"Abruptness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mad, and Honor shot him," Desmond answered, with cool abruptness. Her manner of parting from Kresney had set the blood throbbing in his temples. "I only had a stick to tackle him with; and she very pluckily came ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... better acquainted with his brother's character than Newton, took no notice of the abruptness of his remarks, ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Basset. There was nothing passive about her; every thing was of the most active type, and the mood in which she chiefly lived was the imperative. While really under the common height of women, in some mysterious way she appeared much taller than she was. Her motions were quick even to abruptness: her speech sincere even to bluntness. Every body who knew her loved her dearly, yet every body would have liked to alter her character a little. Generally speaking, she seemed to take no part in those softer feminine feelings supposed ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... expression of her face veiled, but there seemed no response, no softening in the rigid attitude of her figure. She did not care; was only interested in his immediate departure. The change had occurred with such abruptness, West was unable as yet to realize its full significance, but, with no attempt to combat her decision, left the room, closing the door behind him. In that moment his mood changed. The dismissal had been so curt, his pride rose in rebellion. Finding Sexton ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... the edge of comparatively still water. At the bottom of the falls the river turns an acute angle and flows to the west. At the landing it turns with equal abruptness, and ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... train kept impersonally on across the meadows, I could not but see that her bags were many and looked heavy, and twice she set them down to rearrange. I think a ghost of the road could have done no less than ask to help her. And I did this with an abruptness of which I am unwilling master, though indeed I had no need to assume impatience, for I saw that my quiet ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... that illustrate his points effectively and illumined by a sense of humor which some of his friends regard as his most salient trait. His manner is marked by extreme courtesy and, in view of the fixity of his opinions, a surprising lack of abruptness or dogmatism. But he has never been able to capitalize such personal advantages in his political relations. Apart from his intimates he is shy and reserved. The antithesis of Roosevelt, who loved to ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... help it," interrupted Damia with decisive abruptness. "He can do nothing to save his mother, any more than you can help being a child of twenty and bound to hold your tongue till your opinion ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... accounted for," the doctor replied, "by the abruptness of the mountains which face the Bay of Bengal, from which they are separated by low swamps and marshes. The winds arrive among the hills heavily charged with the vapor they have absorbed from the wide expanse of the Indian Ocean. ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... his adieux with an agreeable abruptness, not caring to prolong the dinner question. Such men as he tell lies without stint upon occasion; but the men are few to whom it is actually congenial to lie. He was glad to get away even from the woman he loved, and the sense of shame was strong ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... abruptness here, and the author's observations are apt and sound; but the fact remains that they are not essential and so a strict observance of conventions requires ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... with a certain abruptness which to a careful observer might have indicated that the question cost ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... at ease, St. John dropped the concentrated abruptness of his manner, and explained that Bennett was a man who lived in an old windmill six miles out of Cambridge. He lived the perfect life, according to St. John, very lonely, very simple, caring only for the truth of things, ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... the next morning, when the captain came into the room, and she told him Guy was gone to settle their plans with Arnaud. After lingering a little by the window, Philip turned, and with more abruptness than was ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the mountain; they are deep and narrow, craggy, wild, bare. Each, when the snows are melting, becomes the bed of a furious torrent; the watercourses uniting below to form the river of the valley. At this season there was a mere trickling of water over a dry brown waste. Where the abruptness of the descent does not render it impossible, olives have been planted on the mountain sides; the cactus clings everywhere, making picturesque many a wall and hovel, luxuriating on the hard, dry soil; fig trees and vines occupy more favoured spots, and the gardens of the better houses are often ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... Abruptness has reference to the relative suddenness with which syllables may be uttered. It may vary from the most delicate opening to a ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... departure. In fact, she had left the house in the morning, on foot, and was expected back, as usual, to luncheon after her walk. But luncheon passed, and there were no tidings of her; and, at dinner-time, a brief note by the post announced her leave-taking, excusing its abruptness, on the ground of a sudden and urgent call into the country. This was, no doubt, the subject which the angry shadows on the blinds had been so vehemently discussing the night before. So violent an infraction of etiquette would have pained me seriously had it occurred under any other circumstances, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... were at a distance where their voices would not reach the girl in the glade, the Ranger said with angry abruptness, "Now, sir, perhaps you will tell me who you are and what you mean by spying upon a couple ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... wood parted and Bob hurtled backward off the rock where he had been standing and landed in a snow-drift; while Van, much to his astonishment, sat down with abruptness in ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... which John Steele had unconsciously stepped, the sound of a familiar voice and the appearance of a well-known stocky form broke in, with startling abruptness, on the dark train ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... in behalf of Mr. T., and conducted himself with the greatest propriety on the occasion of his calling upon Messrs. Q. G. and S. They happened at that moment to be engaged in matters of the highest importance; which will, they trust, explain any appearance of abruptness they might have exhibited towards that gentleman. Perhaps Mr. Titmouse will be so obliging as to intimate ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... placed a small case about nine inches square in the hands of Gerard Douw, who was as much amazed at its weight as at the strange abruptness with which it was handed to him. In accordance with the wishes of the stranger, he delivered it into the hands of Schalken, and repeating his direction, despatched ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... only that, but he seemed to be watching Jack himself. So startling was his appearance, that the youth shrank back, allowing the vegetation to close in front of his face. This was done with a certain abruptness, which (if he was right in his suspicion), was unfortunate, since the action would be the more noticeable to the Pawnee. Then Jack stealthily parted the leaves ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... although they are in a minority; and the play is concluded by the precipitate marriage of his daughter with Colonel Promise. Mr. Fustian, the Tragic Author, who, with Mr. Sneerwell the Critic, is one of the spectators of the rehearsal, demurs to the abruptness with which this ingenious catastrophe is brought about, and inquires where the preliminary action, of which there is not the slightest evidence in the piece itself, has taken place. Thereupon Trapwit, the Comic Author, replies as ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... ocean of anticipation that surged and swelled within me, so that I was utterly unable to sit still, for sheer joy; and my soul began as it were to dance in such excitement, that I could hardly refrain from shouting, resembling one intoxicated by the abruptness of a sudden change from certain death to the very apex of life's sweetness. And I said to myself: Sunset! So, then, beyond a doubt, she has either forgiven me, or is willing to forgive. And who knows? ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... of destruction and desolation, must have sunk deep into the heart of the sick child, and produced the condition shown by this entry when she was a few years older: 'When I came in, past 7 at night, my wife met me in the Entry and told me Betty had surprised them. I was surprised with the Abruptness of the Relation. It seems Betty Sewall had given some signs of dejection and sorrow; but a little while after dinner she burst into an amazing cry which caus'd all the family to cry too. Her mother ask'd the Reason, she gave none; at ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... "The Man Out of Work," is very brief, but apparently not the effort of a tyro. It would probably hold the attention even if it were much longer and we are almost inclined to regret its extreme abruptness. Nevertheless, it is complete as it stands and an artistic whole. "Still At It," by Mr. Lindquist, gives us interesting information regarding the editor and also some sound advice as to finding congenial employment. Mr. Lindquist seems to be a philosopher whose practise ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... She stopped with unconscious abruptness, her mind plainly wandering to another matter; and Mary perceived that she had come upon a definite errand. Moreover, a tensing of Sibyl's eyelids, in that moment of abstraction as she looked aside from her hostess, indicated that the errand ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... step, crossed the apartment to where stood the youth. Her eye was quick and searching—her words broken, but with an impetuous flow, indicating the anxiety which, while it accounted for, sufficiently excused the abruptness of her address, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... was the principal apartment of the burgomaster's house, which was one of the pleasantest in Quiquendone. Built in the Flemish style, with all the abruptness, quaintness, and picturesqueness of Pointed architecture, it was considered one of the most curious monuments of the town. A Carthusian convent, or a deaf and dumb asylum, was not more silent than this mansion. Noise ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... key of spontaneous apology, with a very zealous inflection of concern—yet, at the same time, with a kind of entirely respectful and amiable abruptness, as of one hailing a familiar friend,—were pronounced in a breath by a ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... the point at last with startling abruptness, so much so that for a moment or two his listeners sat almost petrified by the bad news, and unable to say a word. The lawyer finished what he had ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... bathed his wounds, made much of him, idealised him. She had done what any uneducated street woman would have done for "her man." And now she had suddenly come to feel as if there had always been an emptiness in her life, as if Fritz never had, never could fill it. The abruptness of the onset of this new feeling confused her. She did not know that a woman could be subject to a change of this kind. She did not understand it, realise what it portended, what would result from ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... kept it as sacred as her memory," he said thickly. "She will recall what I spoke of you when she gave it me. You have been leal and true to me indeed, and many a black hour have you tided me over since this war' began. Do you know how she may be directed to?" he concluded, with abruptness. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... composed manner, she proceeded; "It was but this morning that Don Antonio arrived, when my father immediately proceeded to announce the purport of his visit. My amazement at first knew no bounds; I remonstrated on the abruptness of the proposal, and endeavoured, by gentle expostulation, to ward off the threatening blow. But my entreaties, and my tears were in vain. My father, strenuously bent on the accomplishment of his wishes, left me the only ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... With characteristic abruptness Liane Delorme announced that she was sleepy, it had been for her a most fatiguing day. Captain Monk rang for the stewardess and gallantly escorted the lady to her door. Lanyard got up with Phinuit to bow her out, but instead of following her suit helped himself ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... I thought how frequently I had myself been on the verge of that state which Curzon was about to try, and how it always happened that when nearest to success, failure had intervened. From my very school-boy days my love adventures had the same unfortunate abruptness in their issue; and there seemed to be something very like a fatality in the invariable unsuccess of my efforts at marriage. I feared, too, that my friend Curzon had placed himself in very unfortunate hands—if augury were to be relied upon. Something will surely ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... my dear," said Miss Rogers, with harsh abruptness, "I am afraid I am living in this house under ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... in their soft elaborateness. All at once he put on the cynic's cloak, and went to the other extreme. Still in spite of an abrupt and cynical tone he kept much of his old art of elaborate fine speeches, and particularly in his relations with women.[222] Of his abruptness, he tells a most displeasing tale. "One day Rousseau told us with an air of triumph, that as he was coming out of the opera where he had been seeing the first representation of the Village Soothsayer, ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... its very childishness,—under cover of this naive device from time to time a hapless girl escaped the fatal burst of his wrath. Midway in the rising storm of curses and abuse he would turn with comical abruptness to the attractive interruption with all the zest of a scholar. I often trembled lest he should see through the thinly covered trick, but he never did. On his return from the prince's palace, however, even this innocent stratagem failed us; and on one occasion of my having recourse ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... the girl's rosy cheek, then swiftly turned the talk to linen and lace. Always quick to observe, Juliet had acquired little graces of tone and manner, softened her abruptness, and, guided by loving tact, had begun to bloom like a primrose in a ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... replied Fisher, with a very unusual abruptness, and even bitterness. "It's what I do know that isn't worth knowing. All the seamy side of things, all the secret reasons and rotten motives and bribery and blackmail they call politics. I needn't be so proud of having been down all these sewers ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... spoke, with his strange, humorous, arrogant abruptness, I observed Jim to be sizing him up, like a thing at once quaint and familiar, and with a scrutiny that was ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... quite separately and in no fixed order or relation, they present a medley of the most glaring contrasts, with nothing in common, except that they one and all affect us in particular. There must be a corresponding abruptness in the thoughts and anxieties which these various matters arouse in us, if our thoughts are to be in keeping with their various subjects. Therefore, in setting about anything, the first step is to withdraw our attention from everything else: this will enable us to attend to ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... interjected Gardiner, with momentary abruptness. "It was a chance a minute ago; it's a certainty now. It's the cinch of ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... asked the lady, with not a little abruptness, for the best bred are not always the ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... detailed all that he knew, displaying considerable irritation in the process. This attitude of ignorance and innocence nettled him. He wound up with a soldier-like abruptness. ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... polite platitudes of a guest's farewell with some abruptness, bowed once more, and turned away across the old stone ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... the abruptness still remains an almost insoluble problem, though a forecast of floral structure is now recognised in some Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous plants. But the gap between this and the structural complexity and diversity of angiosperms ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... answered with intentional abruptness; "then the servants' room—you won't make a noise, will you? or you'll wake them up. Bathroom, spare room, my own room, smoking-room. No, the limits of my unconventionality are soon reached; you can finish your soda-water in the ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... smarting skin and aching muscles. Fishing was a miserable business, and he wanted no part of it; on that he was fully decided. But even if a job is unpleasant, a man would rather resign than be discharged. Jim's abruptness hurt his pride; ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... his abruptness: "One sweet day — A feast of Holy Virgin, in the month Of May, at early morn, ere yet the dew Had passed from off the flowers and grass — ere yet Our nuns had come from holy Mass — there came, With summons quick, unto our convent gate ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... nature to the Devil's Postpile, but vastly greater in size and sensational quality, forms one of the most striking natural spectacles east of the Rocky Mountains. The Devil's Tower is unique. It rises with extreme abruptness from the rough Wyoming levels just west of the Black Hills. It is on the banks of the Belle Fourche River, which later, encircling the Black Hills around the north, finds its way into the Big ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... acquaintance in an irregular way, to be sure; but Cleer hadn't happened to be close by when her father uttered those strange words to his wife, "It was he who did it; it was he who killed our boy"; nor did she notice particularly the marked abruptness of Tyrrel's departure on that unfortunate occasion. So she had no such objection to meeting the two young men as Trevennack himself not unnaturally displayed; she regarded his evident avoidance of Walter Tyrrel as merely one of "Papa's fancies." To Cleer, Papa's fancies ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... first to go. He had made less effort to disguise his preoccupation than any of us, and now his exit had something of abruptness, as if he could no longer bear to maintain any further semblance of disguise. One could only infer from the manner of his going that he passionately desired either solitude or the sole companionship of those with whom he could speak plainly ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... strove for the Nelson. He was jabbing Jumbo's head and trying to shove it down within reach of his right hand. Suddenly, with a surprising abruptness, Jumbo's head was not there,—he had jerked it quickly to one side,—and Ware's hand slipped down and almost touched the floor. But the watchful Jumbo had seized Ware's wrist with both hands, and returned to the big fellow the compliment of ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... moment Diego suddenly presented himself, and apologizing for the abruptness of his entrance, accounted for it by saying that Sarah Swarton besought a word with his Lordship. She brought a message, he added, from Lady Roos, who was much worse, and not finding his Lordship at his own residence had ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... fixedly, fascinated by a new idea which had crept upon his mind with startling abruptness. His one idea was to get away for a vital two ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... a certain gruff abruptness, the Master informed the doctor, outside the door of the sitting-room, that his resources were reduced to less than half the amount mentioned, and that there were bills owing. The doctor looked grave for a moment, and then shrugged his shoulders again. ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... passer, however. He planted in Terence Reardon's face as pretty a left and right—hay-makers both—as one could hope to see anywhere outside a prize-ring; whereupon the chief took the count with great abruptness. The fireman reached for the monkey wrench—and at that instant the weak, pale-faced skipper lurched around the corner of the house and his automatic commenced ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... in melodiously, "Dark as pitch;" and so the peal continued to come round like a catch, the whole being so well concerted, and the rolling fire so well sustained, that it was impossible to make head against it; while the abruptness of the interruption gave to it the protecting character of an oral "round robin," it being impossible to challenge any one in particular as the ring-leader. Burke's phrase of "the swinish multitude," applied to mobs, was then in every body's mouth; and, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... falling off. Though always promptly on hand at the serving out of rations, Mr. O'Rourke did not even make a pretence of working in the garden. He would disappear mysteriously immediately after breakfast, and reappear with supernatural abruptness at dinner. Nobody knew what he did with himself in the interval, until one day he was observed to fall out of an apple-tree near the stable. His retreat discovered, he took to the wharves and the alleys in the distant part of ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of earnest politics, of good company, wrapped in his own scheming, not impulsive, doing nothing beyond that which he intended, without abruptness, without hard words, discreet, accurate, learned, talking smoothly of a necessary massacre, a slaughterer, because it ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... to have greeted him as though she had not noticed the abruptness of his departure from Arles. It was generous of her to have clipped out the newspaper advertisement and to have called his attention to it. He mentally apologized to her for ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... platforms of considerable elevation. The enormous pressure of the water on their sides enables these mid-oceanic islands to stand with slopes varying from the perpendicular to a smaller extent than if they were sub-aerial; and it is on this account that we find them rising with such extraordinary abruptness from ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull
... of quietly moving water. The roof of his own house was a patch of gray and the canopy of his own tree a spot of green beneath him. At one end, the ledge on which he stood broke away in a precipice that dropped two hundred feet, in sheer and perpendicular abruptness, to a rock-strewn gorge below. Elsewhere it shelved off into the steep slope down ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... keeping the same rhythm, there was space for both to swing at the same time. Dolly swayed back and forth three times, and then burst into tears. "He has left me, Auntie; Goosie is gone; ooh-ooh!" The aunt's chair ceased rocking with an abruptness that made their knees bump. Dolly's chair stopped; she looked at her aunt in astonishment. Aunt Hester was sitting up very straight. "Do you mean to say," she began, and then paused as though unable to believe the evidence; "do you mean to say," she went on, "do ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... said, "you will excuse the abruptness of my manner in our late interview. I was so little prepared for the communication you had to make, that I was, perhaps, unsuitably discomposed. Will you allow me to ask whether you were requested by any of the parties to communicate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... spoken of Maria in this way. Even her voice seemed to be changed. Instead of betraying the usual angry abruptness, her tones coldly indicated impenetrable contempt. In the silence that ensued, she looked up, and saw Carmina's eyes resting on her anxiously ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... weak. No sign did Otto give of his discovery, although his heart seemed to jump into his mouth. He did not even check or alter the tone of his conversation, but he changed the subject with surprising abruptness. He had brought up one of the dinghy's oars on his shoulder as a sort of plaything or vaulting-pole. Suddenly, asking Pauline if she had ever seen him balance an oar on his chin, he proceeded to perform the feat, much to her amusement. In doing ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... brown eyes, smooth dark hair, parted in the middle, a rather bright colour and features of the classic type. Her chin was rather long, and she had a brilliant, sudden smile, and all the attractive freshness and slight abruptness of her age, with an occasionally subdued air, caused by the shadow that had fallen on their youth by the death of their beautiful mother. Her gentle grace and touch of premeditated naivete made her charming. Beyond question she would be ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... star voyager. We are not so unlike as the foolish might think. We learned much of you while you both wandered in the Place of False Dreams. But our power disks are our own and can not be given to a stranger while their owners live. However...." She turned again with an abruptness foreign to the usual Wyvern manner ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... new Unitarian church of Baltimore, he would break forth now and then with something which really seemed unpremeditated,—something he had been surprised into saying in spite of himself, as where he finishes a picture of Moses on Mount Nebo, after a fashion both startling and effective in its abruptness, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... or indeed any opportunity of continuing his unpleasant execution, for the enraged Lord Mayor had seized the wide ends of the sailor's trousers and had dragged him down with such abruptness and goodwill that the over-venturesome son of Neptune, dropping his knife, lay upon the ground volunteering expressions which at least had the merit of showing that his travels must have been indeed varied and extensive to ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... THE abruptness with which we were compelled to conclude this history, may render it necessary to make a few explanations. Indeed, we fancy we ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... and one day he began to speak openly upon the subject. He had attributed her silence, I believe, to a bashful feeling of inferiority in rank; for her face was so intelligent and full of meaning, that he did not divine its real cause, so he said, with a certain gentle abruptness which became ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... but half muffled up in a cloak, and armed with a stout bludgeon. Much as he had just now been wishing for some guide, he yet could not congratulate himself on so unpropitious a rencontre. The stranger's dress and unceremonious greeting were not more suspicious than the abruptness of his appearance: for Bertram felt convinced that he must have way-laid him. Assuming however as much composure as he could, he demanded in a ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... her at Saint Omer, and there accordingly Brougham met her. Whether he was very urgent in his advice to her to accept the terms it is not easy to know; but, at all events, it is quite certain that she refused point-blank to make any concessions, that she left Brougham with positive abruptness, and hastened on her way to England. Among her most confidential advisers was Alderman Wood, the head of a great firm in the City of London, a leading man in the corporation of the City, and a member of the House ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... would of course marry his employer's daughter. As she faced him across the table, the pink light of the candle-shade adding to the glow of health in her pretty cheeks, she caused him to start by the abruptness with which she said:— ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... here, Fenn?" he asked, with an abruptness which brought a flush to the latter's face. "Why are you ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... long legs walks with his hands resting on Ramuntcho's shoulder. Interested and ardent for success, since the sum has been agreed upon, Itchoua whispers in Ramuntcho's ear imperious advices. Like Arrochkoa, he wishes to act with stunning abruptness, in the surprise of a first interview which will occur in the evening, as late as the rule of a convent will permit, at an uncertain and twilight hour, when the village shall have ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... replied Kostanzhoglo with grim abruptness and evident ill-humour. "You might either grow rich quickly or you might never grow rich at all. If you made up your mind to grow rich, sooner or later you would ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... held this language, you must suppose, my dear Tresham, a man aged about sixty, in a hunting suit which had once been richly laced, but whose splendour had been tarnished by many a November and December storm. Sir Hildebrand, notwithstanding the abruptness of his present manner, had, at one period of his life, known courts and camps; had held a commission in the army which encamped on Hounslow Heath previous to the Revolution—and, recommended perhaps by his religion, had been knighted about the same period by ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... can be so well-bred as Sir Clement Willoughby. He seems disposed to think that the alteration in my companions authorises an alteration in his manners. It is true, he has always treated me with uncommon freedom, but never before with so disrespectful an abruptness. This observation, which he has given me cause to make, of his changing with the tide, has sunk him more in my opinion than any other ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... slender that the baggage was wet, and therefore it was necessary to abandon them, and go by land. They therefore crossed the plains, and at the distance of twelve miles came to the river, through a cold storm from the northeast, accompanied by showers of rain. The abruptness of the cliffs compelled them, after going a few miles, to leave the river and meet the storm in the plains. Here they directed their course too far northward, in consequence of which they did not meet the river till late at night, after having travelled ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... came suddenly the railway and the steamship, the former opening with extraordinary abruptness a series of vast through-routes for trade, the latter enormously increasing the security and economy of the traffic on the old water routes. For a time neither of these inventions was applied to the needs of intra-urban transit at all. For a time they were purely ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... the abruptness of the remark that caused the quick blush. She lowered her eyes. But all the same she said, ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... with grim reproach when she was shown into his study, and as soon as they were alone she began with her usual abruptness, "Mr. Douglas, why have you given up coming ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... frenzy, with convulsive shiverings and tremblings tears of his skin garments so that he is quite naked save for a girdle of eagle-claws about his thighs. His long black hair flies about his face. With an abruptness that is startling, he ceases all movement and stands erect, rigid. This is greeted with a low moaning ...
— The Acorn-Planter - A California Forest Play (1916) • Jack London
... was a thoughtless body. 'You must take it in hand yourself, Miss Garston,' he finished; 'keep it warm and clean, and see the food properly prepared: that will be better than any medicine.' And then he went off with his usual abruptness, only I saw him stop at the gate to give pennies ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... slackened my pace; but next moment regretted having done so: my companion did not speak; and I had nothing in the world to say, and feared he might be in the same predicament. At length, however, he broke the pause by asking, with a certain quiet abruptness peculiar to himself, ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... Jack," she said, a little startled at his abruptness. "Sometimes it seems so strange that he is dead—I scarcely can ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... celebrated for its abruptness, and plunging into the subject all at once[1184]. But such arts as these have no merit, unless when they are original. We admire them only once; and this abruptness has nothing new in it. We have had it often ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... you loved my wife before I married her," he said, with rude abruptness, that made his auditor rise from his chair, pale ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... mention that he who strikes a blow may hurt in many ways, in the first place by gesture, in the second place by look, in the third and last place by his tone." If you compare the words thus set down in logical sequence with the expressions of the "Meidias," you will see that the rapidity and rugged abruptness of passion, when all is made regular by connecting links, will be smoothed away, and the whole point and fire of the ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... [16] From the abruptness of this beginning, Virgil, probably, who has copied the story, took the hint of his ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... rise, clothed in smiles, into a region of the vague and bright. But the gratification was not more exquisite than it was brief. She looked away abruptly, and immediately began to blame herself for that abruptness. She knew what she should have done, too late - turned slowly with her nose in the air. And meantime his look was not removed, but continued to play upon her like a battery of cannon constantly aimed, and now seemed to isolate her alone with ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... superior the deadly nature of the animal, and my fear that he would have put his handkerchief in the pocket of his robe before I had time to prevent him, and begged him to excuse my seeming abruptness. ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... young Smith, he had believed Mary liked him very much, and, although he could not help feeling a guilty sense of relief because the danger that he and Zoeth might have to share her affections with someone else was, for the time at least, out of the way, he was puzzled and troubled by the abruptness of the dismissal. There was something, he felt sure, ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... still potent enough to divert the official attention, or he would have noticed the change in his visitor's face, and the abruptness of his departure. ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... technical language and arrangement; that he often bends the free and irregular outline of nature to the imposing but fallacious geometrical regularity of system; that he has chosen a style of affected abruptness, sententiousness, and vivacity, ill suited to the gravity of his subject: after all these concessions (for his fame is large enough to spare many concessions), the Spirit of Laws will still remain not only one of the most solid and durable monuments ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... characterless cat, a lymphatic nonentity. On occasion—usually in connection with food that was distasteful to him—he could have his resentments; but they were manifested always with a dignified restraint. His nearest approach to ill-mannered abruptness was to bat with a contemptuous paw the offending morsel from his plate; which brusque act he followed by fixing upon the bestower of unworthy food a coldly, but always politely, contemptuous stare. Ordinarily, however, his displeasure—in the matter of unsuitable food, or in other matters—was ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... doing here?" she asked, breathless. She never noticed that he had called her by name. The abruptness of her own question was evidently atoned for by some necessity the nature of which he had not yet entirely grasped. Yet a knowledge, gleaned too late from all the occurrences of the evening, leaped up within him ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... collision with men whom he would have been the first to own as God's faithful servants—with William Law, with the Moravians, with Whitefield and the Calvinists, and with several of the Evangelical parish clergymen. It also cannot be denied that he showed some abruptness—nay, rudeness—in his communications with some ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... to his men, deeply wounded in love and pride. He tried to excuse Marcia for her treatment of him, on the score of her youth and of youth's thoughtlessness; he blamed himself for his abruptness and his lack of knowledge of women—failings that had perhaps turned an impending victory into the defeat that now oppressed him. Worst of all, there was no hope to remedy his or her fault. A dangerous campaign lay before him, and the omens—but pshaw! he was not one of ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... would tell me what you really mean by that Greek idea of yours," he said with the abruptness ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... Doctor made no entry in any book of the subscriber's name, ventured diffidently to ask, whether he would please to have the gentleman's address, that it might be properly inserted in the printed list of subscribers. 'I shall print no list of subscribers;' said Johnson, with great abruptness: but almost immediately recollecting himself, added, very complacently, 'Sir, I have two very cogent reasons for not printing any list of subscribers;—one, that I have lost all the names,—the other, that I have ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... nothing can be fresher or more authentic than her records, taken down from the very lips of the red people as they sat around her fire and opened their hearts to her kindness. She has even caught their tone, and her language will be found to have something of an Ossianic simplicity and abruptness, well suited to the theme. Sympathy,—feminine and religious,—breathes through these pages, and the unaffected desire of the writer to awaken a kindly interest in the poor souls who have so twined themselves about her own best feelings, may be said to consecrate the work. In ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... face had gone red and white with such abruptness as to startle her. He was patently very angry. She sipped the last of her coffee, and ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... was evidently much surprised at my abruptness, said something hurriedly and rather sharply in answer, but I could not for the life of me mark what it was. I opened my eyes again, and looked towards the object that had before riveted my attention. It was neither more nor less ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... in the visitors' book at the Scoglio di Frisio? With a strange abruptness, with a flight that was instinctive as that of a homing pigeon, Hermione's mind went to that book as to a book of revelation. Just before he wrote he had been feeling acutely—something. She had been aware of that at the time. He had not wanted ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... With the returning warmth I begin to feel that I walk on soft carpets or on grass, I see sunshine, women, children.... The pictures change gradually, but more rapidly than they do in waking life, so that on awaking it is difficult to remember the transitions from one scene to another.... This abruptness is well brought out in your story, and increases the impression ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... shewing us the effect they produce on his feelings; and his poetry accordingly gives the same thrilling and overwhelming sensation, which is caught by gazing on the face of a person who has seen some object of horror. The improbability of the events, the abruptness and monotony in the Inferno, are excessive: but the interest never flags, from the continued earnestness of the author's mind. Dante's great power is in combining internal feelings with external objects. Thus the gate of hell, on which that withering inscription ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... answer to her look of surprise, I explained that I had begun to speak of Beasley at Mrs. Apperthwaite's, and described the abruptness with which Dowden ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... this abruptness; his tone only saved it from impertinence. The girl looked at him ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... up with an abruptness to which his elders seemed to be used. He stopped before a brass-trimmed desk and jerked at the second drawer. "Where are those ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... Reresby's Memoirs; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary. I have followed Luttrell's version of Temple's last words. It agrees in substance with Clarendon's, but has more of the abruptness natural on such an occasion. If anything could make so tragical an event ridiculous, it would be the lamentation of the author of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the many emotions that oppressed her, but after one or two glances at her face, which caused the old gentleman to scout at the idea of her refusing, he exclaimed with a fatherly benignity which sat oddly on his crusty abruptness: ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... inexplicable noise like an animal; in his shadowed face the eyes were shining queerly. A new and shrewd thought exploded silently in the other's mind. Was there another meaning in Saradine's blend of brilliancy and abruptness? Was the prince—Was he perfectly sane? He was repeating, "The wrong person—the wrong person," many more times than was ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... there among the decoys swam a dozen little ducks, their heads up, their brights eyes glancing suspiciously from one to another of their stolid wooden relations. Before Bobby could realize that they were there, they had made up their minds; and, with the same abruptness that had characterized their arrival, sprang into the air and departed. Not, however, before ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... islands of sandstone stand out above the green sea of doura or cotton; here and there a bay of fertility runs away up some lateral valley, following the course of the mud; but one inch above the inundation-mark vegetation and life stop short all at once with absolute abruptness. In Egypt, then, more than anywhere else, one sees with one's own eyes that mud and moisture are the very ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... friend was never known to keep a secret. There was evidently more than this in the discovery; and when my curiosity, provoked by his laughing silence, was naturally enough exhibiting itself in a "What on earth——?" he broke out with the abruptness of an Abernethy, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... more epoch-making than an assent to one of Frederica's industrious platitudes; he snuffled and fidgeted, eating scarcely at all, and repelling the reverential assiduities of the servants with shattering abruptness. ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... species of one formation all died out and were replaced by a brand-new set in the next formation. On the contrary, it is generally, if not universally, agreed that the succession of life has been, the result of a slow and gradual replacement of species by species; and that all appearances of abruptness of change are due to breaks in the series of deposits, or other changes in physical conditions. The continuity of living forms has been unbroken from the earliest times to the ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... "Dark as midnight;" then another female voice chimed in melodiously, "Dark as pitch;" and so the peal continued to come round like a catch, the whole being so well concerted, and the rolling fire so well sustained, that it was impossible to make head against it; whilst the abruptness of the interruption gave to it the protecting character of an oral "round robin," it being impossible to challenge any one in particular as the ringleader. Burke's phrase of "the swinish multitude," ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... with interest, they will talk of their own recollections of the dead, and listen to yours, though they become sometimes pleasant, sometimes even laughable. I found it so. It robbed the calamity of something of its supernatural and horrible abruptness; it prevented that monotony of object which is to the mind what it is to the eye, and prepared the faculty for those mesmeric ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... "it has been everything for me to see you." She slowly rose at the words, which might almost have conveyed to her the hint of his taking care. She stood there as if she had in fact seen him abruptly moved to dismiss her. But the abruptness would have been in this case so marked as fairly to offer ground for insistence to her imagination of his state. It would take her moreover, she clearly showed him she was thinking, but a minute or two to insist. Besides, she ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... the way out, Mr. Pitt," said the policeman, shortly. His manner was abrupt, but when one is speaking to a man whom one would dearly love to throw out of the window, abruptness is almost unavoidable. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... quite frankly while the patient ate his supper. Dud found that, although Helen used many Western idioms, and spoke with an abruptness that showed her bringing up among plain-spoken ranch people, she could, if she so desired, use "school English" with good taste, and gave other evidences in her conversation of being quite conversant with ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... can get along," replied Mandy, catching off her hat and gathering up her skirt over her shoulders, "but we'll have to hustle, for I'd hate to have you get, wet." Her imperturbable good humour and her solicitude for him rebuked Cameron for his abruptness. ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor |
