ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... and but for the sea-mist the power of the sun would have been enough to dazzle all beholders. Already this vapour was beginning to clear off, coiling up in fleecy wisps above the glistening water, but clinging still to any bluff or cliff it could lay ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... of him was equally extravagant, though very different: he told us, he was quite a Don Quixote; and said, he would give a great deal to see him and Dr Johnson together. The truth is, that Lochbuy proved to be only a bluff, comely, noisy old gentleman, proud of his hereditary consequence, and a very hearty and hospitable landlord. Lady Lochbuy was sister to Sir Allan M'Lean, but much older. He said to me, 'They are quite Antediluvians.' Being told that Dr Johnson did not hear well, ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... to Pine Bluff I worked for the white folks. Used to cook and wash and iron. Done a lot of work. ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... to-morrow, but I promised to pitch the bags into his granary," he said. "If I hump them up the trail here it will save us driving round through the bluff." ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... represented by any one who shows the least indication of being unsafe upon this question would be a national disaster and a local disgrace. I want you to understand, therefore, that I am not playing a game of bluff. The proofs you hold in your hand have been set and corrected. Within a few hours the story will stand out in black and white. Are you ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with loud "Ho! Ho!" [24] And he flung the brand to the drifting snow. Three times Wakwa puffed forth the smoke From his silent lips; then he slowly spoke: "Mhpya is strong as the stout-armed oak That stands on the bluff by the windy plain, And laughs at the roar of the hurricane. He has slain the foe and the great Mat With his hissing arrow and deadly stroke. My heart is swift but my tongue is slow. Let the warrior come to my lodge and smoke; He may bring the gifts; [25] but the timid doe May ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... paper, eh? Come now, didn't you cash a check on the Cotton Exchange Bank for about six hundred dollars when there was only fifteen on deposit? Don't try to bluff me. I know your sort. Lucky if ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... the law, in Virginia, he soon became the mouth-piece of these western forces. In his personality, also, he reflected many of the traits of this region. Kentucky, ardent in its spirit, not ashamed of a strain of sporting blood, fond of the horse-race, partial to its whiskey, ready to "bluff" in politics as in poker, but sensitive to honor, was the true home of Henry Clay. To a Puritan like John Quincy Adams, Clay was, "in politics, as in private life, essentially a gamester."[Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, V., 59.] But if the Puritan mind did not approve of Henry ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... Digby runs close to the water. The bluff is crowned by a grassy sward and a row of well-grown trees, with a driveway between these and the buildings ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... in the study you glimpse (through the left-hand window) the little rock bluff that rises behind the pond, and the bases of the little trees on top of it. The small square window is over the fireplace; the chimney divides to make room for it. Without the stereoscope it looks like a framed picture. All the study windows have Venetian blinds; they long ago went ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a bluff, good-natured fellow, whom his Moscow acquaintances would have considered rather bad form, but who was liked and respected by his comrades, subordinates, and superiors, and was well contented with his life. Of late, in 1809, he found in letters from home ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... at last I caught up with him in Chicago, and was so happy as to find my opportunity in an extra matinee. The play was "Othello," and during the first act he looked not only a veritable Moor, but, what was far greater, he seemed to be Shakespeare's own "Moor of Venice." The splendid presence, the bluff, soldierly manner, the open, honest look, as the "round unvarnished tale" was delivered, made one understand, partly at least, how "that maiden never bold, a spirit so still and quiet," had come at last to see "Othello's visage ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... hour later Lady Shuttleworth's agent, Mr. Dawson, was disturbed at his tea by the announcement that a gentleman wished to speak to him. Mr. Dawson was a bluff person, and something of a tyrant, for he reigned supreme in Symford after Lady Shuttleworth, and to reign supreme over anybody, even over a handful of cottagers, does bring out what a man may have in him ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... obtained by politicians and lawyers who, at best, were impecunious sharpers. Their greatest asset was a devious knowledge of how to get something for nothing. With a grandiloquent front and a superb bluff they would organize a company to build a railroad from this to that point; an undertaking costing millions, while perhaps they could not pay their board bill. An arrangement with a printer to turn out stock issues on credit was easy; with the promise of batches of this stock, they would then get ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... hid in the sewer system was larger this year. A few tried to bluff it out by staying in their homes. We're tracking down the rest ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... I've got you, my friend, got you foul!" said Cleek in reply. "All but ruined by the failure of the gold reefs and the milling and mining companies last autumn, weren't you, and have been playing a bluff game and living on your credit ever since? A pretty little scheme you two beauties hatched up between you to get the old duchess into your clutches, to rob her of the Siva stones, and to have Mrs. Glossop ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... of his field-glass, was the inevitable cemetery. On a grave here and there a tiny flag waved in the indolent June breeze. If Lynde had been standing by the head-stones, he could have read among the inscriptions such unlocal words as Malvern Hill, Andersonville, Ball's Bluff, and Gettysburg, and might have seen the withered Decoration Day wreaths which had been fresh the ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... see; so we hurried on to the batteries. It proved to be only practicing, however. At the first one we stopped at, the crew of the Arkansas were drilling. After stopping a while there, we followed the river to see the batteries below. It was delightful to ride on the edge of a high bluff with the muddy Mississippi below, until you fancied what would be the probable sensation if the horse should plunge down into the waters; then it ceased to be so pleasant. The great, strong animal I rode could have carried me over without a protest on my part; for the ridiculous ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... won't breed it out of us. The popular imagination fairly fattens on the thought of wars. Let public opinion once reach a certain fighting pitch, and no ruler can withstand it. In the Boer war both governments began with bluff but could n't stay there, the military tension was too much for them. In 1898 our people had read the word "war" in letters three inches high for three months in every newspaper. The pliant politician McKinley was swept away by their eagerness, and our squalid war with Spain ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... instant, with the avowed purpose of lynching them. But fortunately, the objects of their vengeance had escaped from town. Foiled in their purpose, the rioters repaired to the shantee where the murder was committed, and precipitated it over the bluff. The military of the city were ordered ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... her into the canoe in haste, but when we had once rounded the turn of the bluff we floated home slowly. The light of late afternoon is warm and yellow. It cradled the woman in lapping waves, and she sat glowing and fragrant, and her eyes were mirrors of the light. I dropped ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... win his party's nomination; and it was here he took counsel with his Senate colleagues. Being consulted, the word of those grave ones proved the very climax of flattery. Senators Vice and Price and Dice and Ice, and Stuff and Bluff and Gruff and Muff, and Loot and Coot and Hoot and Toot, and Wink and Blink and Drink and Kink—statesmen all and of snow-capped eminence in the topography of party—endorsed Senator Hanway's ambition without a wrinkle of distrust to mar ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Saints, a most virtuous homily!" said the Baron; "quaintly conceived and curiously pronounced, and to a well-chosen congregation. Hark ye, Sir Gospeller! trow ye to have a fool in hand? Know I not that your sect rose by bluff Harry Tudor, merely because ye aided him to change his Kate; and wherefore should I not use the same Christian liberty with mine? Tush, man! bless the good food, and meddle not with what concerns thee not—thou hast ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... up the Vaga River from its junction with the Dvina River. It is by far one of the most substantial and prosperous in the province of Archangel. It differs very materially from all the surrounding country in that it is located on good sandy soil on a high bluff overlooking the river and is comparatively dry, even in wet weather. It is quite a summer resort town, has a number of well constructed brick buildings, half a dozen or more schools, a seminary, monastery, saw mill, and in many others respects ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... attempt. His captors meant to prevent his seeing which way they were going, but he could make out that the sky was brightest on the left side of the wagon, which indicated that they were heading south. They stopped at noon in a thick bluff, from which, when he was released and allowed to get down, he could see nothing of the prairie. Only one man remained to watch him; but as he was armed, and George could hear the others not far away, he decided that his escape must ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... make me forget that this is your mother's house, you're going the right way to do it," he said between his teeth. "And I don't want any of your bluff. Miss Shepstone thinks she saw you at the Comedy to-night; she'll probably write to you or try to see you in the morning, and you've got to be out of London by then—do ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... from the front and between these rivers the ground ascends, so that its houses are from 2 to even 100 feet above the sea; however, the center of population, the public square, is only about 20 feet above sea level. Versalles is on a bluff of the harbor, and its houses are situated, for the most part, from 15 to 40 feet above the sea. The district of Matanzas has ill constructed and useless sewers in only two streets, and no houses connected ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... old gentleman. "I have seen worse days' sport than I saw once when we were out after rattlesnakes and nothing else. There was a cave, sir, down under a mountain a few miles to the south of this, right at the foot of a bluff some four or five hundred feet sheer down,—it was known to be a resort of those creatures; and a party of us went out,—it's many years ago now,—to see if we couldn't destroy the nest—exterminate the whole horde. We had one dog with us,—a little dog, a kind of ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... to all parties. The knight was pleased with the manners of the merchant, who, owing to his visit to Italy, had little of the formal gravity of his craft, while there was a heartiness and straightforwardness in his speech that well suited the bluff knight. The ladies were no less pleased with each other, and Dame Agatha found herself, to her surprise, chatting with her visitors on terms of equality, and discoursing on dress and fashion, the doings of the Court and life in the city, as if she had known her for years. ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... it open, and the action set in movement a bell within a porter's lodge. The house, then, was not uninhabited; it retained the dignity of a concierge. A man with a large grizzled beard cut square, and holding a journal in his hand, emerged from the lodge, and moved his cap with a certain bluff and ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... That man would swear anything. His word is worthless against mine," said the Banker, raising his voice noisily. "If that is another specimen of Secret Service bluff, it won't ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... coming here and trying to throw a bluff into us about the package still being in our kits when you yourself took it from the table in the hut?" ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... was about ten mile along, just before you come to the old Tin-cup Camp. We was passing the bluff there, and all of a sudden, rip, thump, biff! Down comes what looked like the whole side a-top of us. It weren't though. It was only a cinnamon had lost his balance, leaning over too far to see what we was. That bear landed right agin brother inspector's ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... evidently trying the good-natured game of bluff, and Manning noticed with some satisfaction that they were now approaching very near to the ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... an hour of watering, the men began to force the cattle to the opposite bank. There was a great scramble when the steers started to climb the steep bluff. The first ones to try it went half way up on ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... Sestos and Abydos, of passionate and poetic memory. But as the sun dipped towards the sea, we passed out of the narrow gateway. On our left lay the plain of Troy, backed by the blue range of Mount Ida. The tamulus of Patroclus crowned a low bluff looking on the sea. On the right appeared the long, irregular island of Imbros, and the peaks of misty Samothrace over and beyond it. Tenedos was before us. The red flush of sunset tinged the grand Homeric landscape, and lingered and lingered ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... road from Philadelphia, I found in the same car with our party Dr. William Hunt of Philadelphia, who had most kindly and faithfully attended the Captain, then the Lieutenant, after a wound received at Ball's Bluff, which came very near being mortal. He was going upon an errand of mercy to the wounded, and found he had in his memorandum-book the name of our lady's husband, the Colonel, who had been ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... he really had had business at the Gare de Lyon, and that I'd partly misjudged him. And then it flashed into my head that, on the contrary, he didn't really know Sir Lionel, but had overheard the name, and was doing a "bluff" to get introduced to me. Wasn't that a conceited idea? But neither was true. At least the latter wasn't, I know, and I'm pretty sure the first wasn't. What I think, is this: that he simply followed me to the Gare de Lyon for the ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... island. As the sun rose higher we got glimpses of this through the windows, and the verdure looked inviting after so many weary weeks of desolate water. The tops of the hills seemed barren, but I had no doubt that there was more fertility in the valleys, which were not swept by the bluff winds of the wild sea. But the Prince was obstinate, and, relying upon his luck, was dragging down with him the lives of the two women he loved, to say nothing of the rest of our company. We had therefore to make the best of the situation, and to sit ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... miles on purpose to hear her; so she returned to the grove, and Mrs. Griffith, State evangelist, kindly yielded her hour. On July 11 Miss Anthony went again to Chicago, and on the 14th spoke at Lake Bluff Camp Meeting, which was under the management of Frances E. Willard. She then visited the summer homes of her cousins and of Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, at Lake Geneva. On this trip she was accompanied by her dearly-loved niece, Susie ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... "Len he makes a bluff at this an' that an' the other—him and me and the chink driftin' from here to there over this part o' the desert, or hereabouts, scratchin' a little now and ag'in. But Len his heart ain't in it, I see; and all the time he's tryin' to shake me off, ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... for Peter to imagine. However, he would try it; McGivney must be right, for it was the same thing Mrs. James had impressed upon him many times. You must watch what other people did, and practice by yourself, and then go in and do it as if you had never done anything else. All life was a gigantic bluff, and you encouraged yourself in your bluffing by the certainty that everybody else was bluffing ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... the grassy chasm that separates the New from the Old Town; looked our first on Arthur's Seat, that crouching lion of a mountain; saw the Corstorphine Hill, and Calton heights, and Salisbury Crags, and finally that stupendous bluff of rock that culminates so majestically in Edinburgh Castle. There is something else which, like Susanna Crum's name, is absolutely and ideally right! Stevenson calls it one of the most satisfactory crags in nature—a Bass rock upon dry land, rooted in a garden, shaken by passing trains, ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... unpleasant, raucous; dissonant, strident, discordant, cacophonous: austere, morose, severe, ungracious, inurbane, discourteous, churlish, uncivil, blunt, bluff, brusque, acrimonious, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... take Mr Button long to reach the hill-top, and there she was, beating up for the island. Bluff-bowed and squab, the figure of an old Dutch woman, and telling of her trade a league off. It was just after the rains, the sky was not yet quite clear of clouds; you could see showers away at sea, and the sea was ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... convenient starting-point for other places where more has been spared. Avranches, like Coutances, is a hill-city, and, as regards actual elevation, it is even more of a hill-city than Coutances. But then the hill of Coutances is an isolated hill, while Avranches stands on the projecting bluff of a range. Seen from the sands of Saint Michael's Bay, the site proclaims itself as one which, before the fall of its chief ornament, must have been glorious beyond words. It might have been Laon, as it were, with, at favourable tides at least, the estuary ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... to this observation by turning towards the bold, bluff speaker one of those slow, dubious glances which, accompanied by a slight motion of the hand, and a gentle depression of the head to one side, may be either interpreted as a mute assent to what is said, or as a cautious deprecation of farther prosecution of the subject. ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... third day the river narrowed and became swifter. With luck the voyagers reached Gorgona on a high bluff. This was usually the end of the river journey. Most people bargained for Cruces six miles beyond, but on arrival decided that the Gorgona trail would be less crowded, and with unanimity went ashore there. Here the bargaining had to be started all over ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... a burly Irishman, bluff and good-humoured, a very typical example of the intelligent superior police ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... sleep much, for it was 'most as light as day, and the smell of smoke was terrible. We could see people runnin' in certain parts of Columbia, sometimes. Next mornin' we look over the city from the bluff and only a few houses was standin' and hundreds of tumble-down chimneys and the whole town ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... of his new life was the friendship of the bluff, cantankerous, but kind-hearted contractor, his sunny daughter, the manly foreman, and the talkative Murphy. Of Tressa he had so many glowing things to write in his letters to his wife that Helen threatened to ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... sunny road, with seldom a turn, and only occasionally a glimpse of the sea, but suddenly the road curved, winding around behind a high bluff, and there, blue and glistening in the sunlight, lay the ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... as much of St. John as possible, and on a fine day was favourably impressed with it. It well deserves its cognomen, "The City of the Rock," being situated on a high, bluff, rocky peninsula, backed on the land-side by steep barren hills. The harbour is well sheltered and capacious, and the suspension-bridge above the falls very picturesque. The streets are steep, wide, and well paved, and the stores are more pretentious than those of Halifax. ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... of itself naively prodigious, as anyone knowing Mr. Boone with pen in hand will at once suspect. All the little Trojan band—call them Gascons if you will, but own that if they boasted they were ever keen to substantiate the bluff—all of them, then, strove and blazed away invariably as heroes and were just as peerless as could be. You wouldn't look for anything else from Mr. Boone. He must, however, be credited with one peculiarity, ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... said, "I can prove to you, if you will, that it is not bluff. I can prove to you that I really know something of ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... confirmed by his use of the word 'Christian,' which had by no means come into general employment when he spoke; and in itself indicates that he knew a good deal about the people who were so named. Mark the contrast, for instance, between him and the bluff Roman official at his side. To Festus, Paul's talking about a dead man's having risen, and a risen Jew becoming a light to all nations, was such utter nonsense that, with characteristic Roman contempt for men with ideas, he breaks in, with his rough, strident voice, 'Much ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... received what appeared formidable reinforcement from the Louisiana delegation. This was in reality merely a bluff, intended to induce the Hayes people to make certain concessions touching their State government. It had the desired effect. Satisfactory assurances having been given, the count proceeded to the end—a very bitter end indeed for ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... a good guesser, for just as he decided it fell to the Harmony halfback to make the attempt. The bluff was dazzling, and deceived nearly all the Chester players, so that it looked as though Oldsmith with the pigskin oval in his grip would have a clear field to the coveted place in the line where he could drop for a touchdown, ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... lying to his left. He rolled over and stared curiously at its stone jetties and clustered shipping. There were a couple of schooners used in the china-clay trade lying at the quayside; at anchor was a barquentine, a big bluff-bellied tramp of a creature, black with coaldust, and beyond her again what was still a rare sight in those parts—a steamer. She was a side-wheeler, with a thin raking funnel, and was square-rigged on her ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... the oldest engineer on the road, off duty, but a privileged character on all occasions, stepped from the gossiping crowd of loungers at a little distance. He swung up into the cab with the expert airiness of long usage. His bluff, hearty face expressed admiration and satisfaction, as his rapid eye took ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... returned from Gaston's Bluff, now called Hamilton's Bluff, a London merchant, partner of Mr. Couper. We were four in the carriage; ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... assailing tempest's strength and fury. The lightning now came not only in ragged blazes and long ripping lines of light, but in bursts and shocks, and in bomb-like balls, exploding with elemental detonations. Balls of this tense surcharged essence rolled out over the comb of the bluff, fell upon the shadows of the water, and seemed to bound from crest to white-capped crest, till at last they split and burst asunder like some ominous missiles from engines of wrath ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... but break it to the hope; he has vanity without self confidence, lacks the truthfulness of the strong, his voice does not resound and compel, he dances and fidgets, grins and is grave in the same instant. If the men's attitude be sullen, he tries to be bluff and hearty, "my-boys" them, claps them heartily on the shoulder, or lapses into whining and gushing. It is all of worse than no avail with these undeceivable readers of character. It is a curious effect of the working of esprit de corps in jails that the prisoners may feel ashamed of such unmanly ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... any, save John Mason and Terry, the mate," said the man, shaking his head. He had a bluff, good-natured manner, which Angela did not dislike; but it seemed somewhat ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... This idea (in the main) was agreed to by Woolston, although his violent "Discourses," which were addressed to the unlearned, contained within them the germ of their intrinsic popularity. Yet even Woolston's works, notwithstanding their bluff exterior, had something more within them than what the people could appreciate, or even the present race of Freethinkers can always understand; for underneath that unrivalled vein of sarcasm, there was in every instance an esoteric view, which comprehended ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... an' look arter dere chillen. Sometimes she'd try to git ole Marse to take dere part when de oberseer got too mean. But she might as well a sung hymns to a dead horse. All her putty talk war like porin water on a goose's back. He'd jis' bluff her off, an' tell her she didn't run dat plantation, and not for her to bring him any nigger news. I never thought ole Marster war good to her. I often ketched her crying, an' she'd say she had de headache, but I thought it war de heartache. 'Fore ole Marster died, she got so thin an' peaked ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... soon finished a fort, which stood on the river, a little above what is now called St. John's Bluff and was named Fort {80} Caroline, in honor of Charles the Ninth. Then they began to look around, ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... top of that path," said Eleanor, pointing to a path that led up a bluff that backed against the tents. "I think maybe we'll build a wooden pipe-line to bring the water right down here, but for to-day we'll have to carry it from ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... a sudden the sun, And against him the cattle stood black every one, To stare through the mist at us galloping past, And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray; ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... the most of a tranquil afternoon, where there was an armistice of storm, to climb the bluff of Mount Solaro. A ruined fort caps that limestone bulwark; and there we lay together, drinking the influences of sea, sun, and wind. Immeasurably deep beneath us plunged the precipices, deep, deep descending ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... huddled up, to loiter o'er his books. But once let zephyrs blow, sweet friend, and then, If then you'll have him, he will quit his den, With the first swallow hailing you again. When you bestowed on me what made me rich, Not in the spirit was it done, in which Your bluff Calabrian on a guest will thrust His pears: "Come, eat, man, eat—you can, you must!" "Indeed, indeed, my friend, I've had enough." "Then take some home!" "You're too obliging." "Stuff! If you have pockets full of them, I guess, Your little lads will like you none the ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... man, with stiff, brushed-up hair, a short, brown, bushy beard parted at the chin, a fresh complexion, and blue glasses across a thick nose, came out, and called in a bluff voice: ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... by Suffolk's virtue than by his bold and handsome bearing. A bluff Englishman after the King's own heart, he shared, as none else did, in Henry's love of the joust and tourney, in his skill with the lance and the sword; he was the Hector of combat, on foot and on horse, to Henry's Achilles. His father, plain William Brandon, ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... August, 1854, what seemed to be the entire population of Wynyard's Bar was collected upon a little bluff which overlooked the rude wagon road that was the only approach to the settlement. In general appearance the men differed but little from ordinary miners, although the foreign element, shown in certain Spanish peculiarities of dress and color, predominated, and some of the men ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte |
