"Abrupt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... life he hated his papers and figures and statistics, and could not apply himself to them. He, whose application had been so unremitting, could apply himself now to nothing. His world had been brought to an abrupt end, and he was awkward at making a new beginning. I believe that they all three were reading novels before one o'clock. Lady Glencora and Alice had determined that they would not leave the house throughout the day. "Nothing ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... political science denuded of commonplace hypocrisies was a worthy object. But while seeking to lay bare the springs of action, and to separate statecraft from morals, Machiavelli found himself impelled to recognize a system of inverted ethics. The abrupt division of the two realms, ethical and political, which he attempted, was monstrous; and he ended by substituting inhumanity for human nature. Unable to escape the logic which links morality of some sort with conduct, he gave his adhesion to the false code of contemporary practice. He believed that ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... who travels through the Armorican peninsula experiences a change of the most abrupt description, as soon as he leaves behind the district most closely bordering upon the continent, in which the cheerful but commonplace type of face of Normandy and Maine is continually in evidence, and passes into the true Brittany, that which merits its name by language ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... Gustave still lingering by the outer door. "You will pardon me, Monsieur," he said to the Vicomte, "but in fact I feel so uneasy, so unhappy. Has she—? You see, you see that there is danger to her health, perhaps to her reason, in so abrupt a separation, so cruel a rupture between us. Let me call again, or I may not have strength ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... make a brave man suddenly timid and tremulous for months, or to disorder remote organs and functions in a fashion hard to understand. In the same way, a moral wound for which we are not prepared may bring about abrupt and prolonged consequences, from which the most robust health does not always protect us; and which is in proportion disastrous if the person on whom it falls is by temperament excitable or nervous. I have over and over seen such shocks cause lasting nervousness. ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... take a wife?" said Montagu Blake, very loudly, as though he had hit the target right in the bull's-eye. He so spoke as to bring the conversation to an abrupt end. Mr Whittlestaff immediately looked conscious. He was a man who, on such an occasion, could not look otherwise than conscious. And the five girls, with all of whom the question of the loves of John Gordon ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... Gentiles of every description. Think of his dealing with the Syrophoenician woman. She was a Canaanite of the old race, and, though at first he seemed to turn her away, yet ultimately he gave her all she asked and more: and even his apparently abrupt treatment of her in the beginning, if I read the history aright, was meant to be an exposure and condemnation of the feelings commonly cherished toward those of her nation by the Jews of his day. No doubt ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... amusement in witnessing the unwilling surrender of her mother to even Senator Shattuc, him of the political beard. As for Senator Burleigh, she would yield to his magnetism and power of compelling interest in himself, while pronouncing his manners too abrupt and his personality too "Western." And if he admired intelligently the old lace which she always wore at her throat and wrists and on her pretty head, she would confess that there might be ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... Before he could answer, we hastened to add: "By-the-way, what a fine, old-fashioned, gentlemanly word accost is! People used to accost one another a great deal in polite literature. 'Seeing her embarrassment from his abrupt and vigorous stare, he thus accosted her.' Or, 'Embarrassed by his fixed and penetrating regard, she timidly accosted him.' It seems to us that we remember a great many passages like these. Why has the word gone out? It was ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... their shoulders with secret laughter for that fearful gleam of scythes which was to come, the girls marched back; and their leader's abrupt halt jarred the entire line. A man stood in the opposite entrance. They could not see him in outline, but his unmistakable hat showed against ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... breathed the Captain. He put down the statuette gingerly on the table, hesitated, then turned its face away from them. With abrupt animation he swung to Paresi. "Hey! You didn't say it looked like Johnny. ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... had but a little while ago instinctively addressed himself to her, so she now instinctively addressed herself to Rachael. Her manner was short and abrupt, yet faltering ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... another dog barks in the distance, the house dog answers in a peculiar manner. He gives a few growls, stops, seems to listen, begins again, very often getting answers; and, after two or three interruptions, he terminates his barking with abrupt yelps, loud at the beginning and long drawn out, and gradually dying away. This ending of his cries is habitually accompanied by his raising his head and throwing it back. I have often, when within the house, on hearing the watch dog ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... more brutal, more abrupt. Both intensely nervous, both highly individualised, their characters conflicted with the intensity of two real and opposing forces. A tragic aspect of it all was that it was due to Terry's teaching that Marie attained to the highly individualised character which was destined to rebel ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... began to retrace his steps through the winding arches, thinking with some satisfaction as he went, what a romantic incident he would have to relate to Lorimer and his other friends, when a sudden glare of light illumined the passage, and he was brought to an abrupt standstill by the sound of a wild "Halloo!" The light vanished; it reappeared. It vanished again, and again appeared, flinging a strong flare upon the shell-worked walls as it approached. Again the fierce "Halloo!" resounded through the hollow cavities ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... that there were other questions which Holmes would have wished to put, but the nobleman's abrupt manner showed that the interview was at an end. It was evident that to his intensely aristocratic nature this discussion of his intimate family affairs with a stranger was most abhorrent, and that he feared lest every fresh question would ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in the expression of Mr Clam's face (which was radiant with the wonderful discovery he thought he had made) which probably displeased her; for she said, in a very abrupt ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... sulph'rous torrents. There, nor law Of motion, nor eternal Order reigns; But anarchy instead, and wild uproar, And ruinous tumult. Now with lightning speed Th' accursed sphere, with all its flames, flies up Into the void abrupt, and with its roar, With groans commixt, and shrieks, and boundless yells, Astounds the nearest stars: calm now and slow, With dreadful peace the universal waves Of sulphur roll, and pour a mightier flood On those ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... The abrupt execution of Caracciolo was an explosion of fierce animosity long cherished, pardonable perhaps in a Neapolitan royalist, but not in a foreign officer only indirectly interested in the issues at stake; and hence it is that the ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... the kind," laughed her husband. "He's middle-sized and as blond as your cousin Joe, only he's got a long yellow moustache, and has a quick, abrupt way of talking. He isn't at all fancy-looking; you'd take him for an energetic business man or a doctor, if you didn't know him. So you see, Joan, this correct little wife of mine has been a ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... over the two parties had given way to that of silent but intense hostility. The prowling movement of the native with the spear as he slipped into the wood, the sudden advance of Jared Long, whose face became like a thunder-cloud, when every hope of a friendly termination vanished, and the abrupt halt of the bowman, showed that all parties had thrown off the cloak of good will and become ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... remained after the girl's abrupt departure, to see that the wagon-loads were properly made up. Winterborne was connected with the Melbury family in various ways. In addition to the sentimental relationship which arose from his father having been the first Mrs. Melbury's lover, Winterborne's ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... art. The features were noble and striking, but worn and haggard, with black, careless locks tangled into a maze of curls, and a fixed, speculative, dreamy stare in his large and hollow eyes. All his movements were peculiar, sudden, and abrupt, as the impulse seized him; and in gliding through the streets, or along the beach, he was heard laughing and talking to himself. Withal, he was a harmless, guileless, gentle creature, and would share his mite with any idle lazzaroni, whom he ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... We cut corners on two wheels, and on one wheel, and, I was prepared to swear, on no wheels. A couple of times, with the wings retracted, we actually jetted into the air and jumped over vehicles in front of us, landing again with bone-shaking jolts. Then we made an abrupt turn and shot in under a concrete arch, and a big door banged shut behind us, and we stopped, in the middle of a wide patio, the front of the car a few inches short of a fountain. Four or five people, in diplomatic ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... the work was finished (B. C. 480), the winter was past, and at the dawn of returning spring, Xerxes led his armament from Sardis to Abydos. As the multitude commenced their march, it is said that the sun was suddenly overcast, and an abrupt and utter darkness crept over the face of heaven. The magi were solemnly consulted at the omen; and they foretold, that by the retirement of the sun, the tutelary divinity of the Greeks, was denoted the withdrawal of the protection ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which never fails to attract the attention — He and Mr Bramble discoursed, and even disputed, on different subjects in war, policy, the belles lettres, law, and metaphysics; and sometimes they were warmed into such altercation as seemed to threaten an abrupt dissolution of their society; but Mr Bramble set a guard over his own irascibility, the more vigilantly as the officer was his guest; and when, in spite of all his efforts, he began to wax warm, the other prudently cooled in the ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... had been gazing alternately at the dead man and vaguely about the room, looked startled at the abrupt question. ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... latok, already described, is a heavy sword. It has a head, sometimes carved as an ornament, so that it cannot slip from the hand. At about one-third of its length from this head, it bends at an abrupt angle of about thirty-five degrees, and it makes a ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... Farnwood Dell, and Olive's conscience began to accuse her of having left her mother for so many hours. Therefore her adieux and thanks to Mr. Gwynne were somewhat abrupt. Mechanically she invited him in, and, to her ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... the marvel of the tale. How he moved hence, you saw him and must know; Without a friend to lead the way, himself Guiding us all. So having reached the abrupt Earth-rooted Threshold with its brazen stairs, He paused at one of the converging paths, Hard by the rocky basin which records The pact of Theseus and Peirithous. Betwixt that rift and the Thorician rock, The hollow pear-tree and the marble tomb, Midway he sat and loosed his beggar's weeds; ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... that direct, almost abrupt manner that becomes a Magistrate for Surrey and Chairman of the Consolidated Bank. "Why not? Are you to have monopoly of this simple interjection? Are you to appropriate all the O's in the alphabet? Is not a Clerk at the Table a man and a brother, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... dawned, says Mr. Cumming, I left my shooting-hole, and proceeded to inspect the spoor of my wounded rhinoceros. After following it for some distance I came to an abrupt hillock, and fancying that from the summit a good view might be obtained of the surrounding country, I left my followers to seek the spoor, while I ascended. I did not raise my eyes from the ground until I had reached the highest pinnacle of rock. I then looked east, and to my inexpressible ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... Zwaartzkopjesfontein camp turns an abrupt face eastwards, but on the westward side the plateau slopes almost imperceptibly to the plain, which is, in its immediate neighbourhood, thickly sown with kopjes. Down this slope the cavalry were galloping, about two miles in advance of ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... intellect. The modern world was brought into close contact with the free virility of the ancient world, and emancipated from the thraldom of improved traditions. The force to judge and the desire to create were generated. The immediate result in the sixteenth century was an abrupt secession of the learned, not merely from monasticism, but also from the true spirit of Christianity. The minds of the Italians assimilated paganism. In their hatred of mediaeval ignorance, in their loathing of cowled and cloistered ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... problem of their future one not too easy to solve. Mr. Carlyle, among others, has grappled with it. His brow has long been beaded with the sweat of this great wrestling; and if he seem to some of us a little abrupt and peculiar in his movements, we must at least do him the justice to remember that he, after the manner of ancient Jacob, is struggling with the angel of England's destiny. Mr. Mill, too, with an earnestness less passionate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... it but the abrupt military explosion when he gave his orders now—no argument, no underlying sympathy. He was no longer herding a flock of frightened children. He was ordering trained, grown men, and he knew it and they knew it. The orders ripped out, like the crack ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... not betray the knowledge which she has, involuntarily, acquired. Not long afterwards, Tatyana's name-day festival is celebrated by a dinner, at which Onyegin is present, being urged thereto by Lensky. He goes, chiefly, that no comment may arise from any abrupt change of his ordinary friendly manners. The family, ignorant of what has happened between him and Tatyana, and innocently scheming to bring them together, place him opposite her at dinner. Angered by this, he revenges himself on the wholly innocent Lensky, by flirting ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... observed Mrs. Vanderpool, looking at the tall, slim girl swaying toward them with a piled basket of white cotton poised lightly on her head. "Why," in abrupt recognition, "it is our Venus of the Roadside, is ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... the opposite quarter. Here, all was inland, and rural. It is true, the new Bridewell had been erected in that quarter, and there was also a new gaol, both facing the common; and the king's troops had barracks in their rear; but high, abrupt, conical hills, with low marshy land, orchards and meadows, gave to all that portion of the island a peculiarly novel and somewhat picturesque character. Many of the hills in that quarter, and indeed all over the widest part of the island, are now surmounted by country-houses, as some were then, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... forty years between Washington's first inauguration and Jackson's the total number of removals from office was 74, and out of this number 5 were defaulters. During the first year of Jackson's administration the number of changes made in the civil service was about 2,000. [34] Such was the abrupt inauguration upon a national scale of the so-called "spoils system." The phrase originated with W. L. Marcy, of New York, who in a speech in the senate in 1831 declared that "to the victors belong the spoils." The man who said this of course did not realize that he ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... edge before us flowed at right angles in sluggish rivers through the streets. Nature had revenged herself on the local taste by disarraying the regular rectangles by huddling houses on street corners, where they presented abrupt gables to the current, or by capsizing them in compact ruin. Crafts of all kinds were gliding in and out of low-arched doorways. The water was over the top of the fences surrounding well-kept gardens, in the first stories of hotels and private dwellings, trailing ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... Haven't we behaved white to this woman? Have you done anything, you stupid old Dutchman," cried Brown, collaring his partner with abrupt violence, "that would drive her out of the camp ...
— The Cursed Patois - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... His abrupt, incredible recovery had been the first open manifestation of the way it worked. Not that she had tried it on him first. Before she dared do that once she had proved it on herself twenty times. She had proved it up ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... but some of them are still so hard and fresh that the hammer rings upon them as upon a bell, and their fracture is brilliantly crystalline. The basalt is the same as that which caps the sandstone hills of the Vindhya range throughout Malwa. The sandstone hills around Gwalior all rise in the same abrupt manner from the plain as those through Malwa generally; and they have almost all of them the same basaltic glacis at their base, with boulders of that rock scattered over the top, all indicating that ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... to return to the cable office about midnight and await the reply to his cablegram. He had proceeded but a few blocks from the cable office, however, before a disturbing thought struck him with such force as to bring him to an abrupt pause. ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... of confinement I passed in practising a forbidding frown, a smile of condescension, a slight salutation, and an abrupt departure; and in four mornings was able to turn upon my heel, with so much levity and sprightliness, that I made no doubt of discouraging all publick attempts upon my dignity. I therefore issued forth in my new coat, with a resolution ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... with the air of one not accustomed to taking account of his own attributes, and apparently pondered the question as if for the first time. When he looked up to answer, it was with abrupt ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... said to consist of a mass of mountains, the highest points of which rise in a central ridge. Cliffs varying in height from 100 to 2000 feet form the coast boundary of the island. On the north they are the highest and most abrupt, while on the south they are lower and more accessible. The central mountains branch down to the sea in ridges parted by deep ravines, in some places full of dark forests, adding to their gloomy grandeur. The towns are generally situated in the ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... Job forgets all he wanted to say, all he thought he would say if he could but see him. The close of the poem is grandly abrupt. He had meant to order his cause before him; he had longed to see him that he might speak and defend himself, imagining God as well as his righteous friends wrongfully accusing him; but his speech is gone from him; he has not a word ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... we had our hammocks the sandbank was steep and abrupt, and the river very still and deep; there the Indian pricked a stick into the sand. It was two feet long, and on its extremity was fixed the machine: it hung suspended about a foot from the water, and the end of the ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... behind in the glittering desolation of sunshine. On each side of her, low down, the growth of somber twisted mangroves covered the semi-liquid banks; and Massy continued in his old tone, with an abrupt start, as if his speech had been ground out of him, like the tune of a music-box, by turning ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... it with apprehension; I feared it might uncover my body to the eyes of the enemy; but on coming opposite, my fears were allayed: the slope was abrupt, and the high ground screened me as before. There would be no danger in ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... forgotten the tenor of our talk. And suddenly, in the height of his fury, the old soldier found a warning look directed on his face; the absurdity of his behaviour was brought home to him in a flash; and the storm came to an abrupt ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... month of September 1792 whatsoever is cruel in the panic frenzy of twenty-five million men, whatsoever is great in the simultaneous death-defiance of twenty-five million men, stand here in abrupt contrast; all of black on one side, all of bright on the other. France crowding to the frontiers to defend itself from foreign despots, to town halls to defend itself from aristocrats, an insurrectionary improvised Commune of Paris ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... through those shadowy serried groves, and she should steal unperceived in view of the house, the beloved lake, perhaps even once more catch a passing glimpse of the owner. She resolved, she glided on; she gained the beech-grove, when, by the abrupt wind of the banks, Darrell and Alban came suddenly on the very spot. The flutter of her robe, as she turned to retreat, caught Alban's eye; the reader comprehends with what wily intent, conceived on ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... We cantered on ahead of the party, regardless of the assurance of our unwilling men that the natives were not to be trusted, and we soon arrived beneath the shade of a cluster of most superb trees. The village was within a quarter of a mile, situated at the very base of the abrupt mountain; the natives seeing us alone had no fear, and ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... covered her husband's abrupt departure, for Godfrey had gone straight to the door, unable to ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... compact body. In quarter column, therefore, the Brigade advanced and approached the foot of the hill. I have noticed several times that when you get rather close to the hill the rise comes to look more gradual and the ridge itself does not stand up in the abrupt and salient way that it does from a distance. Whether it was this, or simply that the darkness of the night hid the outline, at any rate the column approached the hill and the trench which runs at the foot of the hill much too closely before the order to extend was given. When it was given it ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... on her lightest word; the children, dazed and terrified, ate and exercised at her command; his own boy, a strange hard look in his furtive eyes, followed her like a dog, and Aunt Lucia submitted with unprecedented meekness to an abrupt curtailment of her interview with Clarice. He himself went into the bedroom for a moment, half uncertain of the reality of the experience. It was absurd to remember that he might never see her, ...
— In The Valley Of The Shadow • Josephine Daskam
... to dash against it in foam; for century after century have the never-ceasing currents of the Pentland chafed against its steep sides, or eddied over its rough crest; and yet still does it remain unwasted and unworn,—its abrupt wall retaining all its former steepness, and every angular jutting all the original sharpness of edge. As we advance the scenery becomes wilder and more broken: here an irregular wall of rock projects from the crags towards the sea; there a ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... him?' asked Mr. Rollins, in the same harsh, abrupt tone. I had never liked Mr. Rollins, and his words just then stung me to the quick, I ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... to the French and English ambassadors accordingly, complaining of the abrupt and peremptory tone of the States' reply, the suggestion of conferences for truce, in place of fruitless peace negotiations, was made at once, and of course favourably received. It was soon afterwards laid before the States-General. To this end, in truth, Richardot ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... awkward, child," observed Mrs. Chatterton to Polly on her knees, "and abrupt. Move the sponge more slowly; there, that ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... swift turn, Hosea proclaims the impending judgment, setting himself and the people as if already in the future. He hears the first peal of the storm, and echoes it in that abrupt 'now.' The first burst of the judgment shatters dreams of innocence, and the cowering wretches see their sin by the lurid light. That discovery awaits every man whose heart has been 'divided.' To the gazers and to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... moment of their abrupt parting at the Beach, Carlisle had not set eyes upon Mr. Canning, though he was known to have lingered as a house-guest all through the following week. The circumstance had surprised her considerably at the ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... them, as a reminder not to keep their captors waiting. With their shoulders bunched for abrupt action, and their guns in hand, the two men walked to the trap-door of the ship. They threw the heavy bolts, drew a deep breath—and flung open the door to charge unexpectedly toward the thickest mass of ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... of action and passion, and gives all their local accompaniments. If he was equal to the greatest things, he was not above an attention to the smallest. Thus the gallant sportsmen in CYMBELINE have to encounter the abrupt declivities of hill and valley: Touchstone and Audrey jog along a level path. The deer in CYMBELINE are only regarded as objects of prey, "The game's a-foot," etc.—with Jaques they are fine subjects to moralise upon at leisure, "under the ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... sight, kicked up his heels in derision but finally came to an abrupt halt in front of Ned, and stood with ears pitched forward and forelegs braced back, evidently very ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... and hunt pig. I set out across the base of the point, nearly due south—whereas I had been working along the coast to the north of the cove. On my right the slope of the mountain rose steeply, and as I approached the south shore the rise of the peak became more abrupt, and great jutting crags leaned out over the ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... said Fern Fenwick slowly, "will you pardon me for asking you some very abrupt questions, or what may seem such ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... ravine, of which we have several times spoken, widening out into the plain or Campus Martius, which reached round to the steep cliffs on the north. The bridle-path, along which he was moving, crossed it just where it was opening and became level, so as to present no abrupt descent and ascent at the place where the path was lowest. On the left every vestige of the ravine soon ceased, and a free passage extended ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... tints of green. The river winds through it in doubling curves, and looks from the height like a line of silver laid in loops on an enamelled surface. To the east and the west rise the river terraces, higher and higher, becoming, at last, lofty and abrupt ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... so pointed, so abrupt, and Isabel's self-consciousness, moreover, so great, that she betrayed lamentable confusion, and the earl had no further need to ask. Pity stole into his hard eyes as they fixed themselves ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... but a rascally one. While the philosophers, however, were busied in blushing at their stupidity in not having foreseen these inevitable evils, and intent upon the invention of new theories, the matter was put to an abrupt issue by a fellow of the name of Mob, who took every thing into his own hands and set up a despotism, in comparison with which those of the fabulous Zeros and Hellofagabaluses were respectable and delectable. This Mob (a ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... discovered the incompatibility of their temperaments. But he loved her passionately and jealously. One day I heard loud words between them, from which I gathered unintentionally that something had aroused his jealousy. She replied with laughter and taunts to his threats. The quarrel ended with her abrupt departure from the room and from ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... fifty miles in diameter; its vast smooth interior being divided into seven distinct zones running east and west. There is no central mountain or other obvious internal sign of former volcanic activity, but its irregular wall rises into abrupt towers, and is marked ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull
... the games of the circus; but, early on the morning of the third day, Julian marched to occupy the narrow pass of Succi, in the defiles of Mount Haemus; which, almost in the midway between Sirmium and Constantinople, separates the provinces of Thrace and Dacia, by an abrupt descent towards the former, and a gentle declivity on the side of the latter. The defence of this important post was intrusted to the brave Nevitta; who, as well as the generals of the Italian division, successfully ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... hat forward over his eyes, and went to sit on the veranda and look at the landscape while he waited. It was one of the loveliest landscapes in the mountains; the river flowed at the foot of an abrupt slope from the road before the hotel, stealing into and out of the valley, and the mountains, gray in the farther distance, were draped with folds of cloud hanging upon their flanks and tops. But Lander was tired of nearly all kinds of views and prospects, though he put' up with ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... years I have been permitted to labour in her fold, and for this I rejoice. But," he added, with emphasis, "I long ago came to the resolve that if ever the Church asked me to go to the West Indies, or to any other Mission field, I would be careful about sending back an abrupt refusal." ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... drama of this kind, all the events, (and interest), take place in the minds of the actors ... somewhat like 'Paracelsus' in that respect. You know, or don't know, that the general charge against me, of late, from the few quarters I thought it worth while to listen to, has been that of abrupt, spasmodic writing—they will find some fault with this, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... evident to Roddy that to herself and to her friends he was a discredited person, he had smiled patiently. His good humor had appeared unassailable. But now his eyes snapped indignantly. He pressed his lips together and made Inez an abrupt bow. ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... made their way to the seaboard with the promptitude that he had looked for; the reason of this being, he supposed, that the few addresses she had made had not been lectures, announced in advance, to which tickets had been sold, but incidents, of abrupt occurrence, of certain multitudinous meetings, where there had been other performers better known to fame. They had brought in no money; they had been delivered only for the good of the cause. If it could only be known that she spoke for nothing, that might deepen the reverberation; the only trouble ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... for apology, Conly; but you must see the necessity for our abrupt departure. Good evening to ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... said with an abrupt bow, before Mildred had a chance to speak, "you have come to New York to take singing lessons—to prepare yourself for the stage. And you wish a comfortable place to live and to work." He extended his gloved hand, shook hers frigidly, dropped ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... a thousand fountains that can cast The tortured waters to the distant heavens; Yet let me choose some pine-topped precipice Abrupt and shaggy, whence a foamy stream, Like Anio, tumbling roars; or some black heath Where straggling stands the mournful juniper, Or yew ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... except what I overheard," I declared. "Colonel Ray was, I believe, responsible for Lord Blenavon's abrupt departure, and I would rather that your information came ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... not know exactly what to think of such an abrupt ending to the roadway, and sat down behind a large rock to meditate. As he sat there a voice within the cliff said, "Open the door," and a door in the cliff opened itself. A man richly dressed came out, followed by several others, whom he told that they ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... the chairs as gray rectangles, she heard his step on the porch; heard him at the furnace: the rattle of shaking the grate, the slow grinding removal of ashes, the shovel thrust into the coal-bin, the abrupt clatter of the coal as it flew into the fire-box, the fussy regulation of drafts—the daily sounds of a Gopher Prairie life, now first appealing to her as something brave and enduring, many-colored and free. She visioned the fire-box: flames turned ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... Lackarago, a small village standing upon the ridge of hills that separates Kasson from Kaarta. The following morning they left Lackarago, and soon perceived, towards the south-east, the mountains of Fooladoo. Proceeding with great difficulty down a stony and abrupt precipice, they continued their way in a dry bed of a river, where the trees, meeting over head, made the place dark and cool. About ten o'clock they reached the sandy plains of Kaarta, and at noon came to a watering place, where a few strings of beads purchased as much milk and corn meal as they ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... before a bargain could be struck. They wasted time ascertaining who I was, and only hinted at good things—not the usual watches and rings, they said, but really things worth their weight in pure gold. Then one man tempted me deliberately with an abrupt movement which reminded me of the way the sellers of obscene playing-cards in Paris disclose to the unsuspecting stranger their wares. He drew from his tunic a little wooden box, opened it quickly, and laid bare a most exquisite Louis XV. gold belt-buckle, set in diamonds and rubies, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... bank. Like magic his blanket had left his limbs and painted body naked, except for the breech-clout. Balwin's tardy bullet threw earth over the squaw, who went flapping and screeching down the river. Balwin and Powell ran to the edge, which dropped six abrupt feet of clay to a trail, then shelved into the swift little stream. The red figure was making up the trail to the foot-bridge that led to the Indian houses, and both officers fired. The man continued his limber flight, and ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... only interrupted by great illnesses, and the stream of conduct, by great passions. Our tastes and inclinations may change, but this change, though it may be sudden enough, is rendered less abrupt by our habits. The skilful artist, in a good colour scheme, contrives so to mingle and blend his tints that the transitions are imperceptible; and certain colour washes are spread over the whole ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... him to go away in the middle of his instructions. I think he was feverish that night. Every now and then he spoke so rapidly that I could hardly follow him. Then there were pauses in which he seemed lost, and abrupt changes of subject, as if he could hardly control the order of his thoughts. And in all the evident strain and anxiety to say everything that he wished to say to me appeared that morbid fancy of its being "the ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... stage. The same literary qualities mark all his writings. De Quincey, of course, condemns Hazlitt, as he does Lamb, for a want of 'continuity.' 'No man can be eloquent,' he says, 'whose thoughts are abrupt, insulated, capricious, and nonsequacious.' But then De Quincey will hardly allow that any man is eloquent except Jeremy Taylor, Sir Thomas Browne, and Thomas De Quincey. Hazlitt certainly does not belong to their school; nor, on the other hand, has he the plain homespun force ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... alluded to which mark the ancient limits of the sea, there are other abrupt terminations of rocks of various kinds which resemble sea-cliffs, but which have in reality been due to subaerial denudation. These have been called "escarpments," a term which it is useful to confine to the outcrop of particular formations having a scarped outline, ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... The abrupt spring to his feet brought down the camp stool, cigar, easel and all, but not the foot, for the rest of the apparition was caught and hidden by the clustering young ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... he moved across the room to Penelope's chair he continued: "You, I know, Miss Brand, love the sunshine and the out-of-doors." He hesitated a moment and then went on, pouring out his words with a sort of abrupt eagerness: ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... like that of Montmorency? This new band, however, consisted but of two gentlemen and their immediate attendants, the Duc de Bar and the Comte de Clermont,(1) always a bird of evil omen, riding hot from St. Denis with orders from the King. These orders were abrupt and peremptory—to turn back. Jeanne and her companions were struck dumb for the moment. To turn back, and Paris at their feet! There must have burst forth a storm of remonstrance and appeal. We cannot tell how long the indignant parley lasted; the ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... the subject that has the smallest pretensions to system, and that is fanciful, involved, irregular, abrupt, and obscure, is PURCHAS HIS PILGRIMS. Even admitting the plan of that work to be in itself excellent; although it may be a General History, so far as it extends, it certainly is in no respect a Complete Collection of Voyages and Travels. In a very large proportion of that curious work, it is ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... blue eyes and a large crow-beaked nose gave him an air that was the more threatening because his eyes were placed too close together. But his large lips, the outline of his face, and the easy good-humor of his manner soon showed that his nature was a kindly one. Abrupt in speech and decided in tone, he impressed Oscar immensely by the force of his penetration, inspired, no doubt, by the affection which he felt for the boy. Trained by his mother to magnify the steward, Oscar had ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... and as Captain Truck afterwards declared, handsomely done too, though it was a little abrupt, and caused Eve to hesitate ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... of a person to come to one's house and get sick, only to have an excuse for not returning to it. Your departure is so abrupt, that I don't know but I may expect to find that Mrs. Jane Truebridge, whom you commend so much, and call Mrs. Mary, will prove Mrs. Hannah. Mrs. Clive is still more disappointed: she had proposed to play at quadrille with you from dinner till supper, and to ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... Monsieur Bernheim failed in this instance, I could not but admire his skill. After using every means of persuasion, insinuation and coaxing, he suddenly took up an imperative tone, and in a sharp, abrupt voice that did not admit a refusal, said: 'I tell you you can walk; get up.' 'Very well,' replied the old follow; 'I must if you insist upon it.' And he got out of bed. No sooner, however, had his foot touched the floor than he screamed even louder than before. Monsieur ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... state that it took us ten days to cover as many miles. At length we trekked over a stony nek about five hundred yards in width. To the right of us was a stony eminence and to our left, its sheer brown cliffs of rock rising like the walls of some cyclopean fortress, the strange, abrupt mount of Isandhlwana, which reminded me of a huge lion crouching above the hill-encircled plain beyond. At the foot of this isolated mount, whereof the aspect somehow filled me with alarm, we camped on the night of January 21, taking ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... leads from bisexual to unisexual blossoms; and so in various other respects. Everywhere we may perceive that Nature secures her ends, and makes her distinctions on the whole manifest and real, but everywhere without abrupt breaks. We need not wonder, therefore, that gradations between species and varieties should occur; the more so, since genera, tribes, and other groups into which the naturalist collocates species are far from being always ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... equally unsatisfactory," she answered. "I cannot imagine Elmhurst belonging to either, Silas." Then she added, with an abrupt change of manner: "You must go to New York ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... unbroken through the isthmus. This, however, is not the case. The northern Cordillera breaks into detached mountains on the eastern side of the province of Vevagna, which are of considerable height, extremely abrupt and rugged, and frequently exhibit an almost perpendicular face of bare rock. To these succeed numerous conical mountains, rising out of savannahs or plains, and seldom exceeding from 300 to 500 feet in height. Finally, between Chagre on the Atlantic side, and Chorrera on the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... retracted in its socket, and often after several attacks because of actual shrinkage (atrophy). The upper eyelid, in place of presenting a uniform, continuous arch, has, about one-third from its inner angle, an abrupt bend, caused by the contraction of the levator muscle. The front of the iris has exchanged some of its dark, clear brilliancy for a lusterless yellow, and the depth of the eye presents more or less of the greenish-yellow shade. The pupil remains a little contracted, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... sounded somewhat profanely. But he was in no mood to find fault with his companion, and they got on very well together to the end of their brief journey. The young scapegrace was glad, indeed, that it was brief, for his self-control was fast leaving him, and having bowed a rather abrupt farewell to the doctor, he was not long in reaching one of his haunts, from which during the evening, and quite late into the night, came repeated peals of laughter, that grew more boisterous and discordant as that synonyme ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... at twenty-eight and realize them at thirty years of age. He was a little man, less than five feet two inches in height. At this time he was extremely thin, but his striking features, quick, searching eye, abrupt, animated gestures and rapid speech, incorrect as it was, made a deep impression upon those who came in contact with him. He possessed in a supreme degree two qualities that are ordinarily incompatible. He was a ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... him." An abrupt movement on Persis' part had unthreaded her needle. She bent close to the lamp, vainly trying to insert the unsteady end of the thread into the opening it had ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... the Round Tower stands may or may not be pre-historic. The slopes of the hill were inhabited, like nearly all our English sites, by the Romans, and by the savages before and after the Romans; but the welter of the Saxon dark ages did not use this abrupt elevation for a stronghold. What military reasoning led William of Falaise to discern it at once and there to ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... struck at the heart of her content. An abrupt horrible certainty froze her—the certainty that she was not alone. There was some living thing besides herself in the forest, quite near her—something other than the deer and the squirrels and the quiet dainty woodland people. She felt it in every fibre ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... fixing his eyes on the end of the central passage, he called out abruptly, "I see a man!" Every one looked to that point,—"I see a man of Tarsus; and he says, Make mention of me!" It must not be supposed that the discourses of "Uncle Ebenezer," with these abrupt appeals and sudden starts, were unwritten or extempore; they were carefully composed and written out,—only these flashes of thought and passion came on him suddenly when writing, and were therefore quite natural when delivered—they came ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... and drawn, by the abrupt cessation of its motor's pulsing, to the automobile on his right. He lifted his chin sharply, narrowing his eyes, whistled low; and thereafter had ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... not puzzle over the queerness of this abrupt question. She fell to searching her memory diligently for an answer. "I'm not sure, but I think they speak oftenest of how I never used to like anybody to take my hand and help me along, even when I was barely able to walk. They ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... of the Byzantine court had not permitted Belisarius to achieve the conquest of Italy; and his abrupt departure revived the courage of the Goths, [6] who respected his genius, his virtue, and even the laudable motive which had urged the servant of Justinian to deceive and reject them. They had lost their king, (an inconsiderable loss,) their capital, their treasures, the provinces ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... complaints against the Prussians. The country in the environs of this place is exceedingly diversified, and it presents the first mountain scenery we have yet met with. The banks of the Meuse hereabouts present either an abrupt precipice or coteaux covered with vines gently sloping to the water's edge. Namur is distant thirty-four miles from Brussels, and there is water conveyance on the Meuse from ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... aloof smile. Somewhere was the impression of a gentlewoman. She did not mean to be abrupt. She ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... an abrupt, frozen little laugh; then bent down her face slightly. "And do you wash and curl and perfume them?" she asked, her small white teeth setting ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... 540 leagues long, and varying from 3 to 20 leagues in breadth, stretches along the coast of the Pacific Ocean. It is intersected by chains of small hillocks, which, extending westward from the Cordilleras, gradually diminish in height, and either become blended with the plain, or form abrupt promontories, which project into the sea. Between the river Loa, which marks the southern frontier of the Peruvian coast, and the Tumbez, on the northern boundary, fifty-nine rivers, great and small, pass through the line of coast. Proceeding from the avalanches of the ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... said, in his abrupt fashion, holding them out to her, and slightly bowing, with that nothing-doubting assurance of his, while his blue eyes (to put her entirely at her ease) smiled, frank and friendly and ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... Alboni's kindness of heart, occurred on the eve of her departure for Italy, whither she was called by family reasons. Her leave-taking was so abrupt that she had almost forgotten her promise to sing in Paris on a certain date for the annual benefit of Filippo Galli, a superannuated musician. The suspense and anxiety of the unfortunate Filippo were to be more easily imagined than described when, asked if Alboni would sing, he could not answer ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... day on the abrupt edge of a little hill in a Southern Japanese city. There, in a great tree hanging out over the edge, had hung the bell that called together the faithful retainers of the lord of the province, when they were needed. There, nearly thirty years ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... time in finding his place in the open book, and then went on. Again he misunderstood her, for though he could not remember saying anything he regretted, he fancied she had brought the conversation to a somewhat abrupt close. He read on, feeling very uncomfortable, and longing for one of those explanations that are impossible between acquaintances and emotional between lovers. He felt also that if he ever spoke out and told her he loved her it would be in some such situation as the present. Margaret let her needlework ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... have been mistaken and took up the broken thread once more, or tried to, but he had hopelessly lost the place in his manuscript, and the only clue that offered was a quotation of a poem about the devil; to be sure, the connection was somewhat abrupt, but he clutched it with his eye gratefully and began reading ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... intemperance you disgust and nauseate. To say that a political paper of the very same sentiments, and principles would be innocent, written in a calm and delicate style which would be criminal, written in an abrupt, vehement and passionate manner, is to remove guilt from the thought and conception and substance of a writing, and impute it to the medium only of the thought, the mere expression. So that upon such a rule and principle of decision, ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... the cliff that sloped down to within less than a hundred yards of the place where we sat. It ended in an abrupt precipice of some sixty or seventy feet in height above the plain. The animals, on reaching the level of this spur, ran along it until they had arrived at its end. Seeing the precipice they suddenly stopped, as if to reconnoitre it; and we had now a full ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... mind, unless we are acquainted with the times in which he lived. The trammels of statecraft and priestcraft had been suddenly removed from religion, and men were left to form their own opinions as to rites and ceremonies. In this state of abrupt liberty, some wild enthusiasts ran into singular errors; and Bunyan's first work on "Gospel Truths" was published to correct them. Then followed that alarm to thoughtless souls—"A Few Sighs from Hell"; and, in 1659, as ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... mass by the Father Superior, made up his weekly rations. The water in his jug was changed every day. He rarely appeared at mass. Visitors who came to do him homage saw him sometimes kneeling all day long at prayer without looking round. If he addressed them, he was brief, abrupt, strange, and almost always rude. On very rare occasions, however, he would talk to visitors, but for the most part he would utter some one strange saying which was a complete riddle, and no entreaties would ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... was author of several botanical works, principally on Algae.—(From a Memoir published in 1869.)) is a good hit against my talking so much of the insensibly fine gradations; and certainly it has astonished me that I should be pelted with the fact, that I had not allowed abrupt and great enough variations under nature. It would take a good deal more evidence to make me admit that forms have often changed ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... than the synagogical modes on which it bases itself, the Semitic pomp and color that inform it. There are moments when one hears in this music the harsh and haughty accents of the Hebrew tongue, sees the abrupt gestures of the Hebrew soul, feels the titanic burst of energy that created the race and carried it intact across lands and times, out of the eternal Egypt, through the eternal Red Sea. There are moments when this music makes one feel as though ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... rough, I instantly made up my mind to a serious accident. As well as the velocity of the horse would allow me, however, I kept him on the side, rough as it was, for about a quarter of a mile pretty steadily, expecting, however, to upset every minute; when all at once I saw before me an abrupt, narrow, deep gully into which the wheels on one side were just upon the point of going down. It flashed across me in an instant that, if I could throw the horse down into the ditch, the wheels of the wagon might, perhaps, rest equipoised ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... flash. Ned's mount had whirled and was away like a shot. But the guide was after him with even greater speed. The chase came to an abrupt ending some few rods farther on, when Kris Kringle's lariat squirmed out, bringing the fleeing pony to the ground with its ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... rather abrupt, at least much more so than the lovers of fervid poetry could wish, especially as the termination is with the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... been good training, but said there was no comparison in the rapids. We would have a river ten times as great as in Lodore to contend with; and in numerous places, for short distances, the descent was as abrupt as anything we had seen on the Green. Wolverton was personally acquainted with a number of the men who had made the river trip, and, with the one exception of Major Powell's expeditions, had met all the parties who had successfully navigated its waters. This ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... was a fine, big lass." He looked from Mary to the picture of an older woman that hung above the mantel. "That'll be your mother, I'm thinkin'." Then, with abrupt change, "When did you leave the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... think fate is as much responsible for that as yourself?" she questioned, smiling as they passed at a good clip the turn which was to have taken them over the pretty Bald Hill drive. Sam had not even thought to apologize for the abrupt change in their program, because she could certainly see the opportunity which had offered itself, and how imperative it was to embrace it. The thing needed ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... provinces of Europe, shaken by an intellectual tempest of physical discovery, disturbed by an abrupt and undigested enlargement in the material world, in physical science, and in the knowledge of antiquity, was to be offered a fruit of which each might taste if it would, but the taste of which would lead, if it were acquired, to evils ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... which I only mention to dispose of. At its close he wrote and added to the narrative a 'Note' of nearly a thousand words; and in the time required for the penning of that addition, he could have brought the story to—perhaps an abrupt, but still, an artistic close. No. Then did Poe not complete 'The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym' because his imagination failed him—failed to supply material of such a quality as his refined and faultless taste demanded? If so, then why did he begin it? ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... had the uninterrupted, monotonous convent life continued to be hers. But long before her mind was prepared for any such influences, early in the third year after her father's death, certain events occurred, which brought this period of her history to an abrupt close. ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... homes" have so little judgment in the matter of departure that experience never serves them in good stead. They are nervous and vacillating when they should be neither; they linger and know not how to get themselves gracefully away, and usually succeed in making an abrupt exit. They know the right moment at which to leave, but fail to put this knowledge into practice. "Almost think it is time to go now," or "I wonder whether I ought to say good-bye or wait until ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke |
