"Blunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shop and street and trade, seems to them lacking in due reverence. Do they forget that this is the language of the common people? And of our good old Anglo-Saxon Bible? Has anybody ever yet used as blunt homely, talk as this old Book uses? And has any other book stuck into people's memories and hearts with such ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... different groups. Thus, although isogamy consists in typical cases of a union of naked motile gametes by a fusion which begins at the beaked ends, and results in the formation of an immotile spherical zygote surrounded by a cell-wall, in Leptosira it is noticeable that the fusion begins at the blunt end; in a species of Chlamydomonas the two gametes are each included in a cell-wall before fusion; and in many cases the zygote retains for some time its motility with the double number of cilia. Again, in oogamous reproduction, while in general only one oosphere ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... looking drowsy. But, when Anderson took hold of him and placed the wounded finger on a block, and Dad faced him with the hammer and a blunt, rusty old chisel, ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... parents, he began life as a dyer's apprentice, enlisted when twenty-three and was a colonel within two years, so astounding were his courage and natural gifts. Detailed to serve under Bonaparte, the two became bosom friends. A plain, blunt man, Lannes was as fierce as a war dog and as faithful. Throughout the following years he followed Bonaparte in all his enterprises, and Napoleon on the Marchfeld, in 1809, wept bitterly when his faithful monitor was shot ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... pointed instruments, as a nail, or in lacerated wounds, as those made by forcing a blunt instrument, as a hook, into the soft parts, there will be no direct and immediate union. In these cases, apply a soothing poultice, as one made of linseed meal, and also keep the limb still. It is judicious to consult a physician ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... blunt, and will taunt bitterly. Harvest, when all is done, thou art the man: Thou dost me the best service of them all. Rest from thy labours, till the year renews, And let the husbandmen ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... neglected the caution that might have enabled him to shelter himself against these blasts. With all his experience of Courts, Hyde never learned the arts of a courtier. He was naively unconscious how little the steadfast honesty of his purpose could render his blunt plainness of diction palatable to a master, the chief feature of whose character was callous selfishness, and whose self-love might for the moment allow him to overlook, but never permitted him to forget, the liberty that presumed to curb his caprices or to criticize ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... although secret, was not immediately pressing—in order that he might visit Jenkinsjoy. It was fortunate that, when he went to ask this brief holiday, he found Mr Merryheart in the office. Had it been his mischance to fall upon Dashope, he would have received a blunt refusal and prompt dismissal—so thoroughly were the joys of that gentleman identified with the woes ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... seeing at his elbow a mere lad, Of a high spirit evidently, though At present weighed down by a doom which had O'erthrown even men, he soon began to show A kind of blunt compassion for the sad Lot of so young a partner in the woe, Which for himself he seemed to deem no worse Than any other scrape, a thing ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... some secret but well-concealed amazement. He saw that she was under the influence of some unusual excitement. Her false front was pushed fantastically away, her rouge and powder were rubbed off in patches, her face looked set and hard. Her first words were abominably blunt. ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... too parsimonious with my words in telegrams—a British trait possibly." He spoke deliberately and his keen eyes studied his companion's face as he made the casual remark which set Larry's brain reeling. "See here, Holiday, I'm a blunt brute. I don't know how to break things gently to people. But I am here to tell you if you care to know that Elinor Ruth Farringdon is no more married than you are unless she is married to you. That was her mother's wedding ring. Lord, man, do you always ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... day. Piloted by Malcourt, the Tressilvains, thickly shod and water-proofed, tramped about with rod and creel and returned for luncheon where their blunt criticisms on the fishing aroused Portlaw's implacable resentment. For they sneered at the trout, calling them "char," patronised the rather scanty pheasantry, commented on the kennels, stables, and gardens in a manner ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... to hasten death or to court it, was alike cowardice. A typical fighter, when he lost battle after battle and was pursued from plain to hill and from bush to cavern, found himself hungry and alone in the dark hollow of a tree, his sword blunt with use, his bow broken and arrows exhausted—did not the noblest of the Romans fall upon his own sword in Phillippi under like circumstances?—deemed it cowardly to die, but with a fortitude approaching a Christian martyr's, cheered himself ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... Georgetown in South Carolina, and Beaufort in North Carolina, in either of which the vessel could have entered; and in the latter, carrying seventeen feet at low water and obtaining perfect shelter from all winds. [Footnote: Blunt's American Coast Pilot, p. 359 (19th edition.)] But if they really had been unable to find either of them, it is impossible that they should not have discovered the Chesapeake, and entered it, under the alleged circumstances of their search. That it may be seen what exactly is ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... a circle in the center of which is "It" blindfolded, holding in his hand a blunt stick about 12 or 15 inches long. Those in the circle dance around two or three times, so that the blindfolded player may not know their position. At the command "Stand," given by the one blindfolded, all must stand still. Thereupon, by feeling ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... numerous, the former yellow in upper flowers; usually absent or imperfect in lower pistillate flowers. Leaves: Exceedingly variable; those under water usually long and grass-like; upper ones sharply arrow-shaped or blunt and broad, spongy or leathery, ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... leaving to-day and whatever his feelings, he had so far been outwardly the beneficiary of Tollman's hospitality. Nothing was to be gained, except a sort of churlish satisfaction, by assuming at the eleventh hour a blunt and open hostility ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... there is a praise which is rudeness, and that may be mine. At the same time there is a treatment which is injustice, and that may be yours. Because a plain blunt man, who has never been taught concealment, speaks out his mind without exactly intending it, he's to be snapped off like the son of ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... lady did not speak of her griefs to Harry Esmond, my lord was by no means reserved when in his cups, and spoke his mind very freely, bidding Harry in his coarse way, and with his blunt language, beware of all women as cheats, jades, jilts, and using other unmistakable monosyllables in speaking of them. Indeed, 'twas the fashion of the day, as I must own; and there's not a writer of my time of any note, with the exception of poor Dick Steele, that does not ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... decision of any other judge than my own conscience. Much humor—less wit—has been expended upon the Emperor of Germany's supposed carefulness to reject arbitration because an infringement of his divine rights; a phrase which may well be no more than a blunt expression of the sense that no third party can relieve a man from the obligations of the position to which he is called by God, and that for the duties of that position the man can confidently expect divine guidance and help. Be that as it may, the divine ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... think, Miss Milroy," he said, in his blunt, boyish way. "I think the luckiest walk I ever took in my life was the walk this morning that ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... oratorical jousts; the masters disputed among themselves, and the pupils did likewise. In a time when paper was scarce and parchment precious, disputes replaced our written exercises. The weapons employed in these jousts were blunt ones; but as in real tournaments where "armes courtoises" were used, disputants were sometimes carried away by passion, and the result was a true battle: "They scream themselves hoarse, they lavish unmannerly expressions, abuse, threats, upon each other. They even take to cuffing, kicking, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... walked on again. Brother Archangias sometimes aroused strange scruples in his mind. With his vulgarity and coarseness the Brother seemed to him the true man of God, free from earthly ties, submissive in all to Heaven's will, humble, blunt, ready to shower abuse upon sin. He, the priest, would then feel despair at his inability to rid himself more completely of his body; he regretted that he was not ugly, unclean, covered with vermin like some of the saints. ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... down at last, with a gulp of relief. "It's been an awful evening! Mrs. Cole was detestable. Do you know what she did?" and then came out the whole story pell-mell: all told in Nan's blunt, uncompromising way, and giving Miss Blake a better idea than anything else could have done of just how right she had been in opposing the girl's going under ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... blush at this blunt disclosure of sentiment, Mrs. Blake somewhat formally introduced her husband to the puncher. He shook Blake's hand with like formality and politeness. But as their glances met, his gray eyes shone with the same cold suspicion with which he had regarded ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... died poor. He delighted, in the poverty of his mind, to display his great thick-set person to the most advantage; he was as vain as any fop, without the affectation of that character, for he was always blunt and free-spoken, but, as long as he had enough to satisfy his vanity, he cared nothing for mere wealth. He had generosity, though he neglected the precept about the right hand and the left, and showed some ostentation in his ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... "constrained address of our sullen Nation,"[301] made an impression. It was generally acknowledged that comity and affability had to be fetched from beyond the Seas, for the "meer Englishman" was defective in those qualities. He was "rough in address, not easily acquainted, and blunt even ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... This blunt and ungracious assurance strained the bond between the adopted father and son; the promised letter of application to the Secretary of War, ruthlessly shattered it. That his indulgencies during his year at the University of Virginia, ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... "Mr. Herring's blunt expression of his sentiments was not intended for other ears than ours, I am sure. In confidence, one may say many things to friends which he would prefer to withhold from an indiscriminating public. We are well assured, indeed, that Mr. Herring is a loyal American, with America's best interests ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... cutting thing after another.—You have been as noted, all round our town, for being a kind man, as being a blunt one. ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... was stout and stocky rather than fat. He had the square red face and bushy beard of a beer-nourished Teuton and the spectacles of a Herr Professor. He held up his blunt hands with all ten stubby fingers spread out ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... (Plate 30, Fig. 2) differs in construction from the wooden combs, all made in one piece, which are commonly used in Mekeo. It is made of four, five, or six thin pieces of wood, which are left blunt at one end, but are sharpened to points at the other. These are bound together with straw-like work, sometimes beautifully done, the binding being nearly always near to the blunt ends, though it is sometimes almost in the middle. [45] The combs so made are flat, ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... but Debby was too simple for a belle, too honest for a flirt, too independent for a fine lady; she would be nothing but her sturdy little self, open as daylight, gay as a lark, and blunt as any Puritan. Poor Aunt Pen was in despair, till she observed that the girl often "took" with the very peculiarities which she was lamenting; this somewhat consoled her, and she tried to make the best of the pretty bit of homespun which would not and could not ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... done so in my youth. Bear with me, Euan. You would not want me if there were nothing in me to respond to you. If there ever is, it will not remain silent. But first I want my play-day in the sunshine you have promised me—the sunlight of a comrade's kindness. Be not too blunt with me. You have my heart, I tell you. Let it lie quiet and safe in your keeping, like some strange, frail chrysalis. I myself know there is a miracle within it; but what that miracle may be, I may not ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... of a polecat or weasel. The trees over our head abounded with birds of various kinds, among which were many of exquisite beauty, particularly loriquets and cockatoos, which flew in flocks of several scores together. We found some wood which had been felled by the natives with a blunt instrument, and some that had been barked. The trees were not of many species; among others there was a large one which yielded a gum not unlike the Sanguis draconis; and in some of them steps that had been cut at about three feet distance from each ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... their chance of seeing what they could through the forest of human legs; but every one that was portable was snugly lodged in the bend of an elbow, and from this safe perch scores and scores of small serious muzzles, blunt or sharp, smooth or woolly, brown or grey or white or black or brindled, looked out on the scene with the quiet awareness of the Paris dog. It was certainly a good sign that they had not been forgotten ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... wrested a cry of admiration from the aviator? What shades of gold and purple were shed over the scene by the setting sun? His half-sentence is like a confession of love for the joy of living, violently torn from him, and the only avowal this blunt Roland ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... long-limbed, very blond, clean-shaved, with gray eyes, extraordinarily smooth yellow hair, and short, determined and rather blunt features, stretched out one large hand to the cigar-box, and ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... a pause of sickening agony, and then that slow, red-hot suffering again, as if a blunt augur was being made to form a channel beneath the teeth, so that the aching pains, as of hot lead, might run round without ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... forward, And Gertrude is too gruff, Yet, coupled with a pretty face, Is pretty name enough' And Adelaide is fanciful, And Laura is too fine, But Emily is beautiful, And Mary is divine Maud only suits a high-born dame, And Fanny is a baby name Eliza is not very choice, Jane is too blunt and Bold, And Martha somewhat sorrowful, And Lucy proud and cold; Amelia is too light and gay, Fit for only a flirt; And Caroline is vain and shy, And Flora smart and pert; Louisa is too soft and sleek But Alice—gentle, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... of Good Taste, which in such matters practically means Hypocrisy. The Home Secretary and the judges who try the case are usually far more sceptical and blasphemous than the poor men whom they persecute; and their professions of horror at the blunt utterance of their own opinions are revolting to those behind the scenes who have any genuine religious sensibility; but the thing is done because the governing classes, provided only the law against blasphemy ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... and from its mouth protruded the head and hands of an armed and still living knight whom it had half swallowed and was attempting to carry off. The unhappy victim called on them for help, and they struck the dragon with their swords, but its hide was hard, and Fasold's sword was blunt, and only Theodoric's sword availed aught against it, "Mine is sharper", cried the captive, but it is inside the creature's mouth. Use it, if you can, for my deliverance. Then the valiant Fasold rushed up and plucked the knight's sword from out of the ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... early in their acquaintance. Now he was reciting his painful history with the air of a man far more concerned to be scrupulously accurate than aroused in his deepest passions by the memory of past wrongs. What had happened in the interim to blunt these bygone sufferings? Iris clasped her ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... "kindness." Let us make a likeness of one who hunts the moose or elk in some mighty wood. He sees a little dell, mossy and embowered, where a rill trickles, babbling to him of rest and comfort. At these times the spear of Nimrod himself grows blunt. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... manner was perfectly civil and his accents almost silken, Venner glanced keenly from one Scot to the other, and everyone felt that the atmosphere had grown more intense, and that there was latent antipathy between the two men. And even Rooke, a blunt and matter-of-fact Englishman, who having said his say, had been smoking diligently, turned round to listen to MacKay, who had never said a word through all the talk of ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... world can give, can equal in intensity, these complex joys I had when asleep; waking joys seem so slight, so vague in comparison—so much escapes the senses through lack of concentration and undivided attention—the waking perceptions are so blunt. ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... thing—"the race is not to the swift;" the elements of success in life, whatever be the object of pursuit, are very, very different from what we think them at first sight, and so it was with Mr. O'Leary, and I have more than once witnessed the triumph of his homely manner and blunt humour over the more polished and well-bred taste of his competitors for favour; and what might have been the limit to such success, heaven alone can tell, if it were not that he laboured under a counter-balancing infirmity, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... threshin' around and flurryin', but the vicious brute acted just like some kind of a sea-snake. The fisherman brought down the boat-'ook with all 'is might, but the moray just twisted sidewise as the blow came down, and the blunt-pointed 'ead, with its rows of sharp teeth, darted forward for ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... brain for some plan to account for his absence, and finally took refuge unwittingly in ancient wisdom: "When you don't know a thing to do, don't do a thing." Also, "If you can't find the delicate way, go the blunt way." ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... that stick as though it were a club, swinging it like a baseball bat. That would be as silly as using an overhand stab with a dagger. He used it the way a fencer would use a foil, and the hard, blunt end of it sank into the first thug's solar plexus with all the drive of the Duke's right arm and shoulder behind it. The thug gave a hoarse scream as all the air was driven from his lungs, and he dropped to ...
— Nor Iron Bars a Cage.... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... more in the same frantic way. Time will blunt his grief; but it will bring him I fear no other or better comfort. He hopes for oblivion of his loss; but that can never be. He may cease to grieve as he grieves now; but he can never cease to remember. I trust to see him again ere long, and turn his ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... should say "father" and "mother," or use the more babyish form of "papa" and "mama" is a matter of parental choice, but the preference in some circles is for the former. A blunt "yes" or "no" is not thought polite from a child; he should say "yes, father," "no, mama," "yes, Mrs. Smith." "Ma'am" as a form of address is ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... success. 'In all time of wealth, good Lord deliver us!' What prayer can wild, unrestrained, unheeding Genius utter with more fervency? I own Genius is rarely in love. There is an egotism, almost a selfishness, about it, that will not stoop to such common worship. Women know it, and often prefer the blunt, honest, common-place soldier to the wild erratic poet. Genius, grand as it is, is unsympathetic. It demands higher—the highest joys. Genius claims to be loved, but to love is too much to ask it. And yet ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... the continued circumnutation of the peduncle, plays an important part in the act. Considering that the flower-heads are very light, that the peduncles are long, thin, and flexible, and that they arise from flexible branches, it is incredible that an object as blunt as one of these flower-heads could penetrate the ground by means of the growing force of the peduncle, unless it were aided by the rocking movement. After a flower-head has penetrated the ground to a small depth, another and efficient agency comes into play; the central rigid aborted flowers, ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... Chivalrous, brilliant, honest, generous,—neither dissolute, nor bigoted, nor cruel,—he was still a Royalist for the love of royalty, and a soldier for the love of war, and in civil strife there can hardly be a more dangerous character. Through all the blunt periods of his military or civil proclamations, we see the proud, careless boy, fighting for fighting sake, and always finding his own side the right one. He could not have much charity for the most ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... Captain Charteris, just what he had been when he went away. How different from his stately, dull, wife-ridden elder brother. So brisk, and blunt, and eager, quite lifting his niece off her feet, and almost crushing her in his embrace, telling her she was still but a hop-o'-my-thumb, and shaking hands with his nephew with a look of scrutiny that brought the blood to ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... set Merle thinking, and she thought to some purpose. Her natural disposition was always to obtain results by blunt, matter-of- fact methods. In school her policy was, 'Come along with you now, I'm not going to have any nonsense!' Backed by her position, her strong personality, and her prowess at games it succeeded. But here in the hostel, if she wished to effect any improvements, she must go about it ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... bright bald crown, curtained with locks that pended snowy over his coat collar; his weeping, watchful eye; his tottering mien; his high and furrowed brow, lengthening a sharp, corrugated face; his blunt, warty nose, made more striking by a sunken mouth and the working motion of his lower jaw; and his crutch, for he was a cripple. They left a deep impression on my mind. I speak of him as he was in the dawn ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... him about like a shadow, and Dan did not repulse him as rudely as he did others, but said, in his blunt way, "You are all right; don't worry about me. I can stand it ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... frequent the College groves And tributary walks; the last, and oft The only one, who had been lingering there Through hours of silence, till the porter's bell, 70 A punctual follower on the stroke of nine, Rang with its blunt unceremonious voice, Inexorable summons! Lofty elms, Inviting shades of opportune recess, Bestowed composure on a neighbourhood 75 Unpeaceful in itself. A single tree With sinuous trunk, boughs exquisitely wreathed, Grew there; [E] an ash which Winter for himself Decked out with ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... sniffed at the vial, which contained nothing but pure water, and in surprise turned to the emissary for an explanation. But it was too late. The emissary dealt him a blow with a blunt instrument that stunned him and, as he reeled back and grasped at a table, the other thugs rushed from the hall and rained blow after blow on his venerable head and beat him to the floor. A convulsive shudder—a ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... that all lateral flexures probably occurred deep beneath the surface, and have been brought into view by an enormous superincumbent mass having been denuded. If a large and deep box were filled with layers of damp paper or clay, and a blunt wedge was slowly driven up from beneath, would not the layers above it and on both sides become greatly convoluted, whilst those towards the top would be only slightly arched? When I spoke of the Andes being comparatively recent, I suppose that I referred to the absence of the ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... printer of Tahiti, had given the site out of his humble savings. By the sign, in his blunt way, he struck at education which does not teach the simple necessity of ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... from Mission San Francisco stood a little Indian hut, made from the tules and rushes which were found growing with such luxuriance in all parts of Nueva California. It was built in the form of a cone with a blunt apex, was less than ten feet in diameter, and but little more than that in height. An opening near the ground gave communication with the outer air, and a small hole at the top of the hut allowed the smoke from ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... in her expression, for Clare was fighting a hard battle. His blunt simplicity made a strong appeal. She had liked and trusted him when he had with callow but honest chivalry offered her his protection one night in England and he had developed fast since then. Hardship had strengthened and in a sense refined him. He looked resolute and ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... the humorous aspect of the fable, there is, certainly, a good deal of sound criticism in the piece. It may be brief, it may be inadequate, it may be blunt, but for all that it is truthful, and decidedly just, as far as it goes. Bryant, who was called cold, took umbrage at the portrait drawn of him. But his verse has all the cold glitter of the Greek bards, despite the fact that he is America's greatest poet ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... to know who would be cheerful when his neck is in danger?" answered the cat. "Now that I am old, my teeth are getting blunt, and I would rather sit by the oven and purr than run about after mice, and my mistress wants to drown me; so I took myself off; but good advice is scarce, and I do not know what is ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... He attaches himself much to men younger than himself; and somehow or other I have observed that most of them have come to grief. Besides, a person in whose sagacity I have great confidence warned me against making the Chevalier's acquaintance, and said to me, in his blunt way, 'De Finisterre came to Paris with nothing; he has succeeded to nothing; he belongs to no ostensible profession by which anything can be made. But evidently now he has picked up a good deal; and in proportion ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rope to shreds With blunt and bleeding nails; We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors, And cleaned the shining rails: And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank, And ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... sanity displayed by me, despite my insane condition, was something this doctor could not comprehend. Remarks of mine, which he should have discounted or ignored, rankled as the insults of a sane and free man would have done. And his blunt and indiscriminate refusal of most of my requests prolonged my ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... in and we find that some cold, fishy little negative has been spawning all over our beliefs, and the brood of blind questions it has given birth to are burrowing round and under and butting their blunt noses against the pillars of faith we thought the whole world might lean on. And then, again, some of our old beliefs are dying out every year, and others feed on them and grow fat, or get poisoned as the case may be. And so, you see, you can't tell what the thoughts are that you ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... channels than one, you would have thought; but he's a taciturn man, asks no questions, and invites no confidences. I like him the better for it. Next week, come what may, I'll speak to him and tell him the truth, like a plain, blunt man." ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... murmurous stream, like the voice of a persistent talker in a silent company. The old ship looked much too big for her narrow grave at the foot of the green cliff, in which her anchor was deeply sunk and half overgrown with thistles. Her blunt bow and the ragged stump of the figure-head rose, dark and high, above the wet beach where Captain John sat with his absorbed listener. There were rifts about her rail where the red sunset looked through. Her naked sides, that for years had been moistened only by the perennial ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... was brindled, and gray like Rubislaw granite; his hair short, hard, and close, like a lion's; his body thickset, like a little bull—a sort of compressed Hercules of a dog. He must have been ninety pounds' weight, at the least; he had a large blunt head; his muzzle black as night, his mouth blacker than any night, a tooth or two—being all he had—gleaming out of his jaws of darkness. His head was scarred with the records of old wounds, a sort of series of fields of ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... they faced five thousand British veterans; wherefore they had done what the navy expected of them. On a day so shameful that no self-respecting American can read of it without blushing they had enacted the one redeeming episode. Commodore Barney described this action in a manner blunt and unadorned: ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... whilst it lasts? Does not all such sorrow hallow, ennoble, refine, purify the sufferer, and make him liker his God? 'He for our profit, that we should be partakers of His holiness.' Is not that God's way of glorifying us before heaven's glory? When a blunt knife is ground upon a wheel, the sparks fly fast from the edge held down upon the swiftly-revolving emery disc, but that is the only way to sharpen the dull blade. Friction, often very severe friction, and heat are indispensable ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... retrenchment, and from cader form'd caer, as the Spaniards now use it, by taking away the letter d according to their ordinary custome, when it is seated in the middle of words. There are another sort of people yet more sturdy and blunt in their formes of speech, who would say Car or Ker by a contraction of the two Vowels into one, as is observable among the Peasants of France, and those of Picardy, who retain very much of Antiquity, which seems ...
— A Philosophicall Essay for the Reunion of the Languages - Or, The Art of Knowing All by the Mastery of One • Pierre Besnier
... him in politics. His reasoning is so simple, clear and palpable—so much in the character of what is called common sense—and his style of speaking so unpretending and free from ornament, that superficial observers have set him down as a mere blunt soldier, with a few fixed ideas, and a disposition dogmatically to insist on their adoption. This is altogether a mistake. The Duke of Wellington has as much of the true spirit of the statesman as any man who now affects the destinies of this country. ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... aversion for men who are devoted to an absorbing occupation; in spite of superiority, they are all women in the matter of encroachment. Lousteau, a poet and journalist, and a libertine with a veneer of misanthropy, had that tinsel of the intellect, and led the half-idle life that attracts women. The blunt good sense and keen insight of the really great man weighed upon Dinah, who would not confess her own smallness even to herself. She said in her mind—"The doctor is perhaps the better man, but I do not ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... both. One from you. To this I shall pay a very particular Regard, because I am well satisfied you never suffer Prejudices to divert your Attention from the great object—the publick Good. "Manly is a blunt, honest and I believe brave officer.' I observe your Caution; and I admire it because I think it is a proof of your Integrity. Manlys Bravery is an Article of your Beliefe. His Bluntness& Honesty, of Certainty. I have not yet lookd into the Papers; but I recollect, when ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... denial of her right to vote, whether that denial be the blunt refusal of the ignorant or the polished evasion of the refined courtier and politician, woman can oppose only her most solemn and perpetual appeal to the reason of man and to the justice of Almighty God. She must continually point out the nature ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... inches round the neck, one foot eleven inches round the middle of the foreleg, and his talons, five on each foot, were four inches and three eighths in length. It differs from the common black bear in having its talons much longer and more blunt; its tail shorter; its hair of a reddish or bay brown, longer, finer, and more abundant; his liver, lungs, and heart, much larger even in proportion to his size, the heart particularly being equal to that of a large ox; his maw ten times larger; ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... Chester, relaxing his face when he was fairly gone, 'is good practice. I HAVE some command of my features, beyond all doubt. He fully confirms what I suspected, though; and blunt tools are sometimes found of use, where sharper instruments would fail. I fear I may be obliged to make great havoc among these worthy people. A troublesome necessity! I ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... constipation and diarrhea: two affections that derange more lives than all other pathological conditions together. Banish alimentary uncleanliness and you take most of the poisons from the human race—poisons that stunt the body and blunt the mind. ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... is the word, mamma, haw! haw! I have been making the bloke a lot of oak candlesticks, and human heads with sparkling eyes, for walking-sticks, &c. And now I'll go and draw my—protege's—blunt." The lady's hands were uplifted towards pitying Heaven with one impulse. The young workman grinned: "Soyons de notre siecle," said he, and departed whistling in the tenor clef. He had the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... that a huge boar, which, in sporting phrase, had left the sounder five years, had broken into the park the night before, and had been routing amongst the fern. The age and size of the animal were known by the print of the feet, the toes being round and thick, the edge of the hoof worn and blunt, the heel large, and the guards, or dew-claws, great and open, from all which appearances it was adjudged by the baronet to be "a great old ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... had turned back baffled, and all his climbing was done, old Felix had no engrossing object to blunt a sense of many scruples that must be removed before he himself or his family could with honour derive profit from the event; as they would do if Mr. Polymathers's instructions were carried out. For by that document, which he had finished drawing up only ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... a giant above all human affairs for the next two decades, and the speech of Mars is blunt and plain. He will say to us all: "Get your houses in order. If you squabble among yourselves, waste time, litigate, muddle, snatch profits and shirk obligations, I will certainly come down upon you again. I have taken all your men between ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... fun, Rosy-Lilly would slip from one big woodsman to another, an inconspicuous little figure in the smoke-gloomed light of the two oil-lamps. Man after man would snatch her up to his knee, lay by his pipe, twist her silky, yellow curls about his great blunt fingers, and whisper wood-folk tales or baby nonsense into her pink little ear. She would listen solemnly for a minute or two, then wriggle down and move on to another of her admirers. But before long she would be standing by the bench on which sat Red McWha, with one big knee usually hooked ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the doctrine that the end of the world does not "depend upon the law of nature," and that the growth of human civilisation may be cut off at any moment by a fiat of the Deity, less calculated to "quail the hopes and blunt the edge of men's endeavours?" Hakewill asserted with confidence that the universe will be suddenly wrecked by fire. Una dies dabit exitio. Was the prospect of an arrest which might come the day after to-morrow ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... of his blunt words, it was with the greatest gentleness that Ross handed the lad to a seat in the rough craft where they had played pirates during the preceding summer, and settled down to ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... of an older girl who had loitered by the way, and who now came hastily down the valley, crying as she came for her father. Her, too, they seized and beheaded; I know not what they had done with the axe, it was a blunt knife that served their butcherly turn upon the girl; and the blood spurted in fountains and painted them from head to foot. Thus horrible from crime, the party returned to Atuona, carrying the heads to Moipu. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... capillary harvest of the past twenty-four hours with a thoroughness, a rapidity, a security, and a facility which were a surprise, almost a revelation. The idea of a guarded cutting edge is an old one; I remember the "Plantagenet" razor, so called, with the comb-like row of blunt teeth, leaving just enough of the edge free to do its work. But this little affair had a blade only an inch and a half long by three quarters of an inch wide. It had a long slender handle, which took apart for packing, and was put together with the greatest ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... more. A jay with skyblue shaft Set in blunt wing, skimmed screaming on ahead. She followed him. A murrey squirrel eyed Her warily, cocked upon tail-plumed haunch, Then, skipping the whirligig of last-year leaves, Whisked himself out of sight and reappeared Leering about the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... the table, looked at it, felt the edge, and laid it down contemptuously. In those days all the respectable peasants in the Roman villages had solid silver forks and spoons, which have long since gone to the melting-pot to pay taxes. But they used the same blunt, pointless knives with wooden handles, which they ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... had already begun making campaign speeches in his neatly polished orations which painfully eschewed all show of ornament or passion; and Caesar himself, efficiency personified, had demonstrated that the leader of a democratic rabble must be a master of blunt phrases. But Calvus did not threaten to become a political force, Calidius was too even-tempered, and Caesar was now in the north, fighting with other weapons. Cicero's prestige still seemed unbroken. It was not till Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49, after Hortensius had ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... suggested that he unite the two and strike through the abundant acid juices of the one with the sugar of the other. Thence came all vineyards and orchards. Digging in the soil tired him, but hope suggested that his pet ox might pull his forked stick; when the wooden stick wore blunt hope replaced it with an iron point; when the iron point refused to scour hope suggested steel; when the steel made his burden light and doubled the pace of his steeds, hope suggested a seat on the plow; when the riding-plow gave ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... served she removed her gloves very leisurely and laid them beside her. Then she picked up a magazine and glanced through it, cutting the pages with a blunt edge of her knife. It was all very agreeable. The damask was even more spotless than it had seemed through the window, and the crystal more sparkling. There were quiet ladies and gentlemen, who did not notice her, lunching at the small tables like her own. A ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... pursued Mary, who had a blunt downright sort of manner; "I wonder if India will agree with you; I wonder if you will really ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... by your leave I would exhort you spin and weave Some frugal homely cloth. I warn you, when I lead the tribes Law shall strip you; threats nor bribes Shall blunt the ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... ripples that lay and moved like silver and golden serpents along the water. Back presently they had turned, approaching once more the stately towers that touched the sky, and this time they had sought a new angle. Over to the Jersey shore their blunt-nosed ferryboat had taken them, and thence north along the river to Twenty-third Street, seeing the gold and velvet-black city slide southward as ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble |
