"Blunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... powerless. She stared straight before her, shivering, as she went over the scene she had just witnessed, her fingers picking nervously at the jade-green silk of her dress. She longed for some power that would deaden her feelings and blunt her capacity for suffering. She looked at Gaston with hard eyes when he came in. He had approved of what the Sheik had done, would have done it himself if he had been able. They ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... taken but by their own consent in parliament. But that the parliament was instituted to check and control the king, and share the supreme power, would in all former times have been esteemed very blunt and indiscreet, if not illegal language. We need not be surprised that governments should long continue, though the boundaries of authority in their several branches be implicit, confused, and undetermined. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... popularized the philosophers. Without the acute, electric perceptions of the great German or the industry and amiable vanities of that De Sevigne among philosophers, Cousin, he presented, by fierce dashes of his crayon, black, blunt, and bluff, to the hitherto ignorant British public, some phases of the great metaphysical bearings of the age upon Literature and Art, as developed in Teutonic poetry and prose. In a word, he familiarized his readers with the AEsthetik of Germany. He published in 1830 ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... partizanship confused the two, to the disadvantage of the secretary of state; the usual clatter that attends any important personage in a trivial scrape ensued; Mr. Gladstone's explanations, simple and veracious as the sunlight in their substance, were over-skilful in form, and half a dozen blunt, sound sentences would have stood him in far better stead. 'There was on my part in this matter,' he says in a fugitive scrap upon it, 'a singular absence of worldly wisdom.'[214] To colonial policy at this stage I discern no particular contribution, and the matters that I have named ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... popular with the little girls." He did not see a single girl playing with a doll, and thinks the articles collected may have been made rather for sale than otherwise. Of the boys, Mr. Murdoch says: "As soon as a boy is able to walk, his father makes him a little bow suited to his strength, with blunt arrows, with which he plays with the other boys, shooting at marks—for instance the fetal reindeer brought home from the spring hunt—till he is old enough to shoot small birds and ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... of Wagner's operas the scene is laid at a time when the festivals, games and religious ceremonies were touched with the thought of beauty. Men were strong, plain, blunt and honest. Affectation, finesse, pretense and veneer were unknown. Art had not resolved itself into the possession of a class of idlers and dilettantes who hired long-haired men and fussy girls in Greek gowns to make pretty ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... as I could bear. The tale reveals the spiritual and moral development of Jim Hartigan. The author assures us that most of the characters are drawn from life, and that some of the main events are historical. All which I can easily believe, for Mr. SETON'S blunt method of describing Jim Hartigan's evolution from an unhallowed stable-boy to a muscular Christian continually suggests reality. It is not a stylish method, but it gets home, and in a tale of this kind that is the main, if not the only, matter of importance. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... which he describes as the gymnastics of war—useful when the ranks are formed, and still more useful when they are broken; creating a general interest in military studies, and greatly adding to the appearance of the soldier in the field. Laches, the blunt warrior, is of opinion that such an art is not knowledge, and cannot be of any value, because the Lacedaemonians, those great masters of arms, neglect it. His own experience in actual service has taught him that these pretenders are useless and ridiculous. ...
— Laches • Plato
... with either of these individuals, for whom I entertained the most sincere attachment. They, like myself, were not in the good graces of Marshal Davoust, who could not pardon the one for his incontestable superiority of talent, and the other for his blunt honesty. On the receipt of M. Bouvier's letter I carried it to the Due de Rovigo, whose situation made him perfectly aware of the intrigues which had been carried on against me since I had left Hamburg by one whose ambition aspired to the Viceroyalty of Poland. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... brilliant visions of the future, he often devoutly wished that Mascarin and his young friend were at the other side of the world; but for all that he never thought of attempting to evade the order he had received. He therefore set himself steadily to his task, endeavoring to form Paul's mind, blunt his conscience, and prepare him for the inevitable part that he would soon ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... Danny was a small boy. Then, as Danny approached his ninth birthday, the old man had said, "They're teaching you too much at school, son. Too many wrong things, too many highfalutin' notions, too much just plain old hogwash. Why don't you kind of make yourself scarce for a few years?" It had been blunt and to the point. It had made Danny cry. He hadn't thought of what had happened that last day he'd seen his grand-uncle for years, but ...
— My Shipmate—Columbus • Stephen Wilder
... I didn't care for you, and I wasn't hypocrite enough to pretend I did. That's blunt, but you used to admire ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... Yes, my dear: cows belong to the class Mammalia, but to the fifth order, Pecora, which is known by their having several blunt, wedge-like front teeth in the lower jaw, and none in the upper. Their feet are defended by cloven hoofs. They live entirely upon vegetable food, and all ruminate, or chew ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... Marcoussi, President Bellievre told the Keeper of the Seals in plain terms, that if he continued to treat me as he had done hitherto, he should be obliged in honour to give his testimony to the truth. To which the Keeper of the Seals returned this blunt answer: "The Princes are no longer in sight of Paris; the Coadjutor must not ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... from its bullying key to a toneless melancholy. Mrs. Day, who had been standing hitherto, seated herself in the chair by the chimney corner, and looked at her husband's blunt profile as he sat before the fire with a sick feeling of impending disaster, and a dismayed inquiry in ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... vegetables lying upon it, and the basket hanging from the roof. But not one of these accessories would have been admissible in sculpture. You must carve nothing but what has life. "Why?" you probably feel instantly inclined to ask me.—You see the principle we have got, instead of being blunt or useless, is such an edged tool that you are startled the moment I apply it. "Must we refuse every pleasant accessory and picturesque detail, and petrify nothing but living creatures?" Even so: I would not assert it on ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... imagine the pursuer, the avenger, if a really virulent fellow, actually weeping tears of despite as he stands before his victim and marks the utter unconsciousness of any offence with which his eyes meet his own. Such a look would blunt the very stiletto of a Corsican. What sweetness would there be in vengeance if the avenger, as he plunged the dagger in his victim's bosom, might not hiss in his ear, 'Remember!' As well find satisfaction in torturing ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... difficult to say whether Jerome or Paula presided, the aesthetic mission of woman was seen fully,—perhaps for the first time,—which is never recognized when love of admiration, or intellectual hardihood, or frivolous employments, or usurped prerogatives blunt original sensibilities and sap the elements of inward life. Sentiment proved its superiority over all the claims of intellect,—as when Flora Macdonald effected the escape of Charles Stuart after the fatal battle of Culloden, or when Mary poured the spikenard on Jesus' head, and wiped ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... inflicted with a blunt instrument, there is produced a bruise, or ecchymosis, of which it is unnecessary here to describe the appearance and progress. A bruise may be distinguished from a post-mortem stain by the cuticle in the former often being abraded and raised. When an incision is made into the bruise, ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... had listened in a sort of dumb rage as the man's words stung, and stung again. MacNair's uncouth manner, his blunt brutality of speech, his scornful, even contemptuous reference to her work, and, most of all, his utter disregard of her, struck her to the very depths. As MacNair turned to go, she stayed him with a ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... would be grievous indeed, if absence and absorption in art and that sort of thing were to blunt his ...
— Ghosts • Henrik Ibsen
... there a dogma more calculated to foster indolence, and to blunt the keen edge of curiosity, than this assumption of the discordance between the ancient and existing causes of change. It produced a state of mind unfavourable in the highest degree to the candid reception of the evidence of ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... brave, blunt fellow, and he hated the ways of Loki, his lies and his deceit. He liked best the way of warriors—the thundering charge, the flash of weapons, and the heavy blow; but without the hammer he could not fight the giants hand to hand. Loki's advice ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... was stout and stocky rather than fat. He had the square red face and bushy beard of a beer-nourished Teuton and the spectacles of a Herr Professor. He held up his blunt hands with all ten stubby fingers spread out wide. They seemed ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... safely founded, were its worst propensities. They had been taught and believed that greed and self-seeking were all that held mankind together, and that all human associations would fall to pieces if anything were done to blunt the edge of these motives or curb their operation. In a word, they believed—even those who longed to believe otherwise—the exact reverse of what seems to us self-evident; they believed, that is, that the anti-social qualities of men, and not their social qualities, were what furnished the cohesive ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... more than hopes, Mistress Deborah; for he that lives upon hope will die fasting. To apply one's self right heartily is to do more than hope. Sloth makes all things difficult; but industry all things easy. You are not eating, Mistress Deborah. (She rises.) Have my blunt ways offended you? Have I again displeased you? [Footnote: From "Poor ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... life, inherits, with the beautiful family Domain, no inconsiderable share of that love of literature, which distinguished his venerable grandfather, the Bishop of Carlisle. He one day observed to me, of Dr. Johnson, in a felicity of phrase, 'There is a blunt dignity about him ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... was exceedingly cordial, and in a blunt way he plunged right into the business in hand. "We are very glad to see you; we have some ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... A blunt American journal, commenting on the handiwork of the Conference, gave utterance to views which while making no pretense to courtly phraseology are symptomatic of the way in which the average man thought ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... crashed upwards through the rafters of the hall, like the crash of trees falling in a storm. When the axe came down with a terrific sound all men looked fearfully at Cuchulain. The descending axe had not even touched him; it had come down with the blunt side on the ground, and the youth knelt there unharmed. Smiling at him, and leaning on his axe, stood no terrible and hideous stranger, but Curoi of Kerry, come to give his decision ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... have been sought by blandishments than blows, which, from his known prowess in the latter accomplishment, the youthful aspirant had no necessity to detail in the ears of his mistress. She liked not the coarse blunt manner of her gallant, nor the hard gripe and iron tramp for which he was ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... was rather curt in its brevity. Bobby's blunt, kindly questions hurt him; yet, after all, there was a sort of comfort in the hurt. After two years of silence, it was a relief to be able to speak of his trouble. It had grown no more, no less with ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... not have lifted a finger to restore Fay to her husband. The blunt Scotch handmaiden could not abide men—"a puir-hearted, feckless lot," as she was wont to say. Of course the old master and Mr. Fergus were exceptions to this. Jean worshiped her master; and though she held the doctrine of original sin, would never have owned that Mr. Fergus ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of these people are very bad, their swords being short and blunt at the points. They have arquebusses also, but they shoot very badly with them. The king keeps great state, sitting in public twice every day, having all his nobles, which they call shemines, sitting on each side at a good distance, and a numerous guard on ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... child who owned the doll had driven a tack through it anywhere, so that it only got fastened on. Another remarkable thing in this little old woman was, that the same child seemed to have damaged her face in two or three places with some blunt instrument in the nature of a spoon; her countenance, and particularly the tip of her nose, presenting the phenomena of several dints, generally answering to the bowl of that article. A further remarkable thing in this little ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... the Famine was to harden the hearts of the people, and blunt their natural feelings. Hundreds, remarks this correspondent, are daily expiring in their cabins in the three parishes of this neighbourhood, and the people are becoming so accustomed to death that they have lost all those kindly sympathies for the relatives of ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... his dislike of the work had got upon his nerves, and showed him everything in the darkest colours. It could scarcely be as bad as he thought, or human society would be impossible. But argument could not blunt the poignancy of his feelings; he preferred, therefore, to leave them inarticulate, striving to forget. In any case, the ordeal would soon be over; it had to be endured for a few hours more, and then he would plunge into his books again, ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... you could well afford to stand us drinks,' was Chalks's cheerful commentary. 'We ain't much on book-learning, this side the river, Mr. Blake. We're plain blunt men, that ain't ashamed of manual labour—horny-handed sons of toil, in short. But we're proud to meet a cultivated gentleman like yourself, all the same, and can ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... against it. Bodies in the dissecting-rooms are injected with preservative fluid. These ears bear no signs of this. They are fresh, too. They have been cut off with a blunt instrument, which would hardly happen if a student had done it. Again, carbolic or rectified spirits would be the preservatives which would suggest themselves to the medical mind, certainly not rough salt. I repeat that there is no practical joke here, but that we are investigating ...
— The Adventure of the Cardboard Box • Arthur Conan Doyle
... hard the rock of Sardonix; The steel but grinds, it breaks not, nor grows blunt; Then seeing that he cannot break his sword, Thus to himself he mourns for Durendal: "O good my sword, how bright and pure! Against The sun what flashing light thy blade reflects! When Carle passed through the valley ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... pine-apple-leaf with the hollow side upwards. Sitting at one end of the board, she holds the leaf firmly with her toes, and scrapes its outer surface with a potsherd; not with the sharp fractured edge but with the blunt side of the rim; and thus the leaf is reduced to rags. In this manner a stratum of coarse longitudinal fiber is disclosed, and the operator, placing her thumb-nail beneath it, lifts it up, and draws it away in a compact strip; ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... latter, says again Chamisso, upon the fixed piece of wood they place another piece of the same kind, about the length of the palm, and press it obliquely at an angle of about 30 degrees. The extremity that touches the fixed piece is blunt, and the other extremity is held with the two hands, the two thumbs downward, in order to allow of a surer pressure. The piece is given an alternating motion, and in such a way that it shall always remain in the same plane inclined at an angle of 30 degrees, and form, through friction, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... a giant above all human affairs for the next two decades, and the speech of Mars is blunt and plain. He will say to us all: "Get your houses in order. If you squabble among yourselves, waste time, litigate, muddle, snatch profits and shirk obligations, I will certainly come down upon you again. I have taken all ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... first uncomprehending instant, something in its appearance brought a surge of sick disgust to Garfield's throat. Then the stick bent slowly halfway down its length, forming a sharp angle, and its tip opened into what could have been three blunt, black claws which scrabbled clumsily against the pavement. Very faintly, the squealing began again, and the body's back arched up as if another sticklike arm were pushing desperately against the ground ...
— An Incident on Route 12 • James H. Schmitz
... of the specimen illustrated is 18in. high, but under more favourable conditions this Cowslip has been said to reach a height of 3ft. The leaves are 6in. to 12in. long, wrinkled, unevenly dentate, oblong and blunt; during the time of seeding the leaves increase in length, some becoming spathulate, or broadly stalked; it ripens seed plentifully, from ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... in so much unnecessary slaughter? How can it be right, especially for a country of vegetable abundance like ours, to give daily employment to twenty thousand or thirty thousand butchers? How can it be right to train our children to behold such slaughter? How can it be right to blunt the edge of their moral sensibilities, by placing before them, at almost every meal, the mangled corpses of the slain; and not only placing them there, but rejoicing while we ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... proposed, of serving us as a valet,' said I, 'it is not to be thought of. We are, in spite of my friend's waggishness, but two plain blunt countrymen, and have no more need of a valet than one of those poets which you have spoken of. On the other hand, if you should care to attach yourself to our party, we shall take you where you will see service which shall be more to your taste than the curling of periwigs or the ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... you are a gentleman.' 'I am of that opinion too.' 'Well, sir,' says he, 'I know a party as has FOUND a young gent as comes werry nigh your advertisement.' 'It will be a very lucky find to that party,' I said, 'if he is on the square.' 'Oh, WE are always on the square, when the blunt is put down.' 'The blunt for the child, when you like, and where you like,' said I. 'You are the right sort,' said he. 'I am,' replied I. 'Will you come and see if it is all right?' said he. 'In a minute,' said I. Stepped into my bedroom, and loaded ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... volume is the response to that request. It was written by Katharine Blunt, of the University of Chicago, Frances L. Swain, of the Chicago Normal School, and Florence Powdermaker, of the ...
— Food Guide for War Service at Home • Katharine Blunt, Frances L. Swain, and Florence Powdermaker
... Casas, I. 435, has, "and as word of a palm-tree board which is very hard and very heavy, not sharp but blunt, about two fingers thick everywhere, with which as it is hard and heavy like iron, although a man has a helmet on his head they will crush his skull to the brain with ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... a kurrajong in size, shape, and character of the wood, but with this difference, in leaf, that its leaves were divided into two points, whilst the kurrajong has three. One of these trees had been recently chopped down with a blunt implement, probably a stone tomahawk, and a half-finished piece of work—I think a shield—was lying close by. The wood is soft, and must be easily shaped. It is rather curious that the natives, of whom, ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... the black whale. It is nearly as long as the razor-back, and exceeds it in bulk. In length it may be said to be from 80 to 85 feet, and from 30 to 35 in circumference. Looking at a sperm whale, the stem on its nose or snout appears very thick, and perfectly blunt, like a huge mallet about to strike. The head is a third part of the length of the body. At its junction with the body a hump rises, which we whalers call the bunch of the neck. Behind this is the thickest part of the body, which tapers off till there is another ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... The blunt-faced Etchemin woman, once a prisoner brought from northern Acadia, now the companion of Madockawando's daughter, knew her duty to the strangers, and gave them food as rapidly as the hunter could broil it. The hunter was a big-legged, small-headed Abenaqui, with knees over-topping his tuft ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... for feeble ones. We hear, often, that such and such a man "is not half the man he was when he left home to keep his terms." There may be truth in it all; but it is equally true that a polished instrument is better than a blunt one; that in the hands of a wise man every atom of knowledge means more than an atom of power. Moreover, it can never be proved that a man who comes from college to fail, would not have failed, even more terribly, without ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... not only directly hinders the performance of thorough work, but it has an indirect tendency to blunt the enjoyment of life. Let us consider for a moment one of the psychological consequences entailed by the strain of a too complex and rapid activity. Every one must have observed that in going off for a vacation ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... his blunt question, and then said with a laugh: "I never tried to reason why; but since you have spoken I ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... manage the job. We'll do it, sir, never fear. If this stone was granite it might puzzle us, but it's softer than that by a long way, and I have already cut out some of it with my knife, though, to be sure, it does blunt it considerably." ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... to school, too," declared Dot, with such a positive snap of her blunt scissors that she snipped off a paper ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... of horse breeding I have been deeply interested in for forty years past. Let me quote to the reader from one of many letters I have received from Sir Wilfrid Seawen Blunt during the past seven years. His practical knowledge of the English thoroughbred race horse and his blood cause, the Arabian, is the equal if not superior to any other one man ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... duel with which Austria rang, in which the best schlager in his brigade fell, horribly mangled, the day after he had whispered a jest about Caroline Mannering, men were very cautious how they even looked askance at her; but the women—who could bridle their tongues or blunt their scornful glances? Briareus, armed to the teeth, would not affright our modern dowagers, or deter them from their prey. Wherever the carcass of a fair fame lies, thither they flock, screaming shrilly in triumph, vulture-eyed, sharp-taloned—the ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... gold. But the fact that the poet has slyly changed the word "amber" to "snary" in sonnet xiv., and "golden" to "sable" in sonnet xxxviii., looks as if he desired to shield her personality from too blunt a guess. However, many hints are given; she lives in the "joyful North," ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable
... to the place of execution upon a sledge, with two robbers, who were executed with him. After Eagles had mounted the ladder, and been turned off a short time, he was cut down, before he was at all insensible; a bailiff, named Wm. Swallow, then dragged him to the sledge, and with a common blunt cleaver, hacked off the head: in a manner equally clumsy and cruel, he opened his body and tore ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... to the quiver a little kind of basket to hold the wild cotton which is put on the blunt end of the arrow. With a quiver of poisoned arrows slung over his shoulder, and with his blow-pipe in his hand, in the same position as a soldier carries his musket, see the Macoushi Indian advancing towards the ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... head monitor at Saint Dominic's—far too blunt and honest ever to be an object of anything but dislike and uneasiness to Loman. Now the uneasiness was the more prominent of the two. Loman replied, confused and reddening, "Oh, that boy? Why—oh, he's a shop-boy from the town, come up about an ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... the west door, is a copy of A Collection of Cases and other Discourses to recover Dissenters to the Church of England, small 8vo., 1718. The Paraphrase of Erasmus may probably be added to the list (see Professor Blunt's Sketch of the History of the Reformation, 10th edit., p. 130.), though I cannot call to mind any church in which a copy of this work may now be found. In the noble minster church at Wimborne, Dorsetshire, is a rather large collection of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... blunt as he said them, but there was no way out, once he had started. And Zezdon Afthen took the question ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... relationship to civilization and citizenship, and its effects upon theme. "War and civilization," said one of the great English ministers, "are contradictory terms, even as Christ and Mars." Particularly damaging is the effect of war upon citizens. For does it not blunt the sensibilities, harden the heart, inflame the mind with passions, and deaden the consciences of men? Said the same great English preacher, "The sword that smites the enemy abroad, also lays bare the primeval savage within the citizen at home." And ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... it as an offensive question," said I. "I was merely reciting a fact, most creditable to Mr. Buckhurst. Mon Dieu, madame, I am an officer of Imperial Police, and I have lived to hear blunt questions and blunter answers. And if it be true that Monsieur Buckhurst desires to atone for—for what has happened, then it is perfectly proper for me, even as a prisoner myself, ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... was plain and blunt. His was an unattractive front. Yet children loved him; babe and boy Played with the strength he could employ, Without one fear, and they are fleet To sense injustice and deceit. No back door gossip linked his name With any shady tale of shame. He did not have to compromise With evil-doers, shrewd ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... already. They took up their wounded companion; and my young man, who had been struck through the cheek by one of their lances, was afraid it had been poisoned, but I did not think that likely. His wound was very painful to him, being made with a blunt weapon; but ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... of cottonwoods. The ranch-houses were infrequent, however; all of them were plentifully supplied with water by giant windmills which clacked and creaked above the trees in the high-noon breeze. To the left, across the river, back from the long, slow rise of sand from the water's edge, rose five blunt heights like craters long extinct; while above these, arching across the heavens in spotless sheen, curved the turquoise dome of a southwestern midday sky, flooding the dust and dunes below in throbbing heat-rays. It was God's own section of earth, and not the least beautiful of its vistas, looming ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... very spot, where the martyr wrought the miracle. The mark is longer than any mortal foot, as if caused by sliding along the stone, rather than sinking into it; and it might be supposed to have been made by a pointed shoe, being blunt at the heel, and decreasing towards the toe. The blood-stained version of the story is more consistent with the appearance of the mark than the imprint would be; for if the martyr's blood oozed out through his shoe and stocking, it might have ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... shown by many instances; as the genius of the Italians, which is so much addicted to music and ceremony, has moulded all their words and phrases to those particular uses. The stateliness and gravity of the Spaniards shows itself to perfection in the solemnity of their language; and the blunt, honest humour of the Germans sounds better in the roughness of the High-Dutch than it would in ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... away, and every day The lovers still were wont To meet together, and their shame At meeting had grown blunt; For they were of an age when sin Is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... and then. He posed as "a plain, blunt man," but back of the forthright handgrip, the bluff directness of manner, Frank scented a massive and wily self-interest. He respected the man for his power, his ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... swished over the bows or flew over the quarters, to stream down into the bilge at our feet, foul with fragments of squid and caplin long dead. We were also beginning to listen eagerly for other sounds than the wind hissing in the cordage, the breaking of wave-tops and the hard thumping of the blunt bows ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... brother," said Platon. "Stop, coachman." And he descended from the koliaska, while Chichikov followed his example. Yarb and the strange dog saluted one another, and then the active, thin-legged, slender-tongued Azor relinquished his licking of Yarb's blunt jowl, licked Platon's hands instead, and, leaping upon Chichikov, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... least I don't possess the malice of a Jew. Now Mrs. Downe Wright has a real heartfelt satisfaction in saying malicious things, and in thrusting herself into company where she must know she is unwelcome, for the sole purpose of saying them. Yet many people are blessed with such blunt perceptions that they are not at all aware of her real character, and only wonder, when she has left them, what made them feel so uncomfortable when she was present. But she has put me in such a bad humour that I must go out of ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... the Prince of Wales for Omar, or shall I write? He was most pleasant and kind, and the Princess too. She is the most perfectly simple-mannered girl I ever saw. She does not even try to be civil like other great people, but asks blunt questions, and looks at one so heartily with her clear, honest eyes, that she must win all hearts. They were more considerate than any people I have seen, and the Prince, instead of being gracious, was, if I may say ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... credible that she was kept in ignorance by the traitors and murderers who had enrolled themselves in her service—that one who pensioned the actual murderer of Murray and a would-be murderer of Elizabeth was incapable of approving what her keen and practised intelligence was too blunt and torpid to anticipate as inevitable and inseparable from the general design. In August the conspirators were netted, and Mary was arrested at the gate of Tixall Park, whither Paulet had taken her under pretence of a hunting-party. At Tixall she was detained till ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... peaches—a pretty sight, for the trees were now in full blossom. Many carts were lumbering along the road on their uneven wheels. Just beyond the city there was a noisy altercation in the road for the possession apparently of a blunt adze. Carts stopped to see the row, and all the bystanders joined in with their voices, with much earnestness. It is rare for the disputants to be injured in these questions. Their language on these occasions is, I am told, extremely rich in allusions. It would often ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... her limbs, or the string of pearls around her neck, he does not indicate the least desire to make her happy, but an eagerness to please himself by coming in contact with her. The daintiest poetic conceit cannot conceal this blunt fact. Even the most fanciful of all forms of amorous hyperbole—that in which the lover imagines that all nature smiles or weeps with him—what is it but the most ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... me here," said Florida in her blunt, child-like way, and sank upon the stone seat beside the walk. She clasped her hands together in her lap with some strong, bashful emotion, while Don Ippolito, obeying her command, waited for her to speak. Her voice was scarcely more than a ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... influences which make that which is dark and bleak still darker and bleaker. Black clouds hung low on the horizon, and dull grey sheets of rain swept now and then across the nearer heights. Snaehatten, to the westward, was partly veiled, but we could trace his blunt mound of alternate black rock and snow nearly to the apex. The peak is about 7700 feet above the sea, and was until recently considered the highest in Norway, but the Skagtolstind has been ascertained to be 160 feet higher, and Snaehatten ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... unkindness. At home she would have thought it strange not to hasten to greet cousin Edmund, and she feared he would think she neglected him, yet she could not, in Clara's presence, leave a message for him with her brother. Gerald begged her to remain, but she replied, with, a short, blunt "I can't," and set off with Clara, feeling provoked with everybody. In process of time she recovered candour enough to acknowledge to herself that Mrs. Lyddell was right as far as Clara was concerned, but the struggle kept her silent, her cousin ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... one pencil lengthwise so that an end of it was between my first and second finger and the rubber-tipped end lay across my wrist. The other pencil he thrust crosswise so that the pointed end stuck out between the second and third finger and the blunt end between ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... grimed garage clothes when working; and in tight pants, tight coat, silk shirt, long-visored green cap when at leisure. A rather pallid skin due to the nature of his work. Large deft hands, a good deal like the hands of a surgeon, square, blunt-fingered, spatulate. Indeed, as you saw him at work, a wire-netted electric bulb held in one hand, the other plunged deep into the vitals of the car on which he was engaged, you thought of a surgeon performing a major operation. He wore one of those round ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... connection with the country, or interest in the cause. This was a complaint made by the United States in 1819, in relation to irregularities and atrocities committed by private armed vessels, sailing under the flag of Buenos Ayres. Under the best regulations the business tends strongly to blunt the sense of private right, and to nourish a lawless and fierce ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson
... doors open, and dashed out, but a furious blow fell before he was quite clear of the doorway. With such force was it delivered that the blunt metal cut into the edge of the door like a sword; the jamb was smashed, and even Monckton, who received but one-fourth of the blow, fell upon his hands and knees into the hall and was stunned for a moment, but fearing worse, staggered out of the hall door, ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... The Emperor Napoleon does not make war to employ his armies, or to consolidate his power; he does so for the sake of an "idea," more or less generous and disinterested. The soul of mankind would revolt at the blunt, naked truth; and the taciturn emperor knows this, as he knows most things. This imperial hypocrisy, like every other hypocrisy, is a homage which vice pays to virtue. There cannot be a doubt that when the ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... Fleent. Uncouth fumbling men, slip-shod women, dirty-faced children, were never dumb and suspicious or wholly untruthful and evasive, where the Butterfly Man was concerned. He was one to whom might be told, without shame, fear, or compunction, the plain, blunt, ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... overheard you," he said, with blunt deference. "I was half-asleep at first. Afterwards, I didn't ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... A correspondence was immediately after Mr. Jackson's arrival at the American seat of government, opened with Mr. Madison's Secretary of State, and was as suddenly closed. Mr. Jackson was, as a diplomatist, rather blunt. Repeatedly, he asserted that the American Executive could not but have known from the powers exhibited by Mr. Erskine, that in stipulating, as he had done, he had transcended those powers, and was, therefore, acting without the authority of his government. ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... only be in danger when we go visiting from one little river to another. And as for the great pike, we will leave him alone in the big river to rage hungrily up and down. His teeth will soon grow blunt, for there will be ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... this the whetstone of your sword; let grief Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... not succeed in concealing a certain trepidation at this blunt demand, and it was not lost ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... faithfulness; a courageous sense of justice which impelled him to fight valiantly for a cause that he deemed right, however unimportant or hopeless the cause might be; a reformer's contempt for hypocrisy and shams, and a blunt directness in freeing his mind about wrong of every kind. He had the faults of his virtues, likewise. Sure of himself and of the right of his position, he had the impatience of an unimaginative man with any other point ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... "I have been awkward, but forgive me—the cabin of the Sea Tern, where you asked him to sail on, and when you bade him recall what he said on the stairs at Blanzy.... Your pardon! I have been very blunt." ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... detaching it from the towns in which, until then, I had always imagined it, I could see how, in a particular instance, upon a reef of savage rocks, it had taken root and grown until it flowered in a tapering spire. I was taken to see reproductions of the most famous of the statues at Balbec,—shaggy, blunt-faced Apostles, the Virgin from the porch,—and I could scarcely breathe for joy at the thought that I might myself, one day, see them take a solid form against their eternal background of salt fog. Thereafter, on dear, tempestuous February nights, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... so seriously have interfered with his hopes and wishes. He was very glad that Richard's preference had fallen where it did, and his cheery whistle was heard almost constantly, and after Tim Jones told, in his blunt way, how "Melind was tryin' to train him, and make him more like them dandies at the big tavern in New York," he, too, began to amend, and taking Richard for his pattern, imitated him, until he found that simple, loving Andy, in his anxiety to please Ethelyn, had seized upon more ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... cherished the thought, but never have dared to reveal it, Being a coward in this, though valiant enough for the most part. Go to the damsel Priscilla, the loveliest maiden of Plymouth; Say that a blunt old captain, a man not of words but of actions, Offers his hand and his heart, the hand and heart of a soldier. Not in these words, you know, but this in short is my meaning; I am a maker of war, and not a ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... feeling for melody should be appealed to at every instant. Students should not be permitted to sing anything in a mechanical fashion. Broken scales, "five finger exercises," and mechanical drills of every kind, are altogether objectionable. They blunt the sense of melody, and at the same time they tend to induce throat stiffness. Beauty of tone and of melody should always be the guiding principle in ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... over the river, and like a smoother shadow over the yielding grass. The voice of the falling water, like the voices of the sea and the wind, were as an outer memory to a contemplative listener; but not particularly so to Mr Riderhood, who sat on one of the blunt wooden levers of his lock-gates, dozing. Wine must be got into a butt by some agency before it can be drawn out; and the wine of sentiment never having been got into Mr Riderhood by any agency, nothing ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... always needed her, and more especially to-day, one of the last that she would spend under his roof. He was not tearful about her departure—his senses were too blunt now to feel the grief of separation—he only felt pleasantly excited, because he had been told that Moritz and Jeno and the others were coming over presently and that they meant to carry him in his chair, just as he was, so that he could be present ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... necessary to say that he did not get very far into the crowd, and when his wife and George returned, laughing gayly, they found him standing outside, with a sulky face. "Look here, missus," said he; "you're a enjoying of yourself, but I'm not. You've got the blunt, so just hand over a few coppers, and I'll get a pint at ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Adjutant, in a voice like a blunt saw going through a thick board—"I HEARD there was a new-born puppy in ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... during our Revolutionary war, an active scientific discussion was carried on as to whether the upper end of a lightning-conductor should be sharp or blunt. "The scientific aspect of the question soon became lost in political acrimony, those who, with Dr. Franklin, advocated sharp conductors, being classed with him and the Revolutionary party, while those who advocated blunt conductors were held ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... unseen receiver a little thread of green smoke rose vertically into the quiet air. As I looked, the handling-machine, with a faint and musical clinking, extended, telescopic fashion, a tentacle that had been a moment before a mere blunt projection, until its end was hidden behind the mound of clay. In another second it had lifted a bar of white aluminium into sight, untarnished as yet, and shining dazzlingly, and deposited it in a growing stack of bars that stood at the side ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... in the world that I desire. My experience in that direction in New York quite sufficed me, I assure you. I came here," said he, with rather too blunt an ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... witnessed all these disorders: on his arrival, his blunt honesty kept back none of these details from his chief; but the emperor merely replied, "I am going to strike a great blow, and all the stragglers ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... consulted the Emperor's face, not knowing whether they were to take the intrusive manner of the Varangian's entrance as matter of ill-breeding, and manifest their horror, or whether they ought rather to consider the bearing of the life-guardsman as indicating blunt and manly zeal, and therefore to ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... at your word," hastened Colbert to reply with his blunt bonhomie. "And, apropos of Spain, you have not the 'Golden Fleece,' Monsieur d'Almeda. I heard the king say the other day that he should like to see you wear the ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... we shall suppose a piece of work is about to be started. The first thing the carver will require to do is to sharpen his tools. That is, if we may assume that they have just come from the manufacturer, ground but not yet brought to an edge. It will be seen that each has a long bevel ending in a blunt ridge where the cutting edge should be. We shall take the chisel No. 10 and sharpen that first, as it is the easiest to do, and so get a little practise before we try the gouges. The oilstone and oil have already been described. The first thing is ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... for things like these; The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"— Last of its timber,—they couldn't sell 'em, Never an axe had seen their chips, And the wedges flew from between their lips, Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, Steel of the finest, bright and blue; Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide Found in the pit when the tanner died. That ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... studied those tracks! Those of the sheep could be distinguished by the rounded toe marks of their hoofs, worn blunt by the granite rocks they lived on. This was especially true of the forefeet. They were also wide apart, while the deer tracks were sharply pointed, with the hoofs close together. Days passed and the tracks in the trails ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... daylight gets in and we find that some cold, fishy little negative has been spawning all over our beliefs, and the brood of blind questions it has given birth to are burrowing round and under and butting their blunt noses against the pillars of faith we thought the whole world might lean on. And then, again, some of our old beliefs are dying out every year, and others feed on them and grow fat, or get poisoned as the case may be. ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... heartily. "Emily is blunt and outspoken," he said. "She prides herself on that. But she is as square as a brick. She never says one thing to your face and another ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... so? Do you go by those remains? I have seen them. My child was vaccinated on the left arm, and carried the mark. He had specks on two of his finger-nails; he had a small wart on his little finger; and his fingers were not blunt and uncouth, like that; they were as taper as any lady's in England; that hand is nothing like my son's; you are all blind; yet you must go and blind the only one who had eyes, the only one who really loved him, and whose opinion is worth ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... bonze, of unkempt appearance, cooking his rice. When Y-ts'un perceived that he paid no notice, he went up to him and asked him one or two questions, but as the old priest was dull of hearing and a dotard, and as he had lost his teeth, and his tongue was blunt, he made most ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the alternative of being with him on decent and distant terms, or of breaking off with him altogether. The first of these courses might perhaps have been the wisest, but the other was the most congenial to the blunt and plain character of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... governs the least; and I didn't want to hear that kind of talk from a man that was livin' on my money. I couldn't bear it from him. Or I thought I couldn't before—before—" He stopped again, and gulped. "I reckon now there ain't anything I couldn't bear." March was moved by the blunt words and the mute stare forward with which they ended. "Mr. Dryfoos, I didn't know that you understood Lindau's German, or I shouldn't have allowed him he wouldn't have allowed himself—to go on. He wouldn't have knowingly ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... more than a paraphrase of Pope's epistles, or, yet less than a paraphrase, a mere translation of poetry into prose. This is, surely, to attack difficulty with very disproportionate abilities, to cut the Gordian knot with very blunt instruments. When we are told of the insufficiency of former solutions, why is one of the latest, which no man can have forgotten, given us again? I am told, that this pamphlet is not the effort of hunger; what can it be, then, but ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... we now were toiling, with the snow little more than a mantle for the peaks, and a sparkling veil for sunrise, dear Uncle Sam, who had often shown signs of impatience, drew me apart from the rest. Straightforward and blunt as he generally was, he did not seem altogether ready to begin, but pulled off his hat, and then put it on again, the weather being now cold and hot by turns. And while he did this he was thinking at his utmost, as every ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... person who knew it, and was on the point of revealing it, died. This is the sort of thing that Mr. RUDYARD KIPLING has just done in this month's Lippincott's Magazine. It is told in a plain, rough and ready, blunt style, but so blunt that there's no point in it. And the idea,—that is if the idea be that the likeness of the assassin remains on the retina of the victim's eye, and can be reproduced by photography,—is not a novelty. Perhaps this story in Lippincott ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... be my first want and that I should have to grind mine on the stone, as they were blunt and worn with use. But as it took both hands to hold the tool, I could not turn the stone; so I made a wheel by which I could move it with my foot. This was no small task, but I took great pains with it, and at length it ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... HORSE-SHOE BAT, (RHINOLOPHUS AURANTIUS.) t. 1. f. 1.—Ears moderate, naked, rather pointed at the end; nose-leaf large, central process small, scarcely lobed, blunt at the top; fur elongate, soft, bright orange, the hairs of the back with short brown tips, of the under side rather paler, of the face rather darker; female pale yellow, with brown tips to the hair ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... an active, stoutly built man (though far too energetic to be fat), with blunt rounded features, eyes a little protruding, and sandy hair and a reddish complexion which made his age an unguessable secret. He might have been in the thirties or he might ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... an American gentleman who was singularly lacking in tact; he was in China with the intention of obtaining a concession, and he had nearly accomplished his object when he spoilt everything by his blunt speech. He said he had not come to China for any philanthropic purposes, but that he was in the country to make money. We all know that the average business man is neither a Peabody nor a Carnegie, but it was quite unnecessary for this gentleman to announce that his ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... at her escort. "But even if I were, Mr. Pounce, I am in London, not in the dark ages, and as sure of respect here, at the doors of a theatre, as I am in my own drawing-room. I believe, by the way," she added lightly, not liking to hurt him by too blunt a snub, "I believe this is the only big city in Europe of which so much can be said; and English women may thank themselves for it. We demand not protection, but respect. Here is the carriage. Good night!" She stepped in as she spoke, and took ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... night and the following day made a trip up the ravine, where she gathered all the bittersweet berries, swamp holly, and wild rose seed heads she could find. She strung the corn on fine cotton cord putting a rose seed pod between each grain, then used the bittersweet berries to terminate the blunt ends of the branches, and climb up the trunk. By the time she had finished this she was really interested. She achieved a gold star for the top from a box lid and a piece of gilt paper Polly had carried home from school. With ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... this artist exhibited a portrait in the New Gallery; in 1901 a portrait of Bertram Blunt, Esq., at the Royal Academy; and in 1902 a portrait of "Peggy," a little girl ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... the bush, dear Senor Caceres. It's a subject that calls for plain dealing; and I don't mind a blunt word or two. It saves such a lot of time! Come on. You want money, I suppose? Or, ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... enough, your counsel still be true; Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do; Men must be taught as if you taught them not, And things unknown propos'd as things forgot. 575 Without Good Breeding, truth is disapprov'd; That only ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... question, it is true, she gave a somewhat less blunt, but nevertheless a decided negative reply, although it was gilded ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... have tall or rigid stalks. In the brightest places you find three species of gentians with different shades of blue, daisies pure as the sky, silky leaved ivesias with warm yellow flowers, several species of orthocarpus with blunt, bossy spikes, red and purple and yellow; the alpine goldenrod, pentstemon, and clover, fragrant and honeyful, with their colors massed and blended. Parting the grasses and looking more closely you may trace the branching ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... I ate, and before I slept, I thought of that annotated Guide Book which is cried out for by all Europe, and which shall tell blunt truths. Look you out 'Garfagnana, district of, Valley of Serchio' in the index. You will be referred to p. 267. Turn to p. 267. You will ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... very blond, clean-shaved, with gray eyes, extraordinarily smooth yellow hair, and short, determined and rather blunt features, stretched out one large hand to the cigar-box, and glanced ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens |
