"Blank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... questions! And though the author, for reasons of his own, has seen fit to put them in blank verse here, it is not because he does not understand, as we shall see elsewhere, that they are questions of a truly scientific character, which require to be put in prose in his time—questions of vital consequence to all men. The effect of 'poisoned flattery,' and 'titles blown from adulation' ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... as between Highland gentlemen, to tell you two things: first, that I return you, point blank, your overtures touching our kinswoman, Marget Forbes, and her estate; and, second, this being done, that I, as an officer of his Majesty's forces, will unrelentingly discharge my commission, as best I can, next time we meet, be it soon ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... Summer's Rose, Or Flocks or Herds, or human Face divine, But Clouds instead, and over-during Dark Surrounds me; from the cheerful Ways of Men Cut off: and for the Book of Knowledge fair, Presented with an universal Blank." ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... In trying to break some strange news he had walked up a blind alley and been met by my blank wall of density. So he ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... Foresightless mechanize Its blank entrancement now as evermore Its ceaseless artistries in circumstance.... Yet seems this vast and singular confection Wherein our scenery glints of scantest size, Inutile ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... to our quarters, which were now in the "Yard," I found Tom seated with a blank sheet before him, thrusting his hand through his hair and biting the end of his penholder to a pulp. In his muttering, which was mixed with the curious, stingless profanity of which he was master, I caught the name of Cheyne, and I knew ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the waist, and therefore only obtained at that moment a comparatively distant glimpse of the saloon party on the poop, but even that sufficed to confirm the testimony of the second engineer as to Miss Anthea's physical charms. But I did not altogether like her expression, which was a blank, save for a hint of hauteur mingled with dissatisfaction ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... the fire blaze as if it were inspired, how she made Jacob Poot almost weep for joy by bringing forth a great square of gingerbread and a stone jug of sour wine! How she laughed and nodded as the boys ate like wild animals on good behavior, and how blank she looked when Ben politely but firmly refused to take any black bread and sauerkraut! How she pulled off Jacob's mitten, which was torn at the thumb, and mended it before his eyes, biting off the thread with her whit teeth, and saying "Now it will be warmer" as she bit; and finally, how ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... Blank surprise was followed by the exchange of startled, inquiring looks. Abram Pantin was perhaps the only one who did not find some grounds ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... whole plan failed in a manner which, if the aspect of public affairs had been less alarming, would have been exquisitely ludicrous. The day drew near. The neatly ruled pages of the subscription book at Mercers' Hall were still blank. The Commissioners stood aghast. In their distress they applied to the government for indulgence. Many great capitalists, they said, were desirous to subscribe, but stood aloof because the terms were too hard. There ought to be some relaxation. Would the Council of Regency ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... you tell us about this at once?' he asked, in a shaking voice, looking at his daughter with eyes of blank misery. ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... had been barmaid for a brief term. She had no sooner opened the door of the "Private Bar" than her eyes fell upon him—sitting in the shade at the back of the compartment, with his eyes fixed on the floor in a blank stare. He was drinking nothing stronger than ale just then. He did not observe her, and she entered and ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... The second sheet was a spare copy of his marvelous contract for the acquisition of desert lands, which through some accident had become mixed, with the printed side up, among some loose sheets of blank legal-size typewriter paper which the unconventional Robert had purchased in the pursuit of his correspondence with Donna. His choice of letter paper was characteristic of Bob. He was a man who required ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... phenomena. It was therefore not the natural, but, if I may so call it, the moral scenery in which I was interested, more particularly since the whole scene of nature here below was, shortly after the period at which the poem commences, to become a blank of desolate uniformity, as overwhelmed beneath a ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... all sides, that, instead of fixing the proportion by ages, as the, report proposed, it would be best to fix the proportion in absolute numbers. With this view, and that the blank might be filled up, the clause was ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the Sacred Heart, the young girl had purchased a superbly bound album, containing so far but two ugly sketches in sepia, one very bad attempt in water-colors, and the verses in question. She called this "my album!" as she called a certain little blank book, "my diary!" To the latter she confided every night the important events of the day. This book had assumed such proportions, during the last few days, that it threatened to reach the dimensions of the Duchesse d'Abrantes' memoires, but if the album was free to public admiration, nobody ever ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... melancholy little boy, with his knees and calves simply in their natural clothing of epidermis, but for the rest of his person in a fancy dress. He alone had his face turned toward the doorway, and fixing on it the blank gaze of a bedizened child stationed as a masquerading advertisement on the platform of an itinerant show, stood close behind a lady deeply ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... entire manliness and honesty, and stated his principles with perfect clearness, neither shading nor abating nor coloring by any conciliatory or politic phrase. It was a question of conscience, and he met it point-blank. Many of his critics remained dissatisfied, and it is believed that his course cost the next Whig candidate in the district votes which he could not afford to lose. It is true that another paid this penalty, yet Lincoln himself would have liked well to take his chance ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... pursuing his way, singing as he went, when St. Lucia stood before him, and looking straight in the murderer's face, exclaimed: 'Now is the time!' and shot him point-blank in the chest. ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... There was a blank silence, which Lewis Elliot broke by laughing cheerfully. "That absurd rhyme came into my head," ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... long the wheels are droning, turning, Their wind comes in our faces, Till our hearts turn, and our heads with pulses burning; And the walls turn in their places! Turns the sky in the high window, blank and reeling; Turns the long light that droopeth down the wall; Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling— All are turning all the day, and we with all. All day long the iron wheels are droning, And sometimes we could ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... a young preacher, he was invited to a country school-house to preach. On the way there he became much distressed in soul, and his mind seemed blank and dark, when all at once this text, spoken to Lot in Sodom by the angels, came to his mind: "Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city." He explained the text, told the people about Lot, and the wickedness of Sodom, and applied ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... and bit his lip, as he gave the order to load the guns with blank cartridge, and made preparation to fire this harmless broadside on the village. The word to "fire" had barely crossed his lips when the rocks around seemed to tremble with the crash of a shot that came apparently from the other side of the island; for its smoke was ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... and swore point-blank that he heard Ralph go out of the house soon after he went to bed, and that he heard him return at two in the morning. This testimony was given without hesitation, and made a great impression against Ralph in the minds of the justices. Mrs. Jones, a poor, brow-beaten woman, came on ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... to hear about this in course of time, and he come down frum Sacramento to question ther Injun. But in ther meantime ther pesky coyote had gone and got himself killed in a quarrel over cards and so there they was up agains' a blank ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... invocated voice to fill the cry! 200 And let me still the sentiment disdain Of him who never speaks but to arraign, The sneering son of Calumny and Scorn, Whom neither arts, nor sense, nor soul adorn; Or his, who, to maintain a critic's rank, Though conscious of his own internal blank, His want of taste unwilling to betray, 'Twixt sense and nonsense hesitates all day, With brow contracted hears each passage read, And often hums, and shakes his empty head, 210 Until some oracle adored pronounce The passive bard a ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... arising from dissatisfaction at the step necessarily taken with regard to Mr. Jackson. Should this inference from Wellesley's inaction prove correct, Pinkney was directed to return to the United States, leaving the office with a charge d'affaires, for whom a blank appointment was sent. He was, however, to exercise his own judgment as to the time and manner. In consequence of his interview with Wellesley, and in reply to a formal note of inquiry, he received a private letter, July 22, 1810, saying it was difficult to enter upon the subject in ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... the billet, was not a little surprised to find a bank-note for fifty pounds, enclosed in a blank sheet of paper; and, having exercised his memory and penetration on the subject of this unexpected windfall, had just concluded, that it could come from no other hand than the lady who had so kindly visited him ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... of three and four-score pounds. I observed the King and Queene did get but as poor lots as any else. But the wisest man I met with was Mr. Cholmley, who insured as many as would, from drawing of the one blank for 12d.; in which case there was the whole number of persons to one, which I think was three or four hundred. And so he insured about 200 for 200 shillings, so that he could not have lost if one of them had drawn it for ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... what kind of dreams one has sometimes. Poets call them visions, but a vision is only a dream in blank verse. I dreamed the rest ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... looked out. It was a moment before he could see; and then, with a quick nod of his head, he began, with extreme caution to loosen the window catches on the sill. There was a narrow space between the house and what was the blank brick wall of the building next to it, and this space extended to the rear, and therefore, indirectly, by circling the house at the back, led to the house and the door in the ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... hotel, and spent a week in vain efforts to effect a small loan. Saturday night came, and with it his hotel bill, which he had no means of discharging. In an agony of shame and anxiety, he went to a friend, and entreated the sum of five dollars to enable him to return home. He was met with a point-blank refusal. In the deepest dejection, he walked the streets till late in the night, and strayed at length, almost beside himself, to Cambridge, where he ventured to call upon a friend and ask shelter for ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... courier's wife, Mr. Troy was struck by the expression of blank fear which showed itself in the ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... to put back the various boxes and parcels into the chest as he spoke, and we all looked at each other as men might look who, taking a way unknown to them, come up against a blank wall. But Chisholm, who was a sharp fellow, with a good headpiece on ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... a sort of blank despair on his saffron face, but a low moan was his only reply. Then he turned his face to the wall and shut ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... the splendid train that had assembled to celebrate a victory, now gazed on each other in blank dismay, expecting to hear in the name of the criminal one of their own ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... planting the new colony are incompatible with the lofty ideas of granting the soil and all its inhabitants from sea to sea. They demonstrate the truth, that these grants asserted a title against Europeans only, and were considered as blank paper so far as the rights of the natives were concerned. The power of war is given only for defence, ...
— Opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, at January Term, 1832, Delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in the Case of Samuel A. Worcester, Plaintiff in Error, versus the State of Georgia • John Marshall
... syl.), a well-spring of Boeo'tia, which quickens the memory. The other well-spring in the same vicinity, called L[^e]'th[^e], has the opposite effect, causing blank forgetfulness.—Pliny. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... talking. Captain Chaplin was young—about thirty—and one of the most taciturn persons Denison had ever met. The mate, who, having served the owners for about twenty years, felt himself privileged, one night at supper asked him point-blank, in his Irish fashion apropos of nothing: "An' phwat part av the wurruld may yez ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... the stairs, and he took his pencil out and began to trace. After he had crossed the Mississippi, there did not seem to be anything but blank country, and I could not find Arizona, and it was written in large letters across the entire half of ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... gaunt. Sir Oliver remonstrated with him and in such terms as to put heart into him anew. Moreover, there was other news that day to allay his terrors: the Justices, at Truro had been informed of the event and the accusation that was made; but they had refused point-blank to take action in the matter. The reason of it was that one of them was that same Master Anthony Baine who had witnessed the affront offered Sir Oliver. He declared that whatever had happened to Master Godolphin as a consequence was no more than he deserved, no more than he had brought upon ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... the very word "plan" since his story of the trick he had played at the Savoy. She hated the necessity to talk with him; but it was a necessity. They ought to arrange something for the future—the blank and hateful future—before Parker came, and daily life began. There would be many things to settle, questions to ask and answer; a sort of hideous campaign would have to be mapped out in details not one of which defined itself clearly ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... warning, they paused outside my door. It was hastily pushed open and as hastily closed. A man, half clothed and panting, was standing facing me—a strange, pitiable object. The boots slipped from my fingers. I stared at him in blank bewilderment. ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... outline, lay the animal on its side on a piece of blank paper, put the feet and legs in some natural position, fasten them in place with a few pins and mark around the entire animal with a pencil. The eye, hip and shoulder joints, and base of skull may be indicated ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... and fear and excitement of battle, but this unspeakable act in which he had taken part seemed too much. As night approached he began to fear the quiet hours of the dark. When he closed his eyes he could see that white, blank face before him. ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... to us, is recorded of some tribes of American Indians. Thus we are told that "the name of an American Indian is a sacred thing, not to be divulged by the owner himself without due consideration. One may ask a warrior of any tribe to give his name, and the question will be met with either a point-blank refusal or the more diplomatic evasion that he cannot understand what is wanted of him. The moment a friend approaches, the warrior first interrogated will whisper what is wanted, and the friend can tell the name, receiving a reciprocation of the courtesy from the other." ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... until pay-day," he directed, thrusting the money into the executive officer's hand. "They are dependable men, and will come to no harm. Up to eleven o'clock I shall be found at the Blank Hotel if wanted. At eleven I shall leave to come aboard, so you may send in a launch ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... his dispositions, and the little force marched boldly out from its shelter and faced the enemy. At this the whole Moorish army halted, still out of point-blank range, and contented themselves with continuing their artillery fire, which we returned as best we could with our few guns. Colonel Clive passed to and fro along the line several times, noting everything that happened, and anxiously watching ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... statement. But there came a point when I could no longer listen to Dora Harris's theories to account for him, wild idealizations as most of them were of any man's circumstances and intentions. 'Why don't you ask him point-blank?' I said, and she replied, frowning slightly, 'Oh, I couldn't do that. It would destroy something—I don't know what, but something valuable—between us.' This struck me as an exaggeration, considering how far, by that time, they must have progressed towards intimacy, and my mouth was opened. She ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... late in the summer afternoon, and made his way through those gray and silent streets of the Faubourg St. Germain whose houses present to the outer world a face as impassive and as suggestive of the concentration of privacy within as the blank walls of Eastern seraglios. Newman thought it a queer way for rich people to live; his ideal of grandeur was a splendid facade diffusing its brilliancy outward too, irradiating hospitality. The house to which ...
— The American • Henry James
... a point-blank question which I hardly expected," said Yanski, gazing at her in astonishment. "Don't you wish to become ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... and sneering faces had been turned towards him, as he sat fingering the bow and weighing it in his hands; but pale grew those faces now, and blank was that gaze. To add to their terror, at this moment a loud peal of thunder shook the house. Filled with high courage by the happy omen, Odysseus took an arrow, and, fitting it to the string, sent it with sure aim from the place where he sat along the whole ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... clerkship of the council in May; as Mr. Bathurst could not carry on the business, he had to resign too [Footnote: This is written on the blank page of the 'Chronology,' apparently from memory, and the dates are somewhat confused. Greville resigned in May 1859. It was then settled that there should be but one clerk; Bathurst acted by himself for a twelvemonth, and resigned in May 1860.]. It was settled that there should be but one ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... stars glisten faint as mica. Shadow fills half the street, etching a silhouette of roofs and chimneypots and cornices on the cobblestones, leaving the rest very white with moonlight. The facades of the houses, with their blank windows, might be carved out of ice. In the dark of a doorway a woman sits hunched under a brown shawl. Her head nods, but still she jerks a tune that sways and dances through the silent street out of the accordion on her lap. A little saucer for pennies is on ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... not one of those who pass aloofly by when there is excitement toward. If a horse fell down in the street, he was always among those present: and he was never too busy to stop and stare at a blank window on which were inscribed the words "Watch this space!" In short, he was one of Nature's rubbernecks, and to dash to the rail and shove a fat man in a tweed cap to one side was with him the work of a moment. He had thus an excellent view of what was going ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... the shape of an answer from her who was still the object of his day fancies and his midnight dreams. Nor did all this kill his hope. A third letter was despatched, but the returning period was equally a blank. We have been counting by months, which, as they sped, soon brought round the termination of his year, and with growing changes too in himself; for as the notion began to worm itself into his mind that his beloved Mary ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... combined to depress Lambert. With his elbow on his desk and his head supported on his left hand, he spent the hours of study gazing at the trees in the court or the clouds in the sky; he seemed to be thinking of his lessons; but the master, seeing his pen motionless, or the sheet before him still a blank, ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... point blank to see 'Edward' then or at any other time, and said that even if there was a vacancy I should not recommend a stranger. He sighed, and said that I should like Edward, once I knew him. He was 'a noble ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... oath Dan turned in his saddle, giving the horse the head, and leveling his rifle fired point-blank at ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... way presented faces utterly blank and devoid of life. Brent would have wondered at that, had he not had his brief talk with Mallows. Now he understood. Respectable folks had withdrawn to shelter behind barred doors and tightly shuttered windows until such time as the unleashed ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... he shall be beheaded for it ten times.—Ah, thou say, thou serge, nay, thou buckram lord! now art thou within point- blank of our jurisdiction regal. What canst thou answer to my majesty for giving up of Normandy unto Mounsieur Basimecu, the dauphin of France? Be it known unto thee by these presence, even the presence of Lord Mortimer, that I am the besom that must sweep the court clean of such ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... English army in France with varying success; imprisoned along with his father on a charge of high treason, for which there was no adequate evidence, he was condemned and executed; as one of the early leaders of the poetic renaissance, and introducer of the sonnet and originator of blank verse, he deservedly holds a high place in the history ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... likewise. From this village, the main defile cuts on to Gavarnie, and another opens off to the left toward another cirque,—the Cirque of Troumouse. Thus each branch ends in a similar formation, peculiar to the Pyrenees, a semicircle of cliffs, sudden and blank and impassable. The Cirque of Troumouse is larger around than that of Gavarnie, but its walls are not so high and its effect is reported to be less imposing. To reach it from Gedre requires perhaps three hours, the drivers tell us, by a good bridle-path. We feel ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... waggons, and was anxious to get among the cattle again; but with the trunks so near, the house growing rapidly, the days of sewing waiting, I refused point-blank to leave the homestead ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... together with Euphemia and the four unattached men. As I said before, I had given up enquiring into the lodging of this host, but Barbara, doubtless, as is her magic way, had caused bedrooms and beds to smile where all had been blank before. She herself was free from any care, being in her brightest mood; and when Barbara gave herself up to gaiety she was the most delicious thing in the ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... had been laid to his charge, to send him home to Spain and to remain himself as governor of the colony. The person chosen for this purpose was Francis de Bovadilla, a poor knight of the order of Calatrava, who besides his full and ample commission was supplied with blank directed letters subscribed by their majesties, which he was empowered to direct to such persons as he might think fit in Hispaniola, commanding them to be aiding and assisting to him in the discharge of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... and cautious," stated Captain Wass. He put on his spectacles, kneeled on the soft carpet, and examined the blank papers and the broken seals. He laid them back on the carpet and meditated for some time, still on his knees. When he looked up, peering over the edge of his spectacles, he paid no attention to Mar-ston, ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... and protected me for some time; the rest is all confusion and dread, a dim recollection of a sea-beach and a cave, and of some strong potion which lulled me to sleep for a length of time. In short, it is all a blank in my memory until I recollect myself first an ill-used and half-starved cabin-boy aboard a sloop, and then a schoolboy in Holland, under the protection of an old merchant, who had taken some fancy ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... word for word (as nearly as the change from prose to blank verse would allow) from the old record in Hall. It would have been easy for Shakspeare to have exalted his own skill, by throwing a coloring of poetry and eloquence into this speech, without altering the sense or sentiment; but by adhering ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... disquieted. On to their houses, high and vast, Where stores of precious wealth were massed, The melancholy Brahmans passed, Their hearts with anguish cleft: Aloof from all, they came not near To stranger or to kinsman dear, Showing in faces blank and drear That not one ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... great patron of the chase; and his keeper, Watson, always had a bag-fox ready to turn down when my lord's hounds met there. Jawleyford's covers were never known to be drawn blank. Though they had been shot in the day before, they always held a fox the next—if a ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... hath been usual for many years past for the Governor of Petit Guaves to send blank Commissions to Sea by many of his Captains, with orders to dispose of them to whom they saw convenient.... I never read any of these French Commissions ... but I have learnt since that the Tenor of them is to give a Liberty ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... he commanded, "and get my notebook. That's right. Tear out a blank page and write ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... repeated, 'but then Varia is mine! mine!' ... Yet that 'but'—alas, that but!—and then, too, the words, 'Varia is mine!' aroused in me not a deep, overwhelming rapture, but a sort of paltry, egoistic triumph.... If Varia had refused me point-blank, I should have been burning with furious passion; but having received her consent, I was like a man who has just said to a guest, 'Make yourself at home,' and sees the guest actually beginning to settle into his room, as if ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... said the Kid, "getting bumped in the stretch when you had the race won." Little Calamity stared from under the peak of his cap in blank, uncomprehending amazement. ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... I placed my mouth in his World, he had neither seen me, nor heard anything except confused sounds beating against—what I called his side, but what he called his INSIDE or STOMACH; nor had he even now the least conception of the region from which I had come. Outside his World, or Line, all was a blank to him; nay, not even a blank, for a blank implies Space; say, ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... dark and the prospect blank when it was learned that both Victor and Schwarzenberg had been steadily thrown back. The Russian plan was for Wittgenstein and Tchitchagoff to drive in the extreme left and right divisions respectively of Napoleon's attenuated line, and then to concentrate at Borrissoff ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... prose or in poetic form. The tendency is toward prose in comedy and poetry in tragedy, though in the same play both prose and poetry are sometimes used. The most common form for the poetic composition is the unrhymed iambic pentameter or blank verse (heroic measure). Rhymes are in use but usually their purpose is definite and specific and they may occur occasionally in plays which are otherwise in blank verse. Lyrics are often introduced, and in them both rhyme and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... at me for?' cried Harry, with a blank expression of countenance. 'I didn't do anything ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... snicker and stare—all eyes on Lev, his face as blank as a sham cartridge, while old Williams's countenance fell into a concatenation of grimaces and wrinkles—language fails ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... necessary to show that curls are worn by an addition of blank spaces, this makes the difference between single lines and broad stomachs, the least thing is lightening, the least thing means a little flower and a big delay a big delay that makes more nurses than little women really little women. ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein
... going to the cupboard he approached the window. The sun beat hotly, but as he leaned forth into the street he shivered as on a winter's morn. In blank wretchedness he watched the throng beneath the window, pannier-laden asses, venders of hot sausage with their charcoal stoves and trays, youths going to and from the gymnasium, slaves returning from market. How long he stood thus, wretched, helpless, he ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... we spend our day? How fill up the blank spaces? Goats are to be milked', fowls to be fed, dough to be kneaded, breakfast to be prepared, firewood to be cut, house to be looked after. Most of the substantial improvements have long since been finished, but there ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... be sufficient for the bold and blank assertion (No. 7) with which the extract concludes; but that I feel some curiosity to discover what meaning the author attaches to the term analogy. Analogy implies a difference in sort, and not merely in degree; and ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... little at other times it was simply in order to please the king. If the Court subsisted after her it was only to languish. Never was princess so regretted, never one so worthy of it: regrets have not yet passed away, the involuntary and secret bitterness they caused still remain, with a frightful blank ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... story of her weak lungs was started, the journey to the far away sanatorium, which really ended in the cabin of a one-time slave of the family twenty miles away! The hideous secret; the journeys by night and that last terrible scene when the blank mind refused to interpret the agony of the riven body and the wild screams and moans rang through the cabin chamber. Alone, the old black woman and Ann Walden had witnessed the struggle of life and death, which ended in the birth of Cynthia and ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... were crowded with a motley throng up to the very gates of the citadel, where, within the first moat, stand all the yashgis, or residences of the Daimios. Each yashgi is surrounded by a blank wall, loopholed, and with a tower at each of the four corners. Within this outer wall is the court of the retainers, all of them 'two-sworded' men; then comes a second wall, also loopholed, inside which dwell ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... against the blank south wall of Hobbett's store, Peter Siner saw the usual crowd of negroes warming themselves in the soft sunshine. They were slapping one another, scuffling, making feints with knives or stones, all to an accompaniment of bragging, profanity, and loud laughter. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... showed by a blank stare that he did not begin to grasp the meaning of this statement. He shook his head. "He was always a wild lad. Now as to the Signorina Ginini, who is to be his beautiful Contessa, she loves Sicily. She has spent most of her life ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... could she bear the gnawing hunger at her heart for the presence of him unto whom was every thought of her brain and every throbbing pulse of her soul? The future seemed to stretch before her, a terrible, an unendurable blank. ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... originality—the Rebecca Mary sort. If she had not been hampered by circumstances, it would have been easier to be original. The most hampering circumstance was the cookbook itself, which she was driven to use in her new undertaking. There was room on the blank leaves and above and below the recipes for cake and pudding and pie. The book was one Aunt Olivia had given her long ago ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... was repeating the same words over and over, his gaze blank, unfocussed, yet turned to ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... I ended by holding out the ring to her in silence. She turned fearfully white, her eyes opened extraordinarily and looked dead, like those eyes; she uttered a faint cry, snatched the ring, reeled, fell on my breast, and fairly swooned away, her head falling back, and her blank wide-open eyes staring at me. I threw both my arms about her, and standing where I was, without moving, told her slowly, in a subdued voice, everything, without the slightest concealment: my dream, ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... subject and general intention of a statuette six inches high. Anything shallower than a half-inch bas-relief is a blank to her, so far as it expresses an idea of beauty. Large statues, of which she can feel the sweep of line with her whole hand, she knows in their higher esthetic value. She suggests herself that she can know them better than we do, because she can get the true dimensions and appreciate more ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... for me. But I'm still jumpy, and this sort of carelessness makes me nervous, particularly as the story is going about that the King came near being assassinated in the station of his home town when he was leaving. Man fired point blank at his face, but gun didn't go off or some one knocked up the man's arm. Did you notice that he looked about rather apprehensively when he arrived, at the station ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... reason why the blind world do slight the authority of Scripture, is, because they give ear to the devil, who, through his subtilty, casteth false evasions and corrupt interpretations on them, rendering them not so point blank the mind of God, and a rule for direction to poor souls, persuading them that they must give ear and way to something else besides, and beyond that; or else he labours to render it vile and contemptible, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the desk top robbed the moment of some of its natural splendor. Forrester disengaged himself gently and slid a little out of the way. "Now, now," he said, moving rapidly across the room toward a blank wall. "This sort of thing isn't usually done, Maya. I mean, Miss Wilson. ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... "Blank verse is now with one consent allied To Tragedy, and rarely quits her side; Though mad Almanzor rhymed in Dryden's days, No sing-song hero rants in modern plays;— While modest Comedy her verse foregoes For jest and pun in very middling prose. Not that ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... word, but the mere struggle to understand—the mere watching my mother's earnest face—my pride in the reverent flattery with which the worthy men addressed her as "a mother in Israel," were enough to fill up the blank for me till bed-time. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... many people by sight, and pointed them out as they drove by. Lady this, the Countess of that, Mrs Blank, who wrote society novels, and was noted for her taste in dress, the beautiful Miss Dash.—"Not that I can see much beauty in her myself. She's not a patch on you, when you're in form!" Cornelia felt a girl's ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... sheets should be kept in heavy envelopes of manila paper and placed in a box just the size to hold them. The standard or museum size of herbarium sheets is 11-1/2 x 16-1/2 inches. Specimens of seaweed or leaves can be kept in blank books. ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... innocently, for in spite of the brilliant sunlight the wind blew from the east, keen as a knife. "I shall take a good wrap in the carriage in spite of this tropical temperature," she thought. Carnaby refused point blank to drive with them; he would bicycle to the party or else not go at all, so it was alone with Miss Smeardon that Robinette started in the heavy old landau behind the ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... up in those very terms, and there is a blank for the name, as we have not seen her. Sign. The lady can set you all at ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... followed. It appears that scattered groups of Chinese soldiers, some with their arms, and some without, had collected during this crisis and point-blank firing at once commenced. The first shots appear to have been fired—though this was never proved—by a Chinese regimental groom, who was standing with some horses some distance away in the gateway of some stabling ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... them; she tried to drive him up to the point, and he wouldn't be driven; he said one clever thing after another, but always managed to give her no answer; till at last she pinned him with a point-blank question." ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... anything and everything in the way of comfort, Colonel Joe McKibben brought an order from the General for me to get fresh beef for the headquarters mess. I was not caterer for this mess, nor did I belong to it even, so I refused point-blank. McKibben, disliking to report my disobedience, undertook persuasion, and brought Colonel Thom to see me to aid in his negotiations, but I would not give in, so McKibben in the kindness of his heart rode several miles in order to procure the beef himself, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... immolation of the single victim who had long attached his personal affections; a man at least as much envied as hated! that hard lesson had not yet been inculcated on a British sovereign, that his bosom must be a blank for all private affection; and had that lesson been taught, the character of Charles was destitute of all aptitude for it. To reign without a refractory parliament, and to find among the people themselves subjects more loyal than their ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... into the darkened room where Angela lay—inert, immovable, with always the same wide-open eyes, blank with misery and ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... her husband's countenance for a few moments in a manner expressive of blank despair; then falling on her knees before him, clasping her hands together, she ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... the privation had ceased to be one. Here then, sir, are the seeds of a wilderness of after woe: my father, overflowing with affection, and craving, as it were, for sympathy, turning to my mother, and finding there a blank—nothing to rest upon. 'What is fortune,' says the poet, 'to a heart yearning for affection, and finding it not? Is it not as a triumphal crown to the brows of one parched with fever, and asking for one fresh, healthful draught—the cup of cold water?' So it was here, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... the window long after the gig had disappeared over the low horizon: a small, nervous, indomitable figure of a man close upon his sixty-second birthday, standing for a while with his back turned upon his unwieldy manuscripts and his jaw thrust forward obstinately as he surveyed the blank landscape. He had the scholar's stoop, but this thrust of the jaw was habitual and lifted his face at an angle which gave an "up-sighted" expression to his small eyes, set somewhat closely together above a long straight nose. Nose, ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... She was a wife in a million; and it was only after I had married her that I realized what a delightful thing it was to be alive. My former existence, looked back on from that time, seemed but a blank expanse through which I had stagnated as a chrysalis lingers on, half alive, through the dreary months ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... if she gives up. I'll play you square. He's my roommate—can't you trust me to handle it? Keep on. Miss Sadie Brown, works at the Emporium, lives 2196 Valencia—" Mark was reading from a perfectly blank sheet of copy paper—"Judge Tiffany will take him home. He wired ahead for a private ambulance from Havens. That's all of that. Now what have you fellows got? Help me out; it's none ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... expressly for the occasion its striking incidents could not possibly have followed one another better. One other merely mechanical change I suggest now. I would not have an initial letter for the town, but would state in the beginning that I gave the town a fictitious name. I suppose a blank or a dash rather fends a good many people off—because it always ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... thripody; an' in rhythm projuices the effects of the dacthylic hixamitir. Compeer wid this the ballad mayther, an' the hayroic mayther, and the Spinserian stanzas, of Worsley, an' Gladstone's Saxon throchaics, and Darby's dull blank verse, an' the litheral prose, an' Mat Arnold's attimpts at hixameters, an' Dain somebody's hindicasyllabics. They're one an' all ayqually contimptible. But in this neetive Oirish loine we have not only doialictic advantages, but also an ameezing number ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... To get paper that should seem to have been made in the reign of QUEEN ELIZABETH, and ink that should give to writing the appearance of having the same age, was somewhat difficult; but both were overcome. Young IRELAND was acquainted with a son of a bookseller, who dealt in old books: the blank leaves of these books supplied the young author with paper; and he found out the way of making proper ink for his purpose. To work he went, wrote several plays, some love-letters, and other things; and having got a Bible, extant in the time of SHAKSPEARE, he wrote notes in ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... often neglected. One day, seeing him employed in cutting something from a newspaper, I asked him what he was about. 'Oh,' said he, 'here is a little paragraph speaking kindly of our poor old friend Blank; you know he seldom gets a word of praise, poor fellow, nowadays; and thinking he might not chance to see this paper, I am snipping out the paragraph to mail to him this afternoon. I know that even these few ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... uncle exchanged glances. "But they are absolutely blank," the uncle began hesitantly. "Perhaps, with your ...
— The Blue Tower • Evelyn E. Smith
... often in these manuscripts, we seem to see Casanova thinking on paper. He uses scraps of paper (sometimes the blank page of a letter, on the other side of which we see the address) as a kind of informal diary; and it is characteristic of him, of the man of infinitely curious mind, which this adventurer really was, that there are so few merely personal notes among these casual ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... had nothing save love, and a fitful temperament, upon which she could draw for conversation. Those whose education debars them from deriving instruction from things, have in general the power to extract amusement from persons:—they can talk of the ridiculous Mrs. So-and-so, or the absurd Mr. Blank. But our lovers saw no society: and thus their commune was thrown entirely on their ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Well now, the rascal invariably looks quite blank when I mention Marizano's name, and shakes his head, as if he had never heard of ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... the other hand, the building were the free library and reading room of the same small country town, we should have little doubt of this if we saw it as in Fig. 14, with the walls all blank (showing that they are wanted for ranging something against, and cannot be pierced for windows), and windows only in the upper portion. Similarly, if we want to build it as the country bank, we should have to put the large windows on the ground floor, bank clerks wanting plenty ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... of "Harold Ramorez," etc., lit one of the hayseed cigarettes, seated himself comfortably, with his back against the wall and his right shoulder just under the lantern, elevated his knees to support the note-book, turned to a blank page, and wrote, slowly ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... revellers gave a rather blank snigger, as though they had all along supposed looking at them to be an exhilarating occupation for any ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... of their death warrant. There was nothing more that they could do—they were trapped! The lawyer read over the deed, and when he had read it he informed Szedvilas that it was all perfectly regular, that the deed was a blank deed such as was often used in these sales. And was the price as agreed? the old man asked—three hundred dollars down, and the balance at twelve dollars a month, till the total of fifteen hundred dollars had been paid? Yes, that was correct. And it ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... prevent all future disputes. Here testaments were promulgated, slaves manumitted, bargains of sale concluded; and sometimes, for greater security, the most considerable of these deeds were inserted in the blank leaves of the parish bible, which thus became a kind of register too sacred to be falsified. It was not unusual to add to the deed an imprecation on all such as should be guilty of that crime [l]. [FN [1] ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... terrible rapidity, the twig in his fingers rilling blood without renewal; but in the middle of a sentence his hands denied their service to his will, his arms fell to his sides, the book to the earth; and powerless to move or cry out, he found himself staring into the sharply drawn face and blank, dead eyes of his own mother, standing white and silent in the garments ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... says England, and then within a week sure enough the papers are full of some new raid of Dervishes. We are not all blind, Mister Headingly. We understand very well how such things can be done. A few Bedouins, a little backsheesh, some blank cartridges, and, behold—a raid!" ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... evidently pleased with the new play of detective, and intended to distinguish himself in that line; but when Miss Celia asked how he meant to begin, he could only respond with a blank expression: "Don't know! You give me the keys and leave a bill or two in the drawer, and may be I can ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... of the minute shells of Foraminifera, sprinkled with remains of small Entomostraca, and probably a few Pteropod-shells; though the sounding lines have not yet brought up any of these last. Thus, in so far as all high forms of life are concerned, this new chalk-formation must be a blank. At rare intervals, perhaps, a polar bear, drifted on an iceberg, may have its bones scattered over the bed; or a dead, decaying whale may similarly leave traces. But such remains must be so rare, that this new chalk-formation, if accessible, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... Are we to believe that in the final stage of Jnana, and in the condition called Samadhi, the mind is a blank and thought is arrested? ...
— The Buddhist Catechism • Henry S. Olcott |
