"Abrupt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the city, not sparing the spur to my poor horse. A thousand projects flashed through my mind to rescue her. Arrived in the city, I hurried to the General's and ran into his room. He was walking up and down smoking his meerschaum. Seeing me he stopped, alarmed at my abrupt entrance. ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... which it had formed round it. The other mouth was lower, in the side of the same new-formed hill, and filled with such red hot liquid matter as we see in a glass-house furnace, which raged and wrought as the waves in the sea, causing a short abrupt noise, like what may be imagined from a sea of quicksilver dashing among uneven rocks. This stuff would sometimes spew over, and run down the convex side of the conical hill, and appearing at first red hot, it changed colour, and hardened as it cooled, shewing ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... vacancy, her look lingered and deepened. She saw a most bronzed and hardy looking young man, tall and broad-shouldered, with gray eyes, wide apart under straight black brows, and black hair brushed straight back from a wide forehead. She saw a rugged nose, a likeable mouth, and an abrupt and aggressive chin, saved somehow from grimness by a deep cleft in the blunt end of it.... She thought he was a very stirring looking young man. Undoubtedly he was a very sudden young man—if he meant one ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... hears only in the most up-country New England regions and among London small shopkeepers. The uttering of his vowel sounds taper end first greatly amused his customers in the Chesapeake regions, while their abrupt clipping of both vowels and liquids was equally curious to Perkins, who regarded all people outside of New England as natives to be treated with condescending kindness alike for Christian and for business reasons, and as people who were even liable ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... not puzzle over the queerness of this abrupt question. She fell to searching her memory diligently for an answer. "I'm not sure, but I think they speak oftenest of how I never used to like anybody to take my hand and help me along, even when I was barely able to walk. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... to "A" and "H" in Fig. 12. The tone "B" in the same Figure is made up of lines which are thin at the ends and big in the middle, fitting into each other irregularly, and imparting a texture somewhat different from that obtained by the abrupt ending of the strokes of "A." This method is also employed by Brennan, and is a very effective one. A good example of the use of this character of line (unknitted, however) is the drawing by Mr. Leslie Willson, Fig. 16. The irregular line "C" has good possibilities ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis
... subsequently turned out, at my own. Since, however, the world-famous trial of Sala v. Furniss I have looked carefully over all the pictures in my Royal Academy, with a view to throwing some light upon the critic's abrupt departure. I remain, nevertheless, in the dark, for the most rigid scrutiny has failed to reveal to me one single feature in the show, not even a Grecian nose, or a foot with six toes, which could have jarred upon the refined taste of the most sensitive of journalists. I shall return ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... so abrupt," she said. "You must remember that this is all coming quite as a surprise to him. You want to lead up ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... but was with Jesus the normal path for all who desired perfection. When the young man went away sorrowing, Jesus moralized on it, saying: "How hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven:" which again shows, that an abrupt renunciation of wealth was to be the general and ordinary method of entering the kingdom. Hereupon, when the disciples asked: "Lo! we have forsaken all, and followed thee: what shall we have therefore?" Jesus, instead of rebuking their self-righteousness, promised them ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... grand entry to a degree which left Honey Tone thankful for the mule-stealing charge that had landed him safe in the jail and out of the clutches of his wife and Cuspidora Lee. He enjoyed sanctuary in jail for two months and then, threatened with an embarrassing and abrupt release, he concentrated on a hurried mental incubation. Hard pressed, he sought to hatch from the bad egg of circumstance some new enterprise which would take him away, sudden and safe, from where his ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... of mortar, in order to render them warm and comfortable. Around them, for defence, two redoubts were erected and an intrenchment, drawn with a ditch six feet wide and three or four feet deep. His left was covered by the Schuylkill, and his rear, for the most part, by an abrupt precipice; but his right was somewhat accessible, and the centre of his front was weak, notwithstanding his intrenchments. There was, however, no cause for fear: Howe was in snug winter-quarters, and had no disposition to move till the flowers of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... his usual abrupt action he put the letter in his inner pocket and proceeded to hurry his business as much as possible that he might take an earlier boat than the one he had set. And he finally succeeded by dint of working night as well as day, and leaving several important ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... our horses to a walk to ascend an abrupt ridge. When we gained the top a vast stretch of the Northwest spread away to the east and north. Piegan lifted his eyes from the ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... world was brought into close contact with the free virility of the ancient world, and emancipated from the thraldom of improved traditions. The force to judge and the desire to create were generated. The immediate result in the sixteenth century was an abrupt secession of the learned, not merely from monasticism, but also from the true spirit of Christianity. The minds of the Italians assimilated paganism. In their hatred of mediaeval ignorance, in their loathing of cowled and cloistered fools, they flew to an extreme, and affected the manner ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... my remarks to an abrupt conclusion, gentlemen," he said anxiously; "something is seriously wrong in the village, and ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... was not the wood cracking with the frost; it was not snow sliding from the slates outside. It was something that simultaneously filled the entire building, yet sounded particularly loud just outside his door; and it came with the abrupt suddenness of a report. It made him think of all the air in the rooms and halls and passages being withdrawn by immense suction, as though a gigantic dome had been dropped over the building in order to produce a vacuum. And just after it he heard, unmistakably, the long ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... the eyes of her sisters, and feeling depressed by the abrupt silence, Gail sought to make the sun shine again by remarking, "I am thankful for so many things, I hardly know which to put first; but I think I will call it friends. That will include ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... reminding him of the wild scenes in his native country. Almost close to the building was a noble cascade, formed by the river rushing over the rocks which it encountered in its course; and beyond the woods on the opposite bank arose abrupt declivities, overtopped by the lofty summits of the distant mountains. John had laid his plan, and meant to have put it into execution, when, on the very morning of the day he intended to have made the attempt, Mr. Murray complained of being very ill. This was a severe blow to John: he had ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... a trifle previous with a gun himse'f, an' while the Mexican is mighty abrupt, he gets none the best of Billy. Which the outcome is the Mexican's shot plumb dead in his moccasins, while Billy takes a small crease on his cheek, the same not bein' deadly. ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... were very frequent, the changes often very abrupt, with Wagner; also he rarely worked at only one opera at a time. The Dutchman was conceived before Rienzi was finished; Tannhaeuser and Lohengrin were slowly shaping themselves in his imagination while he scored ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... sudden appearance put an abrupt termination to Miss Cotton's gossip, but the story did not end there. Jessie concluded for the time, that, though a minister, Mr. Egerton must be something of a flirt, and as Donald was now repentant she soon found no time to bestow ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... Toiling up the grade in the dust, I met a good old-fashioned four-horse Concord stage, which from all appearances might have been in action ever since the days of Bret Harte. At last I felt I was in touch with the Sierras. The driver even honored my bow with an abrupt "Howdy!" which from such a magnate, I took to be a ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... his steps on the turf that bordered the lane. A little before him stood an old peasant woman, with whom Lily, on the opposite side of the garden pale, was conversing. Mr. Emlyn did not at first see what Kenelm saw; turning round rather to gaze on his companion, surprised by his abrupt halt and silence. The girl put a small basket into the old woman's hand, who then dropped a low curtsy, and uttered low a "God bless you." Low though it was, Kenelm overheard it, and said abstractedly to Mr. Emlyn, "Is there a greater ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... two people were driving: a white girl of two-and-twenty summers and an Indian man a few years older. Back of them, in the direction from which they had come, was the outline of a straggling, desolate village. Ahead, to either side, was the rolling brown earth; and at the end of it, abrupt apparently as a material wall, the blue of a cloudless October sky. The team they were driving, a mouse-coloured broncho and a mate a shade darker, were restless after three days of enforced inactivity and tugged at the bit mightily. Though the day was perfectly still, the canvas ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... and persuade—by vulgar coarseness and intemperance you disgust and nauseate. To say that a political paper of the very same sentiments, and principles would be innocent, written in a calm and delicate style which would be criminal, written in an abrupt, vehement and passionate manner, is to remove guilt from the thought and conception and substance of a writing, and impute it to the medium only of the thought, the mere expression. So that upon such a rule and principle of decision, if I were to heap violent and gross ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... The abrupt spring to his feet brought down the camp stool, cigar, easel and all, but not the foot, for the rest of the apparition was caught and hidden by the clustering young shoots of ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... into the black Pullman near the rear of the long train, glided through the narrow alley way between the smoking-room and the side of the car, just missing a head on collision with a stout party coming out of the sleeper. The latter was about to express a haughty indignation at Jim's abrupt approach, but that worthy gave him no chance, as he dashed for section No. 9 at the end of the car. Here he snatched from his valise his belt and revolver and fastened them with rapid precision around his waist, and then with a heavy ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... an abrupt laugh. "On the whole, I like you even better than I did—but it's a question now for a drumhead and a ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... succession. His feet were always "used to save his head" (contrary to our grandmothers' teachings). When he made the usual attempt to fly through the window on his first outing in the room, he went feet first against it, and thus saved himself a bumped head. His movements were abrupt in the extreme, and always so unexpected that he frequently threw the whole feathered family into a panic, apparently without the least intention of doing so. Standing beside the cage of another bird, he would wheel quickly and face the other way, absolutely nothing ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... to an abrupt end, and he gave emphasis to his words by a prolonged expectoration. Jacky, her eyes sparkling with anger, was ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... over every approach; of a deepening of the atmosphere of his reverence, which yet as it deepened grew more diaphanous. And when now the episode of angelic visitation was over, with his usual wisdom he understood the wrench her abrupt departure must have given his whole being, and allowed him plenty of time to recover himself from it. Once he came upon him weeping: not with faintest overshadowing did he rebuke him, not with farthest hint suggest weakness in his tears. He went up to him, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... countenance peering in the doorway they one and all give utterance to little screams of dismay, and dart like frightened fawns into an adjoining room. When the men appear, to see what is up, they show no signs of resentment at my abrupt intrusion, but one of them follows the women into the room, and loud, angry words seem to indicate that they are being soundly berated for allowing themselves to be thus caught. This does not prevent the women from reappearing the next ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... physical types. Certain tribes whom we place in the Turanian group have all the distinctive characteristics of the white races. Others are hardly to be distinguished from the yellow nations. Between these two extremes there are numerous varieties which carry us, without any abrupt transition, from the most perfect European to the most complete Chinese type.[39] In the Aryan family the ties of blood are perceptible even between the most divergent branches. By a comparative study ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... from seven to thirteen hooks each. They are all too small and all too many; better calculated to scratch and tear, than to catch and hold, Three hooks are enough at the end of any line and better than more. These should be fined or honed to a perfect point and the abrupt part of the barb filed down one-half. All hooks, as usually made, have twice as much barb as they should have; and the sharp bend of the barb prevents the entering of the hook in hard bony structures, wherefore the fish only stays hooked so ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... vivid alertness that stirred my envy and also my annoyance. I felt utterly useless. He ordered me on to my wagon in a manner that, in my present half-sleepy, half-surly mood seemed to me abominably abrupt. Trenchard climbed up, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... a scene to abide long with a man—a horrible nightmare, never to be forgotten. Above us, protected somewhat by the abrupt curve of the wide staircase, crouched the women. Two were sobbing, their heads buried in their hands, but Maria and Mrs. Brennan sat white of face and dry-eyed. I caught one quick glance at the fair face I loved,—my sweet lady of the North,—thinking, indeed, it might prove ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... don't mind, I think I'd rather you'd just talk." Then he rose with one of his abrupt movements, "I'd better look in again now. The ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... the advocates of the development-theory do not state their views as I have here presented them. On the contrary, they protest against any idea of sudden, violent, abrupt changes, and maintain that by slow and imperceptible modifications during immense periods of time these new types have been introduced without involving any infringement of the ordinary processes of development; and they account for the entire absence of corroborative facts in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... write in the greatest hurry, which may make my letter a little abrupt; but, as I said before, I have no wish to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... a flash. Ned's mount had whirled and was away like a shot. But the guide was after him with even greater speed. The chase came to an abrupt ending some few rods farther on, when Kris Kringle's lariat squirmed out, bringing the fleeing pony to the ground with its ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... to bring this to pass, as these Memoirs have run thro' the general History of the Feuds and unhappy Breaches between the Solunarian Church and the Crolian Dissenters in the World of the Moon, it would seem an imperfect and abrupt Relation, if I should not tell you how, and by what Method, tho' long hid from their Eyes, the Crolians came to understand their own Interest ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... noting that if he kept to the eastward side he would have to deflect a trifle to that direction, Devers inclined to his right, and ten minutes later found it swinging around in front of him, already broad and deep and obliquely crossing his path. Either he must dismount and lead down the abrupt declivity and up the opposite bank, or, keeping along the bluff, follow the windings of the ravine. One wrong step had led with him to another. There is a fatality about such things that besets the truest of men and ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Elijah was ever before the mind of the growing youth, as his model and inspiration. He found himself perpetually asking, How did Elijah act, and what would he do here and now? And there is little doubt that his choice of the lonely wilderness, of the rough mantle of camel's hair, of the abrupt and arousing form of address, was suggested by that village of Thisbe in the land of Gilead, and those personal characteristics which were so familiar ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... trail anew upon turf, now soft and springy from the rain, and, refreshed by the long night's sleep in the bark shelter, he went rapidly. Eight or ten miles beyond the camp the trail made an abrupt curve to the eastward. Perhaps they were coming to some large river of which the Indian scouts knew and the turn was made in order to reach a ford, but he followed it another hour and there was no river. The nature of the country also indicated that no great stream could be ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Mr. Tollmidge's formidable assertions relating to herself for the second time, Lady Lydiard's meditations came to an abrupt end. She rose, took the letters in both hands to tear them up, hesitated, and threw them back in the cabinet drawer in which she had discovered them, among other papers that had not been arranged since Lord ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... write poetry; but he supposed he could, for he never tried. Mr Cherfeuil would have thought any man a fool that did not perceive at once that he, Cherfeuil, was born a great poet. Shall I carry, after the manner of Plutarch, the comparison any further? No; let us bring it to an abrupt conclusion, by saying, in a few words, that Mr Root was English, Mr Cherfeuil French; that the one had a large school, and the other a little one and that both were immeasurably great men in their own estimation—though not universally so in ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... profanely. But he was in no mood to find fault with his companion, and they got on very well together to the end of their brief journey. The young scapegrace was glad, indeed, that it was brief, for his self-control was fast leaving him, and having bowed a rather abrupt farewell to the doctor, he was not long in reaching one of his haunts, from which during the evening, and quite late into the night, came repeated peals of laughter, that grew more boisterous and discordant as that synonyme of mental and moral anarchy, the ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... otherwise Moses of the Jews, was not, as is popularly supposed, a foundling of the Jews, or a protege of the Egyptian princess, but a full fledged prince, son of Pharaoh the mighty. This abrupt over-throw of the tradition of ages is like all disillusions, distasteful, but even the most superficial study of Egyptian customs and laws of that time will serve to impress us with the verity of this opinion. The law of caste was most rigidly and cruelly adhered to, and though all the pleadings ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... let it pass, please, Tessy, I will give you time," he said. "It was very abrupt to come home and speak to you all at once. I'll not allude to it ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... This abrupt and impolitic, not to say ungracious and unsoldier-like proceeding, has been justified by the necessity of the moment. There were no magazines in the Highlands, in which an unusual scarcity prevailed. The Lowlanders, more especially, must have starved in a country ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... effects of even slight injuries on certain people. I have known a trivial wound to make a brave man suddenly timid and tremulous for months, or to disorder remote organs and functions in a fashion hard to understand. In the same way, a moral wound for which we are not prepared may bring about abrupt and prolonged consequences, from which the most robust health does not always protect us; and which is in proportion disastrous if the person on whom it falls is by temperament excitable or nervous. I have over and ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... Unadilla found the Indians fully determined for the British cause, and came to an abrupt termination, beneath darkened skies, amid a hubbub of Mohawk war-whoops and the rattle of a sudden hailstorm that swooped down upon the assemblage. Herkimer marched his ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... His eyes were fixed upon the door. He turned away with a shudder. Bright had entered. In his hand he was carrying two gas masks. He came over to the side of the couch, and, looking down at Julian, lifted his hand, and felt his pulse. Then, with an abrupt movement, he handed one of the ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in contact with the enemy opposite Brandenburg, where he crossed; but it made the stand at Corydon Junction, where the road runs between two abrupt hills, across which Colonel Lewis Jordan threw up some light intrenchments. Morgan's advance attempted to ride over these "rail-piles" rough-shod, but lost some twenty troopers unhorsed. They brought up their reserve and artillery, flanked, and finally surrounded Colonel Jordan, ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... year, and then to have gone to Paris to copy pictures at the Louvre. He mentions a particular copy that he made of a celebrated picture by one of the Italian masters, for which a Hungarian nobleman paid him well. His three years' absence was brought to an abrupt termination by news of his father's illness. He returned to Norwich in time to stand by that father's bedside when he died. The elder Borrow died, as we have seen, in February 1824. The little home in King's Court was kept on for the mother, and as John was making money ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... there is not whither in the earth any one having sent naval equipment, or to Lycia, or to the thirsty site of Hammon's temple, can redeem the unhappy woman's life, for abrupt fate approaches, and I know not to whom of those that sacrifice at the hearths of the Gods I can go. But only if the son of Phoebus were viewing with his eyes this light, could she come, having left the darksome habitations and ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... vault, smoke-coloured and opaque, seemed to curve away to the ghostly horizons on either side where the far-away hills raised sharp shapes as if cut in paper. Carmel was before him; at least he thought it was that—a bull head and shoulders thrusting itself forward and ending in an abrupt descent, and beyond that again the glimmering sky. There were no clouds, no outlines to break the huge, smooth, dusky dome beneath the centre of which this house-roof seemed poised. Across the parapet, as he glanced to the right before descending the ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... in mid-Rome seek Rome And can find nothing in mid-Rome of Rome, Behold this mass of walls, these abrupt rocks, Where the vast theatre lies overwhelmed. Here, here is Rome! Look how the very corpse Of greatness still imperiously breathes threats! The world she conquered, strove herself to conquer, Conquered ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... which we were leaving behind us. Viewed from this side, the Riesengebirgen offer a much bolder and grander outline than when looked at from Bohemia. Here, the mountains, instead of forming the back-ground and termination to numerous lesser ranges, spring, sheer and abrupt, out of the plain, and when loaded, as they happened to be to-day, with a bank of white clouds, which obscured none of their features, but seemed to nestle on the snow along their summits, the effect is altogether so sublime as to defy either pen or pencil to describe it. It was not without ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... and on one wheel, and, I was prepared to swear, on no wheels. A couple of times, with the wings retracted, we actually jetted into the air and jumped over vehicles in front of us, landing again with bone-shaking jolts. Then we made an abrupt turn and shot in under a concrete arch, and a big door banged shut behind us, and we stopped, in the middle of a wide patio, the front of the car a few inches short of a fountain. Four or five people, in diplomatic ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... "Oh, you darling! the very thing! Won't that pup"—an abrupt and convulsive cough subsided brilliantly into, "that pet of a Berta be pleased! I'll take ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... box, where there was a table with ices, champagne, etc. Madame de MacMahon came up to me, saying: "Madame Waddington, Sa Majeste demande les nouvelles de M. Waddington," upon which His Majesty planted himself directly in front of me, so close that he almost touched me, and asked in a quick, abrupt manner, as if he were firing off a shot: "Ou est votre mari?" (neither Madame, nor M. Waddington, nor any of the terms that are usually adopted in polite society). "A Berlin, Sire." "Pourquoi a Berlin?" "Comme plenipotentiaire ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... friendly reception of all, from Mr. Raymount to little Saffy, who had the rare charm of being shy without being rude. If not genial, his manners were yet friendly, and his carriage if not graceful was easy; both were apt to be abrupt where he was familiar. It was a kind of company bearing he had, but dashed with indifference, except where he desired to commend himself. He shook hands with little Saffy as respectfully as with her mother, but with neither altogether respectfully; ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... manner, which was an abrupt challenge to all comers, Lidgerwood acknowledged a growing liking for the chief clerk. Under the crabbed and gloomy crust of the man the superintendent fancied he could discover a certain savage loyalty. But under the loyalty there was a deeper depth—of misery, ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... but still resolute, went toward him. Serge seemed nervous and somewhat abrupt in manner. ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... sweet little maiden left instead—thinking about other things and people instead of herself, and full of affection and warmth. The improvement that the half year's discipline had made in her bearing and manners was visible now; her uncouth abrupt ways were softened, though still she felt that the naturally gentle and graceful Sylvia would have made a ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Alpinist made a terrible grimace, and the abrupt manner in which he seized the bottle standing near him might have made one fear he was about to cleave the already cracked head of the diplomatist Not so! It was only to offer wine to his pretty neighbour, who did not hear him, being absorbed by a semi-whispered conversation in a soft and lively ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... possessed with an error, 'tis, like the devil, not to be cast out but with great difficulty. Whatsoever he lays hold on, like a drowning man, he never loses, though it do but help to sink him the sooner. His ignorance is abrupt and inaccessible, impregnable both by art and nature, and will hold out to the last though it has nothing but rubbish to defend. It is as dark as pitch, and sticks as fast to anything it lays hold on. ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... the Sun-beings worked in those harmonies. Thus this part of man was given its form by the spiritual sounds of the universe; and at the same time the alternation between the clearer state of consciousness during the Sun period, and the duller one, was not so abrupt as was that between the waking state and that of absolutely dreamless sleep in contemporary man. The picture-consciousness was not so clear as the present waking consciousness; but on the other hand, the other consciousness ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... to be one of those rare exceptions, my dear boy, I can promise you that—Upon my soul!" with an abrupt change of both tone and manner, "I really believe it IS ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... had 'spepsia," was the abrupt remark of the small person as her plate of drum-sticks was removed and the pudding appeared, accompanied by ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... of God!" she gasped in a long-drawn, quivering sigh as she bent a dishevelled head over the little one, and, between intervals of silence, fell to uttering soft, abrupt exclamations. Then, opening her ineffably beautiful blue eyes, the hallowed eyes of a mother, she raised them towards the azure heavens, while in their depths there was coming and going a flame of joy and gratitude. Lastly, lifting a languid hand, she with a slow movement made the ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... abrupt geniality about him. His tortoise-rimmed glasses gave him an oddly owlish look, like a small boy taking liberties with ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... to the examination of the Lucky Chance mine, it was considered best for a while to pursue very nearly the same line of conduct that had been followed for the last ten days, carefully avoiding any abrupt change which might attract attention. All necessary data had now been secured, and Houston felt that he could better afford to remain quiet for a brief time and reconnoiter the situation, than by any hasty move to excite further ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... a very abrupt King," said Pon, "so it was the least I could expect. Up to that time I had not thought of loving Princess Gloria, but realizing it would be impolite not to return her love, I did so. We met at evening, now and then, and she told me the King wanted her to marry a rich courtier named ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... this abrupt request, and answered her on the spur of the moment: "Good words I neither give nor receive. I simply open my eyes and keep silence, and then I can at once both hear and see, even when no sound is uttered. Now, while I am looking at you, it is ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... Darwinians will frequently find laws put forward to establish facts: whereas other men of science prefer to have facts establish laws). When, therefore, as Quatrefages remarks, the transition between the types which Haeckel has incorporated into his genealogical tree, appears too abrupt, he often betakes himself to ontogeny and describes the embryo in the corresponding interval of development. This description he inserts in his genealogical mosaic, by virtue of the "Law ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... spiritual states of individuals then present, and sometimes to believe it necessary to describe such states, and to add such advice as these may seem to require. Now these states being frequently different from each other, the description of them, in consequence of an abrupt transition from one to the other, may sometimes occasion an apparent inconsistency in their discourses on such occasions. The Quakers, however, consider all such discourses, or those in which states are described, as among the ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... signed off and his image faded from the teleceiver screen, Astro and Roger numbly complied with Newton's abrupt orders, bringing the ship to a dead stop in space and opening the starboard air lock. Then the two cadets sat in the main deck of the small scout and waited, their faces showing their concern. Neither felt like talking. They were so confused that they didn't know what to say. ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... establish an independent paper in Des Vaches. He felt that there was not fight enough in him for the work, even if he had not taken that strong disgust for public life which included the place and its people. He wanted to get away, to get far away, and with the abrupt and total change in his humour he reverted to a period in his life when journalism and politics and the ambition of Congress were ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... of the field a fine-looking youth was driving a magnificent team of four pairs of young oxen, through whose somber coats glanced a ruddy, glow-like name. They had the short, curry heads that belong to the wild bull, the same large, fierce eyes and jerky movements; they worked in an abrupt, nervous way that showed how they still rebelled against the yoke and goad, and trembled with anger as they obeyed the authority so recently imposed. They were what is called "newly yoked" oxen. The man who drove ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... you will easily pardon an abrupt conclusion. I believe, by this time, you are ready to fear I would ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... abrupt close of the story the children looked not a little surprised, nor did they manifest their usual eagerness to rush out of doors and instantly to reduce ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... were on their feet and gazing to northeast, that far down the valley a horseman was speeding like the wind, that little puffs of smoke were rising from the crests of the grand landmark of the range and floating into the blue of the heavens. Both started to their feet at the abrupt announcement. ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... finishing with a specimen of a dispute in the Socratic method; and soon after I procured Xenophon's Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there are many instances of the same method. I was charmed with it, adopted it, dropped my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter. And being then, from reading Shaftesbury and Collins, become a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine, I found ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... As abrupt in his conclusion as in his commencement and progress, he jerked this inquiry at Edwin, and stopped when one might have supposed him in ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... speaker was abrupt, "I was afraid! I saw pictures, I heard things— I couldn't sleep For the Beast that was abroad— Fear! That's what ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... far from easy, and as she descended the dark steep stairs she came to an abrupt decision. Something was wrong and despite the hirelings of Starr Wiley ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... by. Again, in view of the threats of an abrupt termination of the colloquy, the Huguenot ministers petitioned Charles to give them a patient hearing; reminding him of the distance they had come—some of their number even from foreign lands, relying on his royal word for a friendly interview with ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... with his had touched upon the hidden rifles, and the abrupt digression was no digression to her, reached by the span ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... then he would make you repeat in a very loud tone what he had heard perfectly well before. However, he was really deaf in a slight degree. At other times he would overwhelm you with such rapid and abrupt interrogatories, that you had not time to understand him, and were compelled to give your answers in confusion. He used then to laugh at your embarrassment; and when he had driven you out of your presence of mind and confidence, he amused himself ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... at once my speaking, with panting and labour of breath and voice. Not to fall upon the main too sudden, but to induce and intermingle speech of good fashion. To use at once upon entrance given of speech, though abrupt, to compose and draw in myself. To free myself at once from payt. (?) of formality and compliment, though with some show of ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... knowledge of any other, does not confess to it. As for Sheridan, his corps was scattered over a wide area, its duty to guard the left flank and all the trains, and he was not present in person when Custer put an abrupt stop to Rosser's impetuous advance. It is now known that he was so hampered by interference from army headquarters that his plans miscarried, and the relations between himself and his immediate superior became so strained that the ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... a higher key; others will be lower. Some will have lengthened vowel sound, and will be more continuous or sustained, so that groups of successive words seem to run on one unbroken tone; others will be abrupt and irregular. Some will be rapid, some slow; some light, others weighty; some affected by long pauses, others by no pause, and some will be done in a dry, matter-of- fact, or precise, or commonplace, or familiar manner, others will be touched with feeling, colored ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... every least detail. It was about six P. M., when we found ourselves in line, under cover of a long, thin row of scrubby trees, beyond which lay a gentle slope, from which, again, rose a hill rather more abrupt, and crowned with an earthwork. We received orders to cross this space, and take the fort in front, while a brigade on our right was to make a like movement on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... the rhythmic pulse, during the measure allotted to the cadence-chord, that the desired dual impression,—that of cadential interruption without actual cessation,—is secured. It is like rounding off a corner that might otherwise be too angular or abrupt. ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... under the warm sun; it is a delight wholly physical,—pure sensation. A quick taking of the breath, the escape of a sigh, inarticulate and uncritical, are the only expression we can find at that instant for what we feel: as when an abrupt turn of the road spreads out before us a landscape of which we had not dreamed, or we enter for the first time the presence of the Apollo Belvedere. We know simply that we are pleased. But after nerves have ceased to tingle so acutely, we begin to think; and we ...
— The Enjoyment of Art • Carleton Noyes
... proprieties, and then Wilbraham Hall rang with the laughter of a joke which the next day had become the common precious property of all the Five Towns. When the aged rector had restored his flock to a sense of decency Mr. Emanuel Prockter had vanished. In that laughter his career as a singer reached an abrupt and final conclusion. The concert also came to an end. And the collection, by which the divine always terminated these proceedings, was the largest in the history ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... with an abrupt movement and bent over the lamp to light his pipe. "They told you the truth," he said, with a certain reluctance, his face hidden by a cloud of smoke. "Pourtant, I ride with you to-night." There was a note of brusque finality ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... great mistake, Mrs. Davis. People do him injustice. He has one of the kindest, warmest hearts I ever knew, though sometimes he is rather abrupt in his manner. If you prefer it, however, I will see your doctor. Good-bye; I ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... essay. It is literally a rock-ladder, and is the only locality in the wide sweep of the Cirque affording the means of ascent. The rugged strata, which are here vertical, serve as steps in which one can insert the toes and fingers; but as the guidebook truly says: 'It is as abrupt as the ascent of a ladder; and wide spaces of smooth rock often intervene without any notch or projection offering a foothold. To those who cannot look down a sheer precipice many hundred feet deep without a tendency to giddiness, there is danger in this escalade, as well as ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... to Hartlib when the London plan came to an abrupt end, and Comenius transferred himself to Sweden. Thither we must follow him, for yet one other passage of his history before we leave him:— "Conveyed to Sweden in August of the year 1642," proceeds Comenius, "I found my ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... all right now!" she said, with an abrupt return to the boyish, prosaic air that he found utterly adorable. "I have exploded. I'm hungry. Let's go back and make supper. It's your turn to talk. Tell me how you got here in advance of us, you wonderful man! And Mary——!" She stopped short and ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... she ran down to tell the cook, and the two women with the coachman came up into the hall and listened to the dispute which was still raging. They all agreed that only two voices were to be heard, those of Barclay and of his wife. Barclay's remarks were subdued and abrupt, so that none of them were audible to the listeners. The lady's, on the other hand, were most bitter, and when she raised her voice could be plainly heard. 'You coward!' she repeated over and over again. 'What can be done now? What can be done now? Give me ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... Mrs. Walker, it was the latter who gave the signal for withdrawing to the lady of the house, by saying, "I think, Lady Thrum, it is quite time for us to retire." Some exquisite joke of Mr. Slang's was the cause of this abrupt disappearance. But, as they went upstairs to the drawing-room, Lady Thrum took occasion to say, "My dear, in the course of your profession you will have to submit to many such familiarities on the part of persons of low breeding, such as I fear Mr. Slang is. But let me caution you against ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... children, the confidant of her affection and ambition, has passed from life into immortality, and lies below, dumb, cold murdered. The feeling of sympathy for Mrs. Lincoln is as wide-spread as the regret for the chief magistrate. Whatever indiscretions she may have committed in the abrupt transition from plainness to power are now forgiven and forgotten. She and her sons are the property of the nation associated with its truest glories and its worst bereavement. By and by the guests drop in, hat in hand, wearing upon their sleeves waving crape; and some ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... for the time being, acknowledging almost complete defeat. There was only a single consoling thought. At least, he had talked with her intimately concerning his affairs. With an abrupt change of manner, she stood up listlessly, and spoke in such a fashion as might become an old-fashioned wife, although her voice ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... splendour of leafage it will be in the summer! Those four on the right are chestnuts, and those far away, lying between us and the imperial downs, are elms; through that vista you can see the grand line, the abrupt hollows, and the bit of chalk road cut zig-zag out of the steep side. Then why the anomaly of Italian urns and pilasters; why not red Elizabethan gables ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... with nervous excitement Jane leaned out the window to listen and watch. She could hear the running feet of both men just around the corner. What was happening? The running feet came to an abrupt stop. There was a half-smothered cry, a sharp thud, like a body striking the pavement, and then came silence. Puzzled, vaguely alarmed, a hundred questions came pouring into her brain and lingered there disturbingly. ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... reported to the Secretary of War, and was received with a cordiality that went far to remove from my mind the impression I had got from others, that Mr. Stanton was abrupt and unpleasant to approach. Both on this occasion and later, he was as affable as could be expected of a man driven with incessant and importunate duties of state. In the intervals of my constant visits to the railway offices (for getting ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... incident. Many men would have concealed their disquietude by an affectation of sudden appetite, or by bullying the waiter, or by abrupt departure from the scene. I did neither. I felt I had a right to be confused, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... fellow man as he ploughed the deep, under the black flag of piracy, with the motto of "Rob, Kill, and Burn." After adjusting the rope, a signal was given. The body dropped heavily, and the harsh abrupt shock must have instantly deprived him of sensation, as there was no voluntary action of the hands afterwards. Thus terminated his career of crime in a foreign land without one friend to recognize or cheer him, or a single ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... The abrupt evaporation distracted her. Before her the desert lay, but in it now was her father. She had been going to him. Previously, she had thought that, when she did go, her hands would be filled with gifts. Instead they were bruised, bare to the bone. They would madden him and she wondered whether ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... whom? Who are these that Vaucelas says he dare not name? Can you suggest another than..." He paused, shrinking in horror from completing the utterance of his thought. Then, with an abrupt gesture, he went on, "... ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... somewhat abrupt summons, Miss Duncan," she said, motioning her to a chair, "but something has occurred which renders it imperative that I should speak collectively to ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... she was good at tennis and swimming and geometry; she had small patience with poetry and sentiment. But within the athletic and straightforward flapper Forbes thought he saw the fluttering of deeper womanhood; the maiden soul erecting a barrier of abrupt common sense about itself to conceal the shy and sensitive feelings that were beginning to blossom. Such at any rate was Kenneth Forbes's psycho-analysis, and he developed his chapter toward a climax where Kathleen ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... shock (I almost dare to call it a relief) to come back to the males. It is the more abrupt because the first name that must be mentioned derives directly from the mere maleness of the Sterne and Smollett novel. I have already spoken of Dickens as the most homely and instinctive, and therefore probably the heaviest, of all ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... surface, which at times struck out sparks and flame from their heavier footprints as they passed. Their boots crackled and scorched beneath them; their shreds of clothing were on fire; their breathing became more difficult, until, providentially, they fell upon an abrupt, fissure-like depression of the soil, which the fire had leaped, and into which they blindly plunged and rolled together. A moment of relief and coolness followed, as they crept along the fissure, filled with damp ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... side of the valley were abrupt, and frequently obtruded themselves in rocky prominences into its bosom, lessening the width to half the usual dimensions. One of these projections was but a short distance in the rear of the squadron ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... met us; he was in a cotton suit walking about among his flowers and enjoying the evening. He was a man of about fifty, short, strong, brown, and abrupt. Though it was already evening and one could see little, we knew well enough that his eyes were steady and dark. For he had the attitude and carriage of those men who invigorate France. His self-confidence was evident in his sturdy legs and his arms ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... The abrupt transition from the shadows of the between-world to the glare of gas-light, from the communion of spirits to the brisk business-like tones of Dr. Hull, was quite too much for the poor lady, and with a piteous gesture, she buried her face in ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... dropp'd the leg, from her slack hand released: The mingled fluids from the base redound; The vase reclining floats the floor around! Smiles dew'd with tears the pleasing strife express'd Of grief, and joy, alternate in her breast. Her fluttering words in melting murmurs died; At length abrupt—"My son!—my ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... position. At this western end the island descended gently into the water, and the shoal which it formed extended for miles away. It was this shoal that caused the long rollers that came over them so vehemently, and in such marked contrast with the more abrupt waves of ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... compliment played no insignificant part. To Brant, as he marked the heightened color flushing her fair cheeks, the experience brought back fond memories of his last cadet ball at the Point, and he hesitated to break the mystic spell with abrupt questioning. Curiosity, however, finally ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... we were not strangers at all. I suppose it is what they call mesmerism. He had that soft, delightful way of speaking, and gentle mannerism. There was nothing abrupt or new about him. He seemed, somehow, to become part of the life of any one in whom he chose to interest himself in the slightest. And he talked so delightfully, Arnold. I cannot tell you how kind he ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... His manner was abrupt, his voice curt. Conniston felt a trifle ill at ease under the man's piercing gaze, which seemed to be ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... Randal. "Let me give you a caution. I have just informed you that Madame di Negra will have, what you suspected not before, a fortune suitable to her birth; any abrupt change in your manner at present might induce her to believe that you were influenced ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... away, and get my own living, if you please," was Christie's abrupt beginning, as they sat round ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... abrupt, almost startling. She felt as if some one had touched her, though she realised In a moment that this was impossible; for she was still alone. No one was in sight. Only from the arbour a few feet away there came the sound of voices, and the ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... Then, without abrupt change, he talked of Austria's late woes. Had he but commanded his country's ships at Lissa! Could he but have risked his life at Sadowa! And moreover, he was still needed over there. But in some quick recollection a moisture dimmed the blue eyes. He drew from ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... led inland towards abrupt hills, which looked like a wall of darkness. It was lit by the round street lamps, the luminous globules with Chinese letters on them which had pleased Geoffrey first at Nagasaki. The road entered a gorge between two precipices, ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... table finishing a bowl of punch. One of these was stout, elderly, and irascible, with a face like a full moon, well dyed with liquor, thick tremulous lips, a short, purple hand, in which he brandished a long pipe, and an abrupt and gobbling utterance. This was my Lord Windermoor. In his companion Nance beheld a younger man, tall, quiet, grave, demurely dressed, and wearing his own hair. Her glance but lighted on him, and ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Abrupt and unprefaced as her speech was, it scarcely produced the effect she had expected it would. Her charge neither flinched nor reddened. He laid a weak, rough hand upon her dress with a feebly pleading touch. "Dunnot yo' turn agen me," he whispered: ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... periods of writing; but upon this basis more or less of change is continually supervening. So that he has various distinct styles, corresponding to his different stages of ripeness in his work. These variations, to be sure, are nowise abrupt: the transition from one to another is gradual and insensible, proceeding by growth, not by leaps: but still, after an interval of six or seven years, the difference becomes clearly marked. It will suffice ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... contracts sold at twenty-two and one-quarter cents—a new high price record, that was not exceeded for thirty-two years, when twenty-four and sixty-five hundredths cents were paid for July contracts in June, 1919. After reaching twenty-two and one-quarter cents, prices suffered an abrupt reversal. Ten days later the closing price for December was twenty-one and four-tenth cents. Then the real crash began. On Saturday, June 11, the panic started with another claim of cable trouble; and ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... intended to have continued this commentary there can be no doubt, not only from the abrupt termination of his labours, and the blank paper following the manuscript, but from an observation he makes on the sabbath—the sabbath of years, the jubilee, &c., "of all which, more in their place, IF GOD PERMIT." See ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... thicket which overhung the road. How often, as a cloud obscured for an instant the moon's light, and threw a transitory shade across the path, did her heart bound with the thought that her watching was at an end! It was he whom she had seen start from the abrupt rock! They were the folds of his tartan that darkened the white cliff! But the moon again rolled through her train of clouds and threw her light around. Where then was her Wallace? Alas! it was ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... letter in a series (and the series often includes as many as six or eight) should be simply a reminder. Drastic measures should not be taken until they are necessary, and at no time should the letters become abrupt or insulting. In the first place, it is ungentlemanly to write such letters, in the second it antagonizes the debtor, and if he gets angry enough he feels that it is hardly an obligation to pay the money; ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... Goneril's eyes. Was it so hard to grow old? This doubt made her voice loudest of all in the chorus of mutual praise and thanks which covered the song's abrupt finale. ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... This turns and breaks the furrow slice. The degree to which the mouldboard pulverizes depends on the steepness of its slant upward and the abruptness of its curve sidewise. The steeper it is and the more abrupt the curve, the greater is its pulverizing power. A steep, abrupt mouldboard is adapted to light soils and to the heavier soils when they are comparatively dry. This kind of a plow is apt to puddle a clay ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich |
