"Blank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they didn't answer. The little people always had been shy. Yet without reaching a decision in so many words I knew suddenly that I had to talk to them. I'd come to the glen to work out a knotty problem, and I was up against a blank wall. Simply because I was so lonely that my ...
— Houlihan's Equation • Walt Sheldon
... Connie told the Indian that he and 'Merican Joe had set some traps on the lake a day's journey to the south-eastward. Pierre Bonnet listened attentively, but by not so much as the flicker of an eyelash did he betray the fact that he had ever heard of the lake. Finally, the boy asked him, point-blank, if he had ever been there. Connie knew something of Indians, and, had been quick to note that Pierre held him in regard. Had this not been so, he would never have risked the direct question, for it is only by devious and round-about methods that one obtains desired information ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... hope and love to sustain them, the women of Richmond did not wince under the pinch of want. But now, surrounded by enemies, with not a pound of flour, or a cent of currency, actual starvation—as well as humiliation—stared them in the face. The few who went to draw rations, sat down in blank despair. They could not make up their minds to go again. The fewer still, who had the least surplus from immediate wants, distributed it freely; and a cup of sugar from a slender stock was bartered here for a ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... meant to hack off her foot in order to secure the bangle, a horrible proceeding that had been carried out more than once before my eyes within the past hour. There was, I knew, but one way to save her, therefore without hesitating I drew my revolver and fired at him point blank. ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... his original most closely, we seem to hear the actor, speaking in a new tongue, in a more relaxed and colloquial rhythm. The reader will find it both amusing and instructive to compare the two versions of Act II, scene ii. The new cadences do more than merely prove that Harris had no ear for blank verse. ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... the reader is struck first of all with the novel versification. It is blank verse, the line being precisely that of Dante's Divina Commedia. Not only is there no rhyme, but assonance is very carefully avoided. The effect of this unbroken succession of feminine verses is slightly monotonous, though ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... of them. Virgil is much the closest of any Roman poet, and the Latin hexameter has more feet than the English heroic."[421] Yet though Dryden admits that Caro, the Italian translator, who used blank verse, made his task easier thereby, he does not think of abandoning the couplet for any of the verse forms which earlier translators had tried. He finds Chapman's Homer characterized by "harsh numbers ... and a monstrous length of ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... insisted on calling him afterward to Sam) had opened the door. He felt instantly that the atmosphere of his sanctum had, to a certain extent, been polluted. But that Sam's eyes were upon him he would have denied point-blank that he had a single canvas of any kind for sale, and so closed ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of the crises in which I was made to feel the murder madness leaping alive in blood and brain; but the publicity of the place and the blank hopelessness of escape in a strange city made any thought of resistance ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white. In a sense our age has realised this fact, and expressed it in our sullen costume. For if it were really true that white was a blank and colourless thing, negative and non-committal, then white would be used instead of black and grey for the funeral dress of this pessimistic period. We should see city gentlemen in frock coats of spotless silver linen, with ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... with whom, in the last three months, he had become fairly intimate, had gone to his new field of work, leaving a blank behind him in every house in the place; his successor had not yet arrived. "And we are not likely to have much in common when he does come," Paul thought, with a smile. May Webster, after manfully fulfilling her purpose of helping in the village ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... should have my coffee after my tinned dinner. I was turning to go back to the Bordj when the extreme desolation of the desert around, now fading in the shadows of a moonless night, stirred me to a desire. Sidi-Massarli was dreary enough. Still it contained habitations, men. I wished to feel the blank, wild emptiness of this world, so far from the world of civilisation from which I had come, to feel it with intensity. I resolved to mount the low hill down which I had seen the Spahi ride, to descend into the fold of ...
— The Desert Drum - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... written on a sheet of very thick, white note paper. It filled only the first page. Miss Sibby tore off the written page, folded it in its own folds, and put it in her pocket. Then she took the blank half of the sheet, folded it, also, and put it back into the envelope. Lastly, she wet the gummed edges of the envelope, and stuck them down, fastening the note much more securely than she ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... lay the village in ashes, and carry off the women and children. The militia, or "hundred-day men," who lived in or near the village, drilled in the village streets, and fired rattling volleys of blank cartridges at a board fence, in preparation for the coming conflict. On Friday evening word came that Morgan would attempt to force a passage at Coxe's Riffle the next morning, and the militia marched to Steubenville to help intercept him. A bloody battle ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... the innocent pleasure of handling rounded ivory. His relation with Chad personally—from the moment he had got his point of view—had been of the simplest; yet this also struck him as bristling, after a third and a fourth blank day had passed. It was as if at last however his care for such indications had dropped; there came a fifth blank day and he ceased to ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... incorporated and named. It is always difficult to name a new place or a new baby. Mr. Nathan Appleton met one of the other proprietors, who told him that the legislature was ready to incorporate the town, and it only remained for them to fill the blank left in the act ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... again along various passages, the last of which suddenly widened into a broad and steep incline of rock, which we followed for quite fifty paces till it ended in what seemed to be a blank wall. Here Maqueda bade her ladies and attendants halt, which indeed they seemed very anxious to do, though at the moment we did not know why. Then she went to one end of the wall where it joined that of ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... that his Excellency had no right to pry into my domestic concerns. His business was with me as a governess only; on any other subject I declined conversing. I enjoyed the expression of blank amazement with which he regarded me on receiving this somewhat defiant reply. "Tam chai!" ("Please yourself!") he said, and proceeded to pace to and fro, but without turning his eyes from my face, or ceasing to smile. Then he said something to his attendants, ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... Blank! ye know! Got cut about the head down at the fete at South Park! Tried to dance upon the table, and rolled over on some champagne ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... so I stared hopelessly at the blank paper. I hadn't an idea in my head, apparently. At last I threw down the pencil and gave up the battle for the day. I was not in a writing mood. I lit my pipe, and, moving to the arm-chair by the window, sat there, looking out at the lawn and ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... with sculpture upon them of rather heathenish aspect; and in the centre of the front of each sarcophagus was a bust in bas-relief, the features of which had never been wrought, but were left almost blank, with only the faintest indications of a nose, for instance. It is supposed that sarcophagi were kept on hand by the sculptors, and were bought ready made, and that it was customary to work out the portrait of the deceased upon the blank face in the centre; ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was published "A Tale of Rosamund Gray and Poor Blind Margaret," a story of which Lamb wrote in the following year: "Rosamund sells well in London, malgre the non-reviewal of it," and in 1798 also, Lloyd and Lamb published a joint volume of "Blank Verse." ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... "but suppose I got a bad one? You are always saying that marriage is a lottery, and I don't believe the remark is original. Suppose I drew a blank; fancy being married to a blank! Or I might do worse. I might draw minus something—minus brains, for instance. They are in the lottery, for I have seen them, nicely done up in faultless linen—both blanks ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... sombre and ceaseless stir. Our ears were filled by a headlong shuffle and beat of rapid footsteps and by an underlying rumour—a rumour vast, faint, pulsating, as of panting breaths, of beating hearts, of gasping voices. Innumerable eyes stared straight in front, feet moved hurriedly, blank faces flowed, arms swung. Over all, a narrow ragged strip of smoky sky wound about between the high roofs, extended and motionless, like a soiled streamer flying above ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... Such an entire blank as the poor child's mind seemed to be was inconceivable to the maiden, who had been bred up in the busy hum of men, where the constant resort of strange merchants, the daily interests of a self-governing municipality, and the numerous festivals, both secular and ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... claymore shall be ours, Bailie,' said the Chieftain, who saw that Macwheeble looked very blank at this intimation. ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... the new-comer with blank amazement. The latter was blinking in the bright light of the corridor, and peering at us and at the smouldering fire. It was an odious face—crafty, vicious, malignant, with shifty, ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Transvaal, the residents must within seven days leave their homes or enrol themselves as burghers." Nothing was mentioned about fighting, so all there complied with what was required—namely, to sign their names on a blank sheet of paper. By evening all had left for Mosita, as Mr. P. had also mentioned Mr. Keeley's name in his unlucky note. Three, however, remained to keep a watch on myself, and one of these, I regretted to observe, was the jovially-inclined Dietrich. It can be imagined that our irritation ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... the exploration of the San Juan and upper Colorado rivers. The Summer of 1859 was spent in the accomplishment of the object had in view by this expedition, during which time the party traveled over a large part of Southern Colorado and Utah and Northern Arizona and New Mexico, filling up a wide blank space in our maps and opening a great area before unknown, much of which proved rich and beautiful, abounding in mineral wealth, and full of natural objects of great interest. Among the results of this expedition were the determination of the point of junction ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... I, M. | take thee N. | to my wedded wife, | to have and to hold, | from this day forward, | for better for worse, | for richer for poorer, | in sickness and in health, | to love and to cherish, | till death do us part, etc. Here it becomes mere blank verse which is, of course, a defect in prose style. In that delightful old French the Saj'a frequently appeared when attention was solicited for the titles of books: e.g. Lea Romant de la Rose, ou tout lart ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... first act till near the end, and then had only one short scene to bring down the curtain. Lady Holme knew this because she had seen the play in Paris. She thought the American version very dull. The impropriety had been removed and with it all the fun. People began to yawn and to assume the peculiar blank expression—the bankrupt face—that is indicative of thwarted anticipation. Only the Americans who had seen the piece in New York preserved their lively looks and an appearance of ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... now, my masters?" said the Abbot of Unreason; "and wherefore look on me with such blank Jack-a-Lent visages? Will you lose your old pastime for an old wife's tale of saints and purgatory? Why, I thought you would have made all split long since—Come, strike up, tabor and harp, strike up, fiddle and rebeck—dance and be merry to-day, and let care come to-morrow. Bear and ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... The wrath had clean died out of his puckered face; and in place of it there showed a blank despair, mingled with loathing ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 1797, was published Icelandic Poetry, or, The Edda of Saemund translated into English Verse, by A.S. Cottle of Magdalen College, Cambridge. This work has an Introduction containing nothing worth discussing here, and an "Epistle" to A.S. Cottle from Robert Southey. The laureate, in good blank verse, discourses on the Old Norse heroes whom he happens to know about. They are the old favorites, Regner Lodbrog and his sons; in Southey's poem the foeman's skull is, as usual, the drinking cup. It was certainly time for new actors and new properties to appear in ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... revolver and fired point-blank at the prostrate figure. I do not know what the ethics are of firing on a man when he is down, nor did I have ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... past? Is it possible that she lived before she met him? Of what did she think, what do? Could there be pursuits without this companion, plans or feelings without this sweet friend? Life must have been a blank, vapid and dull and weary. She could not recall herself before that morning ride to Armine. How rolled away the day! How heavy must have been the hours! All that had been uttered before she listened to Ferdinand seemed without point; all that ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... superintendent's sooty face crept a look of blank amazement. "Shut down! why?" he floundered helplessly. "I can't, till this heat is through, and there's nothing the matter with ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... man, who has never borrowed a penny in his life, and does not know where to turn in his emergency. If he can not raise this money he will be sold up, his family will be scattered, his situation and his prospective pension will be lost, and blank ruin will stare him in the face. Now, were he in receipt of an income of ten times the amount, he would probably have a banking account, and, in consequence, be able to secure an advance of all he needed from his banker. Why should he not be able to pledge his salary, ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... then came the great chartered trading companies; and, finally, the governments to which these belong have assumed responsibility for the territories thus made known to the civilised world. Within forty years the map of Africa, which was practically a blank in the interior, and, as will be shown, was better known in 1680 than in 1850, has been filled up almost completely by researches due to motives of conquest, of trade, ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... Mr. Perkins took it to the window to read it. "I'll get you a blank book," he announced when he came back, "and we'll paste the letter into it carefully, so that you can keep it always. And that book will be your best, Johnnie. Say, but ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... the Rev. Blank Blank, assisted by etc., etc., at the residence of the bride's father, Sir Victor Catheron, Baronet, of Catheron Royals, Cheshire, England, to Beatrix Marie Stuart, only daughter of James Stuart, Esq., banker of Fifth avenue, New ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... sanguine than ever in his passion, Booty burst out like a young lunatic. He swore most horribly. He swore at the umpire. He swore at Ransome. He swore at everybody all round. The more Ranny congratulated him, the more he swore at him. He called Ranny a blanky young fool, and asked him what the blank he did it for. He said it was a blanky shame, and that if anybody tried to give him a blanky cup, he'd throw it at 'em. Even when they'd calmed him down a bit, he still swore that he'd give Ranny the cup, for Ranny'd given him the race. He explained ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... hundred and fifty rupees a year. Every rite is accompanied by a more or less considerable addition to the purse of the insatiable family Brahman, but the happy events pay better than the sad ones. Knowing all this, the Babu asked the Brahman point-blank to perform a false samadhi, that is to say, to feign an inspiration and to announce to the sorrowing mother that her late son's will had acted consciously in all the circumstances; that he brought about ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... southern frontier for overflow from Virginia; and in many ways was assimilated to the type of the up-country in its turbulent democracy, its variety of sects and peoples, and its primitive conditions. But under the lax management of the public lands, the use of "blank patents" and other evasions made possible the development of large landholding, side by side with headrights to settlers. Here, as in Virginia, a great proprietary grant extended across the colony—Lord Granville's proprietary was a zone embracing the northern ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... by the questions brought to me from those poor sufferers, and the way such answers seemed to calm anxieties connected with the fear of death and to render the impenetrable Veil more transparent, which suggested the title, "Through a Window in the Blank Wall." ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... nautical charts. It was the imaginary tracing of an undulating line, intended to denote the limits between land and water, without a promontory, or an island, a bay, harbour, or inlet, that was defined by shape or designated by name. This blank line was drawn and copied by one chart maker from another, without the least authority, and without the least reason to believe that any European had ever visited this wide and deeply-indented gulf; and yet, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... Ireland. Even in the upper class, you meet with comparatively few persons who have set foot on Irish soil, and, of course, far fewer who have ever examined the condition of the island and the sources of her discontent. Irish history, which is, no doubt, dismal reading, is a blank page to the English. In January, 1886, one found scarce any politicians who had ever heard of the Irish Parliament of 1782. And in that year, 1886, an Englishman anxious to discover the real state of the country did not know where to go for information. ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... and another, till I had examined all. Catherine's library was select, and its state of dilapidation proved it to have been well used, though not altogether for a legitimate purpose: scarcely one chapter had escaped, a pen-and-ink commentary—at least the appearance of one—covering every morsel of blank that the printer had left. Some were detached sentences; other parts took the form of a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish hand. At the top of an extra page (quite a treasure, probably, when first lighted on) I was greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... to the boy's credit and he was supplied with a bank book and blank checks, feeling quite proud at having so much money as it would give him an opportunity to help his mother as well as to pay his bills ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh
... who receives the letter is ordered by the minister whom to deliver it to. It is then inclosed in a blank leaf or sheet of paper, without any address, and not sealed. It is presumed, that the courier or messenger will not dare to open it, or discover the contents to any one; such a breach of confidence might cost him his head, if discovered. 406 Doubts having been made in the Daily ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... led him through the back fields among the tethered cows, who stopped their slow chewing as they passed, and lay gazing after them in blank astonishment, into the Avenue and so to ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... our childhood and what we are told afterwards often become inextricably confused in our minds, and after the bureau and Aunt Lizzie, my memory is a blank for some years. I can't even tell you when it was first decided that I was to go on the stage, but I expect it was when I was born, for in those days theatrical folk did not imagine that their children could do anything ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... to which she was taken were sparsely furnished and rather dark, the windows looking out upon a blank wall, two rooms communicating, but with only a single entrance from the passage without. The most hopeful would have seen little prospect of escape, and the most spirited might wonder if depression could be successfully conquered ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... being trampled to a jelly. Mildmay, however, was not so fortunate. He seemed to think that it mattered very little where he directed his aim, so long as he made sure of hitting the brute somewhere, and he therefore fired point-blank at the chest of the mammoth which was menacing him. The shell sped true, but, encountering the thick shaggy coat and the enormously tough hide of the creature, failed to penetrate the body, and, exploding outside, only ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... celebrate him with "three times three." The suggestion was at once adopted, all the guests, with the exception of Haydn himself, standing up and cheering lustily. Haydn heard his name repeated, but not understanding what was going on, stared at the company in blank bewilderment. When the matter was explained to him he appeared quite overcome with diffidence, putting his hands before his face and not recovering his equanimity for some minutes. [See Records of My Life, ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... devoted to the king of Spain will not be employed in the army which will march against him. Let them disperse themselves through the provinces; there they will act usefully. To resupply them with a character—if they have none—it will be necessary for his Catholic majesty to send his orders in blank, for his minister in Paris ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... A blank leaf from the little memorandum book he always carried, and a bullet for pencil—perforce, the note was brief; but it told what he wanted: gold to buy a riding outfit, his pistols which Perkins had taken from him, ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... those wonderful tales of the "Arabian Nights" these things that were happening to her would have seemed more wonderful still: but her young mind was free of similes—a sensitive blank whereon the Senate might duly inscribe whatever tendencies seemed judicious; and after the Betrothal ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... and there seemed a great blank, and then she heard a scream—was it she that screamed so?—and she was trying with all her might to get somewhere, and was fainting in the labor, but trying again and again, and then a calmness that was like gentle ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... pained look on his face as he tried to do the subtraction in his head. He was never any good in mental arithmetic. Give him a pencil in his hand and he could do pretty well at figuring. But his mind seemed to go blank when he had to carry and all that in his head. He reached in all his pockets but did not have a pencil. And he knew he had to ask for the ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... name is left blank in the Pilgrims, probably because Purchas, a contemporary, did not wish ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... longer, my darling," he wrote Virgie that evening; I will come just as soon as it will do for me to leave home. My heart longs for you every hour in the day; life seems almost a blank without you, and I find it difficult to employ myself about anything. If you were stronger, and our little one was older, I would send some trusty messenger for you, and another eight days would find you in our beautiful ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... said, with a deep sigh, "you naturally ain't got any money. In course you left your pocketbook, containing fifty dollars, under a stone, and can't find it. In course," he continued, as he observed Lance put his hand to his pocket, "you've only got a blank check on Wells, Fargo & Co. for a hundred dollars, and you'd like me to ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... the openings between the trenches. Frightful work, of course. Impossible work, too, if the popular idea of the trenches were correct—that is, that they form one long, communicating ditch from the North Sea to Switzerland! They do not, of course. There are blank spaces here and there, fully controlled by the trenches on either side, and reenforced by further trenches behind. But with a knowledge of where these openings lie it ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... in the town earlier in the day. Even as he was turning the new thought over in his mind, one of them stepped out of the little knot, and, without a word of warning, lifted his arm and fired point blank at the little Englishman. A pistol ball whizzed close by his head. His horse leaped to the side of the road in terror, ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... her anger, though having the Italian picturesque richness and vigor, is the anger of an Italian fishwife, entirely unlike anything in the same rank elsewhere; her despair is that of a person with the toothache, or who has drawn a blank in the lottery. The first time I saw her was in Norma; then the beauty of her outline, which becomes really enchanting as she recalls the first emotions of love, the force and gush of her song, filled my ear, and charmed the senses, ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Sicily his confessor told him, in the strictest confidence, that his sentence was a mock one, and that he would be fired at with blank cartridges. ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... (HUNTLEY) (1791-1865).—American verse writer, was an extraordinarily copious writer of smooth, sentimental verse, which had great popularity in its day. Her most ambitious effort was a blank verse poem, Traits of the Aborigines of America (1822). Other books were Connecticut Forty ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... Legislature wasn't in session, but I found a man at a postcard stand in the lobby that kept a stock of charters on hand. There are 100,000 shares,' says Andy, 'expected to reach a par value of $1. I had one blank certificate ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... range the dangers of class interests and individual interests. Individualism, class distinction and party politics and the independence of labor came near proving the ruin of England. The Bishop of Oxford has expressed himself as believing that the blank stupid conservatism of his country, as he calls it, is really broken and that a new sense of service is actually dawning in all directions. Trotter says (and he too is thinking of England) that a very small amount of conscious and authoritative direction, a little sacrifice of ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... are signs that all this pedantry, graceful as it is, will gradually disappear. Blank verse is beginning to assert its sway, and the sentiment in poetry is less under the domination of measure. No doubt the advance to this freer atmosphere will be slow, music has already adopted a wider harmony. Ballads are being superseded by part singing, and ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... baccilophil humour"!—in the air! Science does love the unlearned soul to scare, But what does this thing mean? With fear to fill us? Can aught thus love and cherish the Bacillus? O "atmospheric envelope" thy humour Is worse than—Blank's—if we may trust this rumour. Since microbe "humour" fills both air and earth, Farewell to honest fun and wholesome mirth! Adieu to genial DICKENS, gentle HOOD! Hail to the peddling pessimistic brood Whose "nimini-pimimi" mouths, too small by half To stretch themselves ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... intervals, as one inch apart. Sew through first hole twice, making a loop around the back,—repeat the process until a loop has been made for each hole,—carry the cord in and out through the holes back to the starting point, filling in the blank places and making a continuous line, and tie ends together with a ...
— Primary Handwork • Ella Victoria Dobbs
... A blank silence seemed to fall upon the group, the Hakim thrusting away his knife, Frank, who half knelt behind him, as a slave should, waiting for such morsels as the Hakim might condescend to pass, darted a fierce look at the speaker, and the Sheikh, who shared their ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... Antoine was also a blank. Binnie suggested trying Monceau, two kilometres further on; but when they arrived there, fatigued and dirty, a thin drizzle was falling and it was almost ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... round him. Anything rather than be without them in the dreary world! But then came the remembrance of cherished visions, the shame of relinquishing a settled purpose, the thought of weary morrows, with the tempters among his playmates, and his home blank and melancholy; and the roaming spirit of enterprise stirred again, and reproached him with being a baby, for fancying he could stay at home for ever. He would come back again with such honours as Allan Ernescliffe had brought, and oh! if his father so prized them in a stranger, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... her finger, and a smile of triumph played over her face, only to die away again into a blank look of disappointment. "It is ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... absence, an exile from which there could be no return. The strain was too tight, the wrench too sharp: Emily could not bear it and live. In such a loss as hers, bereaved of a helpless sufferer, the mourning of those who remain is embittered and quickened a hundred times a day when the blank minutes come round for which the customary duties are missing, when the unwelcome leisure hangs round the weary soul like a shapeless and encumbering garment. It was Emily who had chiefly devoted herself to Branwell. He being dead, the motive of ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... and dumb at this, all the world seeming to him to have gone quite blank. He could not at first grasp this sentence in its full effect, it meant so much to him. He shivered, and a sigh broke from him as from one hurt deep and knowing that his hurt is fatal. Yet, after his fashion, he fought mute, struggling for some time before he dared ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... reply for an instant. She hated to have Rosie ask this question, point-blank for she did not want to answer it. If she said exactly what she thought there might be trouble. And it seemed to her that she would do almost anything rather than lose Rosie's friendship. But Maida had been taught to believe that the truth is the most precious thing in the world. And ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... personage was voted a novelty. A few weeks after it was published a lawyer called upon me, as the agent of the person in the directory, whose family name I had used, as he maintained, to his and all his relatives' great damage, wrong, loss, grief, shame, and irreparable injury, for which the sum of blank thousand dollars would be a modest compensation. The story made the book sell, but not enough to pay blank thousand dollars. In the mean time a cousin of mine had sniffed out the resemblance between the character in my book and our great-aunt. We were rivals ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... will was found, scratched in pencil, upon a blank leaf in the middle of his Bible; or, to use the phrase of one of the seamen, in the midships, atween the Bible and Testament, where the Pothecary (Apocrypha) uses ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... even more than that of Gwynplaine, was lost in clouds. In so young a child all remembrance melts away. She recollected her mother as something cold. Had she ever seen the sun? Perhaps so. She made efforts to pierce into the blank ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... a vicious passion. She had, indeed, learned to tell herself that she could not love her husband; and once, in the excitement of such silent announcements to herself, she had asked herself whether her heart was quite a blank, and had answered herself by desiring Phineas Finn to absent himself from Loughlinter. During all the subsequent winter she had scourged herself inwardly for her own imprudence, her quite unnecessary folly in so doing. ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... above the patient's head. On it was printed in large black letters the patient's name, ARTHUR C. PRESTON; on the next line in smaller letters, Admitted March 26th. The remaining space on the card was left blank to receive the statement of regimen, etc. A nurse was giving the patient an iced drink. After swallowing feebly, the man relapsed into a semi-stupor, his eyes ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... the occupation of every domain in creation, by some creatures who have the dominion, we cannot admit the probability that the earth is the only tenement with tenants: we must be confirmed in our judgment that the sun and the planets, with their moons, ours of course included, are neither blank nor barren, but abodes of variously organized beings, fitted to fulfil the chief end of all noble existence: the enjoyment of life, the effluence of love, the good of all around and the glory of ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... if you'll just sign this here blank, with your name and address, specifyin' your brand, why, we'll ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... spoke to her, giving expression to his sympathy, and she accepted it; but she said such strange things, and answered him so utterly at random, that he began to fear that grief had turned her brain. She went on to ask him point-blank how much money she now had, and as he happened to know approximately, he could tell her; she clasped her hands, for how could any one human being who was not a king possess such enormous wealth! Finally she enquired ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... twenty-one about May 1236, but to suppose her son of the name of Magnus to have been the ward for whom the Earldom of Caithness was being kept till 7th July 1235 from 1232 and that he had become Earl of Caithness on the 7th July 1235 seems impossible. If the blank should be filled up with "de Anegus et," then Malcolm Earl of Angus must still have been the guardian, and the ward's father and mother must both have been dead by 7th October 1232. This involves three unproved assumptions, of two unrecorded deaths ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... so confidently of coming down to Cloom some time quite soon? She would not leave Paris while Joe was still unwell.... Ishmael knew, with the sureness he had once or twice before known things in his life, and the knowledge affected him strangely. He felt no violent grief, but a great blank. He had not seen Killigrew for years; but with the knowledge that he was to see him no more went something of himself—something that had belonged to Killigrew alone and that had responded to something in him which henceforth would be sealed and dead. He kept himself busy all day, but now ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... sudden gust that swept through the columns of the portico, stirring the vines. The broad leaves of the ailantus began to rustle; an ominous pattering followed; the rain had recommenced. And as Courtland rose and walked towards the open window its blank panes and the interior of the office were suddenly illuminated by ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... into debt, and appealing to Mooch's good nature, who, unfortunately, was at that time very badly off and ill, being confined to the house with rheumatism,—trying to find another publisher, and everywhere finding conditions as grasping as Hecht's, and in some cases a point-blank refusal. ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... All at once he whipped out his two big guns and began to fire as he staggered—at random. He killed the wounded Blicky. In the melee he ran against Jesse Smith and thrust both guns at him. Jesse saw the peril and with a shriek he fired point-blank at Gulden. Then as Gulden pulled triggers both men fell. But Gulden rose, bloody-browed, bawling, still a terrible engine of destruction. He seemed to glare in one direction and shoot in another. He pointed the guns and apparently ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... globe had by a blow been broken, And the insphered glory bubbled forth! Or the sun were a splendid water-bird, That flying furrowed with its golden feet A flashing wake over the waves, and home! Lo there!—Alas, the dull blank wall!—High up, The window-pane a dead gray eye! and night Come on me like a thief!—Ah, well! the sun Has always made me sad! I'll go and pray: The terror of the ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... the looks, Edith; it is not that. But it is so dreadful to think of so many changes, and I unconscious of all. Such a long, dreary blank! Where was my soul wandering? What fearful scenes may hereafter dawn on my memory? Beauty! No, Edith; think not I weep for the cloud that has passed over it. The only eyes in which I desired to appear lovely, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... world. All she has is her romantic dream and her plain, primitive appetite; but these can be effective arms, after all, and she may yet succeed in getting her way and making her own terms. On the other hand the limitations of her life are very blank and uncompromising indeed; they close all round her, hampering her flights, restricting her opportunities. The drama is set, at any rate, whatever may come of it; Emma marries her husband, is established at Yonville and faced with the poverty of her situation. Something will result, ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... for a moment with a face of blank despair; then bowed her gray head in silence, and left me. As she crossed the room to the door, I saw her look upward; and I heard her say to herself softly, between her teeth, "Vengeance is mine, I will ...
— The Dead Alive • Wilkie Collins
... walking along, 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. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... to make reparation. It would seem that either the officer was under the influence of liquor, or else had a mind to bully the Indians, for he would accept neither explanation nor payment, but demanded point-blank that the young men who had killed the cow be delivered up to summary punishment. The old chief refused to be intimidated and was shot dead on the spot. Not one soldier ever reached the gate of Fort Laramie! Here Red Cloud led the young Ogallalas, ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... when I look in the book and see, maybe a year ahead, a blank week, when I've no singing the ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... of a closing door struck on her ear. She turned—and there was a blank wall, without door or window, behind her. The hill with the sheep was before her, and she set out at once to ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... and the quasi-Gothic revival. We were made to pass through Gothic dining-rooms, where there was now no hospitality,—Gothic drawing-rooms shrouded in brown hollands, to one little room at the end of the dusky suite, where Lady Clara sate alone, or in the company of the nurses and children. The blank gloom of the place had fallen upon the poor lady. Even when my wife talked about children (good-natured Madame de Moncontour vaunting ours as a prodigy) Lady Clara did not brighten up! Her pair of young ones was exhibited and withdrawn. A something weighed upon ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Parliament's failure in August to elect then-President MERI's successor; on the second ballot of voting, RUUTEL received 186 votes to Parliament Speaker Toomas SAVI's 155; the remaining 26 ballots were either left blank or invalid ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... be posted in this very delightful box, and special delivery stamps can be secured by stating on the blank the number of letters that are to be stamped, and enclosing the money for the same ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 41, August 19, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... The ramp's head faced blank wall with a sharp-angled turn to the right of a narrower passage. One of the Foanna made a slight sign to the guards, who turned with drilled precision to march off along the passage. Now the other Foanna held ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... then, suddenly realizing how he had echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair and stared at him in blank amazement. ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... it; and we glory in the fact. We glory in it, as the old Jews gloried in it, when the Roman soldiers, bursting through the Temple, and into the Holy of Holies itself, paused in wonder and in awe when they beheld neither God, nor image of God, but blank ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... sworn they won't!" chuckled Triplet. But, reconsidering her words, he looked blank, and muttered: "Then perhaps it would have been more ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade |
