"Bluster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... entered—"Bull" Malvey, red-headed, bluff and huge, of a gaunt frame, with large-knuckled hands and big feet. Malvey tossed a coin on the bar noisily, and in that one act Pete read him for what he was—a man who "bullied" his way through life with much bluster and profanity, but a man who, if he boasted, would make good his boast. What appeared to be hearty good-nature in Malvey was in reality a certain blatantly boisterous vigor—a vigor utterly soulless, and masking a nature at bottom as treacherous as The Spider's—but in contrast ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... you say, you—?" the sergeant began, but his bluster was lost amid the swift flow of ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... mandate bear- The realms of ocean and the fields of air Are mine, not his. By fatal lot to me The liquid empire fell, and trident of the sea. His pow'r to hollow caverns is confin'd: There let him reign, the jailer of the wind, With hoarse commands his breathing subjects call, And boast and bluster in his empty hall." He spoke; and, while he spoke, he smooth'd the sea, Dispell'd the darkness, and restor'd the day. Cymothoe, Triton, and the sea-green train Of beauteous nymphs, the daughters of the main, Clear from the rocks the ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... for I saw that a prosecution must be avoided to avert scandal, and I knew that so astute a villain would see that our hands were tied in the matter. I went and saw him. At first, of course, he denied everything. But when I gave him every particular that had occurred, he tried to bluster and took down a life-preserver from the wall. I knew my man, however, and I clapped a pistol to his head before he could strike. Then he became a little more reasonable. I told him that we would give ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... I was angry; I'll admit that. But I didna let him fash me. I just made up my mind that if I was no allowed to sing I'd have something to say to that basso before the evening was oot. And I looked at him, and listened to him bluster, and thought maybe I'd have a bit to do wi' him as well. I'm a wee man and a', but I'm awfu' strong from the work I did in the pit, and I'm ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... his party and told them he would take them to Canada. Thus far no blood had been shed. The attacks had been made with such quiet skill, the surprise was complete. In spite of all the talk and bluster of frontier politicians no sane man in the State of Missouri could conceive of the possibility of such a daring crime. The victims were utterly unprepared for the assault. And no defense had ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... creaks again, and makes a vociferous but somewhat unintelligible bellowing in its sooty throat (the big flue, we mean, of its wide chimney), partly in complaint at the rude wind, but rather, as befits their century and a half of hostile intimacy, in tough defiance. A rumbling kind of a bluster roars behind the fireboard. A door has slammed above stairs. A window, perhaps, has been left open, or else is driven in by an unruly gust. It is not to be conceived, beforehand, what wonderful wind-instruments are these old timber mansions, and how haunted with the strangest ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... bending forward, fixed upon him a look that seemed to read his very soul. It was a proverb with the crew of the Arizona that "no rogue could ever face the old man's eye;" and although he was never known to utter an oath or unseemly word, his very glance had more effect than any amount of bluster ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... reproach contemptuously, and in a hectoring manner; to bluster, to abuse, and to insult noisily. Shakspeare makes mine host of the Garter ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... will say that I wish to see him. He will be surprised, and talk big, but he will surely question you. Make no secret of the fact that you are in my confidence. Tell him I offer a truce, that I am in a position to make terms. He may bluster, and boast, perhaps, that I am on my knees. Well, admit it, and remind him that where I fail, he, at least, has no chance of success. Do you understand?' It is a question as between money and revenge. Alfieri is something of a fool. If the bait be tempting enough he will swallow ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... his sword on the ground, and his hands upon the hilt, and looked sadly and solemnly upon the pair. Ebsworthy broke the silence, half reproachfully, half trying to bluster away the coming storm. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... little people, you have no idea what a weight there was in that same blue sky, which looks so soft and aerial above our heads! And there, too, was the bluster of the wind, and the chill and watery clouds, and the blazing sun, all taking their turns to make Hercules uncomfortable! He began to be afraid that the giant would never come back. He gazed wistfully at the world beneath him, and acknowledged to himself that it was ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... of his ship, found that he was able to muster a little courage and bluster for a few minutes, but he did not dare to look at her for long while he was ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... gradually left behind; they were, in truth, half-hearted. Many of them had worked in Lloyd's, and had small mind to injure their old comrades. They were not averse to a great show of indignation and bluster, but when it came to more ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... as most well-informed Canadians knew at the time. The troublesome question was settled; the time-honored friendship of two great peoples had suffered no interruption; and Roosevelt had secured for his country its just due, without public parade or bluster, by merely being ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... stood Each like a poor and pitied widowhood. The cirque profan'd was, and all postures rack'd; For men did strut, and stride, and stare, not act. Then temper flew from words, and men did squeak, Look red, and blow, and bluster, but not speak; No holy rage or frantic fires did stir Or flash about the spacious theatre. No clap of hands, or shout, or praise's proof Did crack the play-house sides, or cleave her roof. Artless the scene was, and that monstrous sin Of deep and arrant ignorance came ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... was Cotton Mather, the holy man, the champion against the Evil One, the saint who walked with God, and daily lifted up his voice in prayer and defiance and thanksgiving—he was ever at hand, to cross-question, to insinuate, to surmise, to bluster, to interpret, to terrify, to perplex, to vociferate: surely, this paragon of learning and virtue must know more about the devil than any mere layman could pretend to know; and they must accept his assurance and guidance. "I stake ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... Sextile, Square, and Trine, and Opposite, Of noxious efficacie, and when to joyne 660 In Synod unbenigne, and taught the fixt Thir influence malignant when to showre, Which of them rising with the Sun, or falling, Should prove tempestuous: To the Winds they set Thir corners, when with bluster to confound Sea, Aire, and Shoar, the Thunder when to rowle With terror through the dark Aereal Hall. Some say he bid his Angels turne ascanse The Poles of Earth twice ten degrees and more From the Suns Axle; ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... of the Lords thought that the threats used against them in the course of the election meant nothing and were only a kind of bluster to get the Budget passed, they were grievously mistaken. It must have been hard for them to realize that Lloyd George meant all the presumptuous things he said. He was never more in earnest. A cut-and-dried plan had been arranged between him and Mr. Asquith ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... under a very alluring curtain of language. It seems to be the most natural thing in the world for the thief and swindler to talk with the greatest apparent earnestness and sincerity and honesty. Pious talk very frequently is the haze in which an avaricious and greedy soul hides itself. Bluff, bluster, and boasting are the sops which the coward throws to his own vanity, while the quietest, sweetest, and gentlest tones often sheath the fierce heart of the born fighter, as a velvet glove is said to clothe a hand ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... full of merriment and bluster, and what tender feelings he possessed, he took such a wonderful amount of pains to conceal, that Susy never suspected he had any. She would have enjoyed her ride if she had not felt so full of grief. The day was beautiful. There had been a ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... sedulous ephemera still suck a little spiritual moisture. In another it led to the sacramental and sacerdotal developments of Anglicanism. In a third, among men with strong practical energy, to the benevolent bluster of a sort of Christianity which is called muscular because it is not intellectual. It would be an error to suppose that these and the other streams that have sprung from the same source, did not in the days of their fulness fertilise and gladden many lands. The ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... Fletcher," said Sandford, gravely, "and rather forgetful, besides. If I were you, I wouldn't bluster until a certain piece of paper ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... entered into the military movements, as they saw in the exercise of the war power the long desired panacea for the faults of slavery. Those who had jeered at the Southern threats of disunion as empty bluster, and at the Northern conservatives as cowardly doughfaces, became zealous Union men, although it must be confessed that very few of them took their lives in their hands and actually went to the front. The raising of troops went forward with a bound, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... of antiquity in the Five Towns. No industrial development can ever rob it of its superiority in age, which makes it absolutely sure in its conceit. And the time will never come when the other towns—let them swell and bluster as they may—will not pronounce the name of Bursley as one pronounces the name of one's mother. Add to this that the Square was the centre of Bursley's retail trade (which scorned the staple as something ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... side by side; low-jointed cottages, with long, sloping roofs greened over with moss or grass, and other objects usually shadowed dimly in the background of the picture. It is these quiet hamlets and houses in the still depths of the country, away from the noise and bluster of railway life and motion, that best represent and perpetuate the primeval characteristics of a nation. These the American traveller will find invested with all the old charm with which his fancy clothed them. ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... no need to bluster in this fashion. Take up the poker and go and break into the door quiet and decent, like anyone else would do. And girls—off for your bonnets ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... words to them are never even warm. So it was with this man when he spoke to himself in his solitude of his purpose of resigning the titled heiress. To the arguments, the entreaties, or the threats of others he would pay no heed. The Countess might bluster about her rank, and he would heed her not at all. He cared nothing for the whole tribe of Lovels. If Lady Anna asked for release, she should be released. But not till she had heard his words. How scalding these words might be, how powerful to prevent ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... Elector sternly. "I am no longer the Electoral Prince at whom you can scold and bluster, as you did that time ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... upon his gravity, kindly and delicately, even in the midst of the natural noisy bluster of his manner. And somehow I divined readily, even out of the distraction of wonder that had come upon me, that the fine old gentleman, remembering certain thorns in John's way, was touched at seeing him proud and reserved in the presence of his natural equals, who had not sunk ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... which as far back as 1860 passed every week on its northward way up along the coast of Norway, was of a very sociable turn of mind. It ran with much shrieking and needless bluster in and out the calm, winding fjords, paid unceremonious little visits in every out-of-the-way nook and bay, dropped now and then a black heap of coal into the shining water, and sent thick volleys of smoke and shrill little echoes careering aimlessly among ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... They bluster at first: being (as I have said) much of the temper and habits, for good and evil, of English navvies. But they grow more and more uneasy, full of childish curiosity, and undefined dread. So into the town they go, on promise (which ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... else, it won't be to our credit," put in Roy. "If we can't stand up to bluster and sedition with that moral force at our backs, we shall deserve to ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... hard-fighting foes; but they have been over-difficult to rouse. Their educated classes, in particular, need to be perpetually reminded that, though it is an evil thing to brave a conflict needlessly, or to bully and bluster, it is an even worse thing to flinch from a fight for which there is legitimate provocation, or to live in supine, slothful, unprepared ease, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... companions helped him to his feet. "He—he took me by surprise," explained the beaten man with a faint attempt at bluster. ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... 'Surely,' he said, 'we have had enough of this! You see, after all his bluster, what it ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... their usual industrious manner and uttering their quaint notes, giving no evidence of distress. The Steller's jays were, of course, making more noise and stir than all the other birds combined; ever coming and going with loud bluster, screaming as if each had a lump of melting sludge in his throat, and taking good care to improve every opportunity afforded by the darkness and confusion of the storm to steal from the acorn stores of the woodpeckers. One of the golden eagles made an impressive ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... the form of war at once most dangerous to British interests and most likely to draw in British citizens, was the method first to be tried by the contestants. Unless these declarations were mere bluff and bluster England could not dare wait their application. She must at once warn her citizens and make clear her position as a neutral. The Proclamation was no effort "to keep straight with both sides"; it ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... no small noise and bluster, knocked up the inmates of the little inn of that little place, and succeeded in getting Gladys ensconced by a cheerful fire in the kitchen. The poor girl was benumbed with cold and overpowered with fatigue. The landlady rubbed her feet and hands, administered hot brandy and water, ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... Fugitive Pieces without his knowledge or consent; "How," said I, "would Pope have raved had he been served so?" "We should never," replied he, "have heard the last on't, to be sure; but then Pope was a narrow man: I will however," added he, "storm and bluster myself a little this time;"—so went to London in all the wrath he could muster up. At his return I asked how the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... of color that flowed into his bronzed cheeks and the strange, jubilant light in his eyes. She only knew that she was warm and full-fed, and the wind would bluster and threaten around her cabin walls ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... "Don't bluster, son, or I shall grow peevish," Hood replied tolerantly. "At the present moment I feel like taking a walk under the mystical May stars. The night invites the soul to meditation; the stars may have the answer to all our perplexities. ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... substitute with presents and fraternal messages; and now and then a King's ship, carrying an officer of the King's navy, or an ambassador of the King's Council, irresolutely loitering about the Bay of Algiers trying to mollify a surly despot, or perhaps to experiment in a little meaningless bluster, at which the Dey laughs in his sleeve, or even openly, for he knows he has only to persevere in his demands and every government in Europe will give in. Consuls may pull down their flags and threaten war; admirals may come and look ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... of my descriptions. If what I say is injurious or severe, your censure will be more fairly directed at the perpetrators than at the discoverer of such iniquities. I had no sooner realized the odious practises which his profession imposes on an advocate—the deceit, falsehood, bluster, clamor, pushing, and all the long hateful list, than I fled as a matter of course from these, betook myself to your dear service, Philosophy, and pleased myself with the thought of a remainder of life spent far ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... one gets clear at last, and we have to run to overtake the rest of the company. We begin to pant and complain, and bluster against those who are leading. Our feet go down haphazard; we stumble and hold ourselves up by the wails, so that our hands are plastered with mud. The march becomes a stampede, full of the noise of metal things and ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... case you will need to reply with considerable force, whether you appeal to the mind or the heart of the prospect. But when his objection is stated in a powerless tone, even though it may be accompanied by curtness or bluster, you need not waste much force on your answering appeal to his ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... in Brilliana's eyes as she gave the Puritan a bow for his praise. The Cavalier, a viola da gamba of anger, pegged his string of bluster tighter. ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... superstructure of the Elevated, and shivered in the cutting wind of the blizzard which was sweeping the city, "it would be simple." She paused a moment later and halted against the wall of Jefferson Market Court where a brick abutment broke the force of the bluster. Mary was not so warmly clad as this rigorous weather warranted. The last thing she had taken to the sign of the three balls was ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... Yak[o]b (my desert name). They are not English, he says, but French. Besides, they have got twenty camel-loads of goods, which he will seize if they do not pay him something. Of course this is all harmless bluster, and means nothing. He confesses that, being on Fezzanee ground, he has really no claim upon caravans at all; but he is a greedy old rascal, and would take any advantage he could. The same gentleman says that Sakonteroua is only a chicken in his own ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... had all that the crude western community cherished: the prestige of money, family, education, and that indefinable grace and courtesy of body and soul that we call charm. And Harvey people seemed to be made for him. He liked their candor, their strength, their crass materialism, their bray and bluster, their vain protests of democracy and their unconscious regard for his caste and culture. So whatever there was of egoism in his nature grew unchecked by Harvey. He was the young lord of the manor. However Harvey might hoot at his hat and gibe at his elided ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Kemper was an effect of manner which implied an impossible subtlety—that the power one saw in the man was produced simply by some trick of pose, by a frankness so big that one felt intuitively there must be still bigger qualities behind it. Whether it was all a bluster of affectation Adams had never as yet decided in his own mind, but there were moments when, in listening to stories of the masculine freedom in which Kemper lived, he felt inclined to acknowledge that the force, whatever it was, had spent itself in wind. In a profession ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... Raoul, "such remarks are the idlest bluster. You know very well that the Duke of Buckingham is a man of undoubted courage, who has already fought ten duels, and will probably fight eleven. His name alone is significant enough. As far as I am concerned, you are well aware ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... storms is seldom heralded by any striking or unusual phenomenon. The real weather gods are free from brag and bluster; but the sham gods fill the sky with portentous signs and omens. I recall one 5th of March as a day that would have filled the ancient observers with dreadful forebodings. At ten o'clock the sun was attended by four extraordinary sun-dogs. A large bright halo encompassed him, on the ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... from side to side, and shout lustily for the police; and squalling women, and chattering men, and ignorant country people, and elegant mercers' apprentices, and gay-mannered grocers, hustle, and scream, and swear, and lecture, and threaten, and bluster—but not a single blow! The guardian of the public peace appears, and the combatants evanish into thin air; and in a few minutes after this dreadful melee, the violin strikes up a fresh waltz, and all goes "gaily as a marriage-bell." We don't say, at the present ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... "That's regular clap-trap: Don't bluster any more. Now DO be cool and take a nap! Such a ridiculous old chap Was never ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... host saying "Shake hands with the Captain." One quite loses his taste for dinner parties. There is a sabre cut across the Captain's cheek. He is even more disreputable in appearance than his followers, with a bluster that ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... bit their lips as they heard him, and marvelled at the boldness of his speech. Then, Antinous, son of Eupeithes, said, "The gods seem to have given you lessons in bluster and tall talking; may Jove never grant you to be chief in Ithaca as ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... kind. As it was my conscience gave me no rest until I had induced neighbor Tiltman to extract the cartridges from the pistol, which service he did so cleverly that the carpenter knew nothing about it, and continued to bluster and bloviate like a dragoon on ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... to be his wrath deserted him before Prentiss's fury. He stooped to obey the order but the hatred remained on his face and when the hatchet was in his hands he made a last attempt to bluster: ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... the warriors, with a look of ineffable contempt, "Koyatuk is big enough, but he is brainless. He can bluster and look fierce like the walrus, but he has only the wisdom of an infant puffin. No, we will be ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... his duty Gen. Meade was inflexible, and would not stand any bluff or bluster from the Fenian leaders. On the contrary, he became very aggressive in compelling them to respect the laws and authority of the United States, and largely through his firmness and stern efforts the whole Fenian ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... columnar group, placed at the edge of the picture after the manner of Leonardo. The woman and child lighten the mass of foliage on the right and make a beautiful pattern. The white town of Castelfranco sings against the threatening sky, the winds bluster through the space, the trees shiver with the coming storm. Here and there leafy boughs are struck in with a slight, crisp touch, in which we can follow ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... at last become Tired of long waiting, and of sitting dumb Upon his charger; so with greenest leer He vented his impatience in a sneer. "Is this," he said, "the glorious Table Round, And is its glory naught but empty sound? Braggarts! I put your bluster to the test, And find you quail before a merry jest!" Then the great king himself stood up in ire, With clenched hand raised, and eyes that gleamed dark fire, And fronting the Green Knight he cried: "Forbear! For by my ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... Women understand these things better than we do. They understand each other, and they seem to have a practical way of accepting human nature as it is which we never learn to apply to our fellowmen. They never bluster as we do, nor expect impossibilities ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... battle. Hancock had taken twenty guns with their horses, and about thirty battle flags. It was a tremendous capture, if he could hold his ground. No officer of the Union army ever showed to better advantage. The world may well forgive the touch of vanity and bluster in the undaunted Hancock, as he sent this despatch to Grant: "I have used up Johnson and am going into Hill." He found, however, that he should have terrible work even to keep the gain that he ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... I don't see why it should. The fellow may bluster, but he will say nothing about it because he would get into trouble for trying to carry off a ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... stranger in Arizona," said Jean, slowly. "I know little about ranchers or sheepmen. It's true my father sent for me. It's true, I dare say, that he bragged, for he was given to bluster an' blow. An' he's old now. I can't help it if he bragged about me. But if he has, an' if he's justified in his stand against you sheepmen, I'm goin' to do my best to live up to ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... "I ..." He was inclined for a moment to bluster. He looked curiously at Jenny's profile, judicial in its severity. Then some kind of tact got the better of his first impulse. "Well, I thought one of you girls ..." he said. "Will you come, Em? Have ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... "Bah!" said the pettifogger. "Bluster is a good dog, but Holdfast is the better. You can prove nothing, as you well know. Moreover, with your own neck in a noose you dare not mess and ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... in the hands of my notary, and if a single day passes without his seeing me he has orders to break the seal and make the contents public. So you see chance is still on my side. But now that you are warned there is no need for me to bluster. I am quite prepared to acknowledge your superior rank, and if you insist upon it, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... was prepared to see a man who would intimidate him by his severity and awe him by the manifestation of his greatness. In fact, associating business success with his father's manners and methods, Allen had come to believe that force meant noise and bluster, and that firmness stood for an intolerance of discussion. But here, in the midst of his family, Robert Gorham displayed a side of his nature which Stephen Sanford had never seen; yet Allen was no less conscious of the man's power. The boy was more quick to sense than he was to analyze, ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... the landlord, I am sorry to say that his new business doesn't seem to have improved his manners or his temper a great deal. As a miller, he was one of the best-tempered men in the world, and wouldn't have harmed a kitten. But, now, he can swear, and bluster, and throw glasses at people's heads, and all that sort of thing, with the best of brawling rowdies. I'm afraid he's taking lessons in ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... nothing of the kind!" Whitburn blustered, showing, under the bluster, fear. "Yes, I demanded this man's resignation on the morning of October Seventeenth, the day after this incident occurred. It had come to my attention on several occasions that he was making wild and unreasonable ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper
... banged the slide upon us. The chart-room was insulated. The hum of the current was obvious. Johnson noticed it. He started at the hostile faces of the surgeon and Balch. And he tried to bluster. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... "superfluous swelling." So he indulged in a critical Donnybrook; but after hitting out and about at the Essay for three months he left it much as he found it.(19) He could not get to close quarters with Farmer's scholarship. His bluster compares ill with Farmer's gentler manner, and in some passages the quiet humour has proved too subtle for his animosity. There was more impartiality in the judgment of Johnson: "Dr. Farmer, you have done that which was never done before; that is, you have completely finished a controversy ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... inner strength. How many faces one sees which, in ordinary circumstances, are comfortable, self-asserting, sufficient, and even bold; the lines of which, under difficulties, collapse and become mean, spiritless, and insignificant. There are faces which, in their usual form, seem to bluster with prosperity, but which the loss of a dozen points at whist will reduce to that currish aspect which reminds one of a dog-whip. Mr. Camperdown's countenance, when Lord Fawn and Mr. Eustace left him, had fallen ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... merely means to make a little bluster, and try if he can pick up a little money. There is nothing whatever actionable in the paper.... The article on Hazlitt, which will commence next number, will be a most powerful one, and this business will not deprive it ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... O'Regan looked very downcast, though the midshipmen did their best to keep up her spirits by telling her that they were sure the Spaniards would not dare to hurt her or any of us, let them bluster and ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... always been the greenest spot in old Jack's memory; so that they have been growing larger ever since. Whenever I wish to hear him discourse with the dogmatic bluster of a sage who had original information as to geological times, I set Jack to talking about the bones of the Mastodon-Maximus, the name of which he gets from me, with a puzzled shake of his head, about regularly once a year. It is my private opinion that old Jack believes Big Bone Lick to have ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... him what she had heard. At first he was inclined to bluster arrogantly, with a great display of bravado but ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... door by which Nikta entered the hut] Well, have you had enough spree? You've been puffing yourself up, but now you'll know how it feels! You'll lose some of your bluster! ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... was just thinking! Thinking of a man whom I used to denounce as bad-tempered! A dear, kind, thoughtful, unselfish Englishman with a—a bluster! I can never call it temper again, after knowing Mr Travers! He has taught ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... no letters got through, while no news filtered in from the big humming world outside, it would be possible to carry things bravely off for a long time. He had told Bingo, to be sure, about—about Lessie. But Bingo, though he might bluster and barge about dishonourable conduct, would never give away a man who had trusted him. To be sure, it was not quite fair, not altogether square; it was not playing the game as it should be played, to gain her promise as a free man. Should he make a clean breast of it, and tell her ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... settlement?" said her father sharply. And then Dolly, feeling very frightened and miserable, told him of Portveldt's letter, the receipt of which she had concealed from every one but Foster. The D.A.A.C.G. laughed at first, but then added, "but all the same, though 'twas but empty bluster, I had better tell his Excellency about it; it is just possible that the Dutch have ...
— Foster's Letter Of Marque - A Tale Of Old Sydney - 1901 • Louis Becke
... poor a critic As an honest friend: you stroke me on one cheek, Buffet the other. Come, you bluster, Antony! You know I know all this. I must not move Until I hear from Carew and the Duke. I fear the mine is ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... that I wish to portray him, but as an odd, lovable personality, possessed of so many interesting and peculiar and almost indescribable traits. Of all characters in fiction he perhaps most suggests Jack Falstaff, with his love of women, his bravado and bluster and his innate good nature and sympathy. Sympathy was really his outstanding characteristic, even more than humor, although the latter was always present. One might recite a thousand incidents of his generosity and out-of-hand ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... owe me three hundred pounds, you've owed it me for years, and you have the impudence to take this attitude with me, have you? Now, I never bluster; I say what I mean. You just listen to me. Either you pay me what you owe me at once, or I call this meeting and make what I know public. You'll very soon find out where you are. And a good thing, too, for a more unscrupulous—unscrupulous—-" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... disgust along the backs of the older dogs. The time had passed, he continued, for speeches and resolutions and votes of censure. Dogs must act if Man, the enemy, was to be finally crushed. I intervened at this point and told the Borzoi he must moderate his language, upon which he began to bluster, shouting that he would not be put down by an arrogant hireling of effete Militarism. One learns to practise self-control in the trenches, so I was able to repress an inclination to assert my authority then and there. It was no use striking ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... offensive. The others were not so optimistic. But neither here, nor in any of the conversations I have heard at the headquarters of the Allies, was there a doubt expressed as to ultimate victory. They had a quiet confidence that was contagious. There was no bluster, no assertion; victory was simply accepted as a fact; the only two opinions might be as to when it would occur, and whether the end would be sudden or a slow withdrawal ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... for that staple, that their republic would be recognized and defended by those European powers. On the other hand, the Northern people did not believe that the South would dare to fight for slavery when it had 4,000,000 slaves exposed to the chances of war. They thought it to be all bluster, and hence paid little heed to the threat of secession or of war. Both sides sadly learned ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... place knoweth them no more. So it is in politics: where the people is most closely restrained, there it gives the greatest shocks to peace and order; therefore would I say to all kings, let your demagogues lead crowds, lest they lead armies; let them bluster, lest they massacre; a little turbulence is, as it were, the rainbow of the state; it shows indeed that there is a passing shower; but it is a pledge that there ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... anything but the show and bluster which are threatening our ruin? English food, not long ago the best in the world, is falling off in quality, and even our national genius for cooking shows a decline; to anyone who knows England, these are facts significant enough. Foolish persons have ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... Through the bluster of Johnny's rally a really injured innocence made its outcry. "She had no more reason to bolt than a—a grandmother." Grandmothers appeared to be Johnny's sole figure of comparison. "You're getting this dead wrong, ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Flint, "that if you attempt to leave this room, I will give you into custody at once, and transport you, whatever may be the consequence to others. Come, come, let us have no more nonsense or bluster. We have strong reasons for believing that the story by which you have been extorting money, is a fabrication. If it be so, rely upon it we shall detect and punish you. Your only safe course is to make a clean breast of it whilst there is yet time. Out with it, man, at once, and you shall ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... as though Marvin was really the Russian Government, which I have always suspected. They had this to gain by publishing the Memorandum—that they showed themselves the real victors in the Congress of Berlin, in spite of all our bluster, and they damaged Lord Beaconsfield, who was their enemy. Marvin could never have got a copy, and always pretended that he had learned the whole document by heart, which, considering its length and the total absence in the copy published in the Globe of the slightest ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... of a rotund, twinkling old sea-dog, with a gargoylish countenance, with which the spirit had nothing to do, there landed on the wharf at the city a swaggering, wrathy pirate, of devilish cast and temper, quick to flush and bluster, mighty in profanity, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... "He tried to bluster out of it, but I described to him so exactly what his actions had been upon that morning that he is convinced that I was watching him. Of course you observed the peculiarly square toes in the impressions, and that ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... hat which had been knocked from his head. There was only one instinct or desire in his being—the instinct which drives the wounded rat back to its hole to die, the instinct of self-preservation working in its meanest range. His swagger and bluster had been hopelessly crushed out of him by the vigour of Palmer Billy's attack; and to have been, as he considered, twice deserted by his own comrades, rendered ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... stubbornness of a determination to be content with nothing else, for which I was not prepared by the general testimony of officials who had been longer in the country, and who professed to believe that the opposition of the Boers was mere bluster, and that they had not the courage of their professed opinions.... I feel assured that the majority of the Committee felt very deeply what they believed to be a great national wrong.... But my ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... be his consciousness of strength. The small black eye of Colbert, dilated by envy, and the limpid eye of Louis XIV., inflamed by anger, signalled some pressing danger. Courtiers are, with regard to court rumors, like old soldiers, who distinguish through the blasts of wind and bluster of leaves the sound of the distant steps of an armed troop. They can, after having listened, tell pretty nearly how many men are marching, how many arms resound, how many cannons roll. Fouquet had then only to interrogate the silence which his arrival had produced; ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the Boer meeting which was held before the outbreak, and written a letter from thence to Major Clarke, in which he had described the talk of the Boers as silly bluster. He was not a paid spy. This letter was, unfortunately for him, found in Major Clarke's pocket-book, and because of it he was put through a form of trial, taken out and shot dead, all on the same day. He ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... this and other sexual subjects, we may do whatever else we like: we may bully, we may bluster, we may rage, We may foam at the mouth; we may tear down Heaven with our prayers, we may exhaust ourselves with weeping over the sorrows of the poor; we may narcotize ourselves and others with the opiate of Christian resignation; ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... ACT OF AUTHORITY.—The storm of excitement that may make the child start, bears no relation to actual obedience. The inner firmness, that sees and feels a moral conviction and expects obedience, is only disguised and defeated by bluster. The more calm and direct it is, the greater certainty it has ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... guided and led into their sensuall lustes and appetites: for ill successe faileth not in a beginning, the grounde whereof abhorring reason, is planted and layed vppon the sandie foundacion of pleasure, which is shaken and ouerthrowen, by the least winde and tempest that Fortune can bluster ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... The Indians began to bluster, to talk loud and to grow insolent. But Mr. Carson never allowed himself to lose his temper. A man in a passion seldom acts wisely. With calm persistence he said, "I can listen to no overtures of peace, until our horses are restored." Still the Indians hesitated to provoke ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott |
