"Blandly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... blandly, having looked at his watch, "it is now so near noon, that when we have allowed Mr. Winters ample time for rest, we had better proceed to the house and have our dinner, before ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... Virginian blandly accepted "old man" from his victim: he had a game to play. "Well, I cert'nly thank yu'," he said. "After a while I'll take advantage ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... end of the track, and at a given signal dashed off in the approved American style. By the time he reached the tape, dutifully held by two sporting Merevalian juniors, Charteris's attention had generally been attracted elsewhere. 'What time?' Welch would pant. 'By Jove,' Charteris would observe blandly, 'I forgot to look. About a minute and a quarter, I fancy.' At which Welch, who always had a notion that he had done it in ten and a fifth that time, at any rate, would dissemble his joy, and mildly suggest that somebody else should hold the watch. Then there was Jim Thomson, generally a perfect ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... Here blandly reposes, Forgetting, or never Regretting, its roses,— Its old agitations Of myrtles ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... She frowned slightly. Such a question was a distinct liberty and she had never either taken or permitted liberties. But she banished the frown and met her tormentor's eyes blandly. She had no intention of losing ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... and chickens; awing them into submission by his supernatural gift of speech. And as though that were not enough, his crop distended with his pilferings to the point of bursting, he comes unabashed to the kitchen door and blandly requests my mother, of all people, to give ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... Levy smiled blandly. "How can I say as yet?" he replied, conservatively. "There are certain elements which might contain interesting and promising details—a famous man married to a divorced woman twenty-five years his junior. We might ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... but my temper was not improved at hearing him tell it me so suavely and so blandly. He sat smiling and triumphant, chuckling no doubt at the dilemma into which he had thrust me. The worst of it was that while I was ostensibly master of the situation he had me at his mercy. I was a helpless victor without any of the ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... lamp-post this evening and shouted to him, 'You learnt it from him! How do you know that he visits me?' you were thinking of me then. So for one brief moment you did believe that I really exist," the gentleman laughed blandly. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... his vanity to perceive that this curiously well-informed and exceedingly strong-minded young lady became as weakly emotional as any ordinary school girl the moment she found herself face to face with him. "There is nothing to be afraid of," he blandly assured her. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... guard, but wholely on his itch, the jostled Parrot shot like a catapult across the floor! Lost to all sense of honor or table-manners the benign-faced Giraffe with his benign face still towering blandly in the air, burst through his own neck with a most curious anatomical effect,—locked his teeth in the Parrot's gay throat and rolled with him under the table ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... of the quiet men blandly, "that your game is up. You uttered at least twenty of those notes on the course to-day, and we were bound to have you. My name is Inspector Pilling, of Scotland Yard, and these gentlemen are my colleagues. We are five to one, so I suggest that you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... she explained, blandly, "and the next door belongs to Sir Hugh's bathroom, and this," pointing solemnly to the central ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... other country-girls, though the accomplishment was one which she did not care to profess in genteel company. However, she blandly admitted that ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... we blandly asked her For the knowledge we did lack, "Ah! that I can not tell you, But the ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... a long time wandered jobless frequenting the coffee-houses, the same as similar men nowadays frequent the bars. At the Cafe de l'Ecole, the proprietor, a good natured old fellow "in a small round wig, gray coat and a napkin on his arm," circulated among his tables smiling blandly, while his daughter sat in the rear as cashier.[3154] Danton chatted with her and demanded her hand in marriage. To obtain her, he had to mend his ways, purchase an attorneyship in the Court of the Royal Council ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... one of any kind. One disappointment followed another. Either the companies were all full, or the part offered was not in her line. Managers consciencelessly broke their promises; Mr. Quiller and the other dramatic agents were blandly indifferent. Meantime no money was coming in, and the girl was completely at the end of her resources. Her clothes were now little better than rags; very soon she would not be able to go out at all, let alone make the round of the managers' offices. She owed three weeks rent to ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... handsome, intellectual face full of passion but ill repressed; the other the big fair man known to the village as "Mr. Charles." As a matter of fact, his name was Reginald Henson, and he was distantly related to Mrs. Henson, the strange chatelaine of the House of the Silent Sorrow. He was smiling blandly now at Enid Henson, the wonderfully beautiful girl ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... said the adventurer, blandly, "I do not blame you in the least. You only did your duty, though it might have cost me some ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... steps and climbed down, wondering how the doctor expected a man with Peter's salary to act upon his advice. "You do that!" said the doctor, and left Peter to discover, if he could, how it was to be done without money; in other words, had blandly required Peter to perform ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... Omnipotence," the Prince was rejoining blandly; "what if not I alone, but a thousand others of the noblest of the Persians and the Medes may perish, if only the glory of ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... presence of a second lady—since men of the adventurous type are often shy when the fair sex is at hand—for he meekly sat where he was and did not even contradict. Don Pedro shook hands with Sir Frank, and then Hervey smiled blandly. ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... something durable at least, Madame, a trousseau that will stand the test of time and washing," replied the good mother smiling blandly, touched ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... readily because they reminded him of his native land. And so it befell that, alighting once at a shop belonging to some Venetian merchants, he saw there among other trinkets a purse and a girdle, which he forthwith recognised as having once been his own. Concealing his surprise, he blandly asked whose they were, and if they were for sale. He was answered by Ambrogiuolo da Piacenza, who had come thither with much merchandise aboard a Venetian ship, and hearing that the captain of the guard was asking about the ownership of the purse and girdle, came forward, and ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... blandly. "I think the suggestion is decidedly a happy one. I think I shall pay my ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... appeal, without reasons assigned, in the absence of the parties whose commercial reputation was trembling in the balance, upon the course of financial action to be pursued, and upon whose paper should or should not be discounted. A terrible stroke, sharper than a dagger could inflict, politely, blandly as it is performed, is that which falls upon a merchant for the first time informed that the Bank must decline to discount his bills! The announcement is usually received as smilingly as it is made. 'It is a matter of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... declared that he would not permit any allusion to what had taken place at a most improper conference,—a conference which he could not stigmatize in sufficiently strong language. But Mr. Chaffanbrass, smiling blandly,—smiling very blandly for him,—suggested that the impropriety of the conference, let it have been ever so abominable, did not prevent the fact of the conference, and that he was manifestly within his right in alluding to it. "Suppose, my lord, that Lord ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... "Yes," she answered blandly, an affirmative that caused him some astonishment, for he had struck at once to the farthest ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the experiment of economizing on the Navy (1906-8), there was no corresponding reduction in the German programme. The German Naval Law of 1906 raised the amount of the naval estimates by one-third; and German ministers blandly waved aside as impracticable a proposal for a mutual limitation ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... as two peas, him and 'is brother," said the night- watchman, gazing blandly at the indignant face of the lighterman on the barge below; "and the on'y way I know this one is Sam is because Bill don't use bad langwidge. Twins they are, but the likeness is only outside; Bill's 'art is ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... upon his fob, with its motto "Tu ne cede malis," and smiled blandly, as he always did when it was brought to his recollection that he had won more than soldiers' battles when the odds against him were three ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... riches?" blandly asked the Emperor one day. "In the simplest way in the world," replied the ex-minister. "I bought stock the day before the 18th Brumaire [when Napoleon overthrew the Directory], and sold it again ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... superiority—unless it were definitely moral or intellectual. A general indiscriminating goodwill was expressed in his manner towards everybody, and when he did discriminate—which was always on moral issues—his goodwill seemed unperturbed by any amount of reprobation. He remained blandly humane under the most disconcerting circumstances. She overtook him one day in a lane holding a drunkard by the shoulder and endeavouring to steer him homeward, while he expounded to him in scientific tones the ill effects of ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... first took a formal receipt for them, and then most obsequiously took his departure. By the same train came Mr. Cadbury Taylor, as modest as ever, but giving some indication in his bearing of the importance of the discovery his wonderful system had aided him in making. He blandly evaded the curiosity of Mr. Briggs, and said it would perhaps be better to reveal the secret in the presence of the Prince and Princess, as his investigations had led him to conclusions that might be unpleasant for ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... his shoulders. "Far be it from me to overstrain your credulity, my son," he observed blandly. "Let us admit then there was also some slight factor of expedience—but slight, Henry, almost negligible, in fact. It happened that I was in a French port, and that while there ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... found that he actually was to be her neighbour she was far from quarrelling with the destiny that made him so. He was so blithe and gay of heart, so blandly impudent, the very wine seemed to shine the redder for his presence. It was not in her nature to flirt with any man, but it was utterly impossibly not to enjoy his society. Less and less did she believe ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... should contrive To keep its pinions on the flap, And by a tour de force survive This devastating handicap, Yet are there perils in the skies Whereon we blandly shut our eyes, But which are bound to be incurred, And, notably, ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... went on Blount after a minute, "and I'll do the best I can." He paused expectantly, but Wiley did not speak, so he went on blandly, as before. "The stock, of course, is nonassessable and the taxes are very small. I intend from now on to keep them paid up, so there will be no further tax sales. The stock of Mrs. Huff, which I now hold as collateral security, is practically mine ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... remain at school and learn. 'The fellow would like to be a parson!' Everard said in disgust. No parson had ever been known of in the Romfrey family, or in the Beauchamp. A legend of a parson that had been a tutor in one of the Romfrey houses, and had talked and sung blandly to a damsel of the blood—degenerate maid—to receive a handsome trouncing for his pains, instead of the holy marriage-tie he aimed at, was the only connection of the Romfreys with the parsonry, as Everard called them. He attributed the boy's feeling to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... met Psmith's blandly inquiring gaze. He looked at Psmith carefully for a moment. No. The boy he had chased last night had not been Psmith. That exquisite's figure and general appearance were unmistakable, ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... I suppose you mean?" Lucile inquired, blandly, "It seems to me I did say something like that. What would you like ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... blandly, "that is because they are interested in the prosperity of the country, and have simple democratic tastes for themselves. I'm afraid you ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... easily granted," Grace began, but at the look in Mollie's eyes thought better of it. "I meant," she corrected herself blandly, "that, of course, you can never be ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... has undoubtedly arisen," he said blandly. "His Majesty did not see his way clear to adopt certain recommendations put forward by his Ministers to-day,—by myself, I may say, acting on behalf of my colleagues," and he coughed deferentially,—"and General Stampoff took an active part in the debate. He ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... as to say alike!" the large lady said blandly; "but there's a look! As I always say, there's no knowing where you are with a family likeness. My eldest girl—May—takes after her father; Felicia, the youngest, is the image of myself; yet they've been mistaken for each other ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... the devil," Tallente confided blandly. "I expect he will get there some time. I put up with him because I knew his father, but he is not a young man to make ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... do that should be regarded as accessories to the riot, and guilty of the murder of the rioters who fell. The leaders of the opposite sections of Whigs and Tories in the English parliament treated such arguments very blandly, and instead of denouncing any party or sect which impeded religious liberty, no matter what its theological opinions, the tone adopted was more in sympathy with the Roman Catholic party in parliament, to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... ray of the sun. Two young subalterns were tumbling over one another in the anxious endeavour to be the first to bring a footstool; a couple of their seniors were standing by, rubbing their hands and smiling blandly, to keep their minds in a fit state for the perpetration of a compliment on the first possible occasion; while even the grim old major was trying very hard to unbend: not that it was a part of his principles to be particularly gallant to the ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... screamed with rage. The swarming decks answered never a word; but one old tar on the Hartford, standing lanyard in hand beside a great pivot gun, so plain to view that you could see him smile, silently patted its big black breech and blandly grinned. And now the rain ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... your vote whithersoever you please. And now, as I have a great deal of occupation, perhaps you will do me the favour to retire.' So saying, he raised his hand lazily to the bell, and bowed me out; asking blandly if there was any other thing in the world in which ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the last person Sir Asher, with his hovering lackeys, would have recalled to the sculptor, who, in so far as the patriarchs ever crossed his mind, conceived them as resembling Rembrandt's Rabbis. But he replied blandly: 'Our patriarchs were polygamists.' ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... cayote with concentrated and desperate energy. This "spurt" finds him six feet behind the gliding enemy, and two miles from his friends. And then, in the instant that a wild new hope is lighting up his face, the cayote turns and smiles blandly upon him once more, and with a something about it which seems to say: "Well, I shall have to tear myself away from you, bub—business is business, and it will not do for me to be fooling along this way all day"—and forthwith there is a rushing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... back," Jerry continued blandly, "some day you're ergoin' ter invite me back. Anyhow, I reckon I'd come, because thar's somethin' hyar thet'll kinderly pulls me hither stronger then guns kin skeer ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... error, I accepted his congratulations, with those of the other boys, blandly and blindly. I remember that Binny Wallace wanted to give me his silver pencil-case. The gentle soul had stood throughout the contest with his face turned to the ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... that I had no views of that sort, and that no such scheme was entertained in my behalf by anybody; but Uriah insisted on blandly replying to all my assurances, 'Oh, yes, Master Copperfield, I should think you would, indeed!' and, 'Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield, I should think you would, certainly!' over and over again. Being, at last, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... poison," said Sir Roger blandly, as he placed the last document of those he had collected, neatly in a leather case and strapped it—"Your Majesty may perhaps feel inclined to defer giving the promised audience to Monsignor Del Fords of the Society ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... "That," he said blandly, "is but a concept. I have many another use for the toy. I can prove anything with it, anything ...
— The Ideal • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... cannot take that place absolutely and entirely she would vastly prefer the influence to remain, since it is in the nature of counterweight to that of other European Powers and of America—foreign influence in China, as Mr. Hioki blandly told the late President Yuan Shih-kai in his famous interview of the 18th January, 1915, being a source of constant irritation to the Japanese people, and the greatest stumbling-block to a permanent ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... the millionaire, and, laying the check before him, informed him that his wife had been guilty of forging his name, and that he must make the check good, or the lady would be exposed and punished. The millionaire listened blandly, stroking his whiskers musingly, and when the lawyer paused, overcome with excitement, quietly informed him that he was sorry for him, but that he, Mr. P—-, had the misfortune to be without a wife. He had been a ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... blandly, and pulling out his pocket-book, selected a cutting from a pile that apparently ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... the Canipers called her deaf expression, their stepmother looked at the closing door. "I did not hear what Miriam said," she remarked blandly. ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... them, and Opposition leaders, who hope one day to be Ministers, will also blandly say a word or two in their favour. For my own part, I don't think the country cares much about the matter, or interests itself more deeply who drones away life at Hanover than who occupies an apartment at Hampton Court. In ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... ordered the yemshick to drive there. With an eye to his pocket the fellow carried me to an establishment of the same name on the other side of the Oka. I had a suspicion that I was being swindled, but as they blandly informed me that no other hotel with that title existed, I alighted and ordered my ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... more than indifferent, Dick's enthusiasm for his chief never faltered, and in every line from Addison's pen, Steele found a master-stroke. By the time Dick had come to that part of the poem, wherein the bard describes as blandly as though he were recording a dance at the opera, or a harmless bout of bucolic cudgelling at a village fair, that bloody and ruthless part of our campaign, with the remembrance whereof every soldier who bore ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... are all made out," replied Miss Judith blandly. "You'll all find out in a few moments where you're to be." She sat calmly amid ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... lot for a ranch manager to be able to do," was the stranger's blandly sarcastic observation. "C'mon. We've gassed so much I'm dry as a covered bridge. I—What does Thompson want ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... term. He has in no sense become a part of an army; he is in no way restrained of his freedom. Yet he will presently find that his bosses and his newspapers have assumed just the reverse of that: that they have blandly arrogated to themselves an ironclad military authority over him; and within twelve months, if he is an average man, he will have surrendered his liberty, and will actually be silly enough to believe that he cannot leave that party, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Chingatok smiled blandly, and returned the squeeze so as to cause the interpreter to wince. Then, perceiving at once that he had got possession of a key to the affections of the strangers, he offered to shake hands with Leonard and his brother, stooping ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... him in classroom, head cocked to one side, grimly watching the prof. And once during a Bible course lecture I heard his voice blandly ironic behind me: ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... look of rage came into Eagle Claw's face, for Swanson had married his own sister, and such an insult was not to be brooked. But with all the powers of dissimulation which the Indian possesses, he forced a smile to his lips, and, blandly speaking, pointed to ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... exclaimed, "do you accept this theory of suicide as blandly as all that? Have you examined the body? Don't you use your eyes? I tell you ... bah, what's the use? I'm not here to do your ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... but indiscreet debtor has been thrown upon his back once more from this cause, and all his hopes in life blasted for ever. The means of approach to a debtor, in this situation, are many and various. "Do you think you will ever be able to do any thing on that old account?" blandly asked, in the presence of a third party, is answered by, "I hope so. But, at present, it takes every dollar I can earn for the support of my family." This is sufficient—the whole claim is in full force. In the course of a month ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... little dab of timber and let him keep a couple of acres surrounding his wife's grave, if the old fool would only listen to reason," the Colonel had complained bitterly to her. "I've offered him that price a score of times, and he tells me blandly the property isn't for sale. Well, he who laughs last laughs best, and if I can't get that quarter-section by paying more than ten times what it's worth in the open market, I'll get it some other way, if it costs ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... lost me husband on the railway. What I wants is a suit of clothes for my Tommy, he's five-and-'arf, and stout for his years, and a pair of boots for Selina Ann. And I'm not a saying," she continued, blandly, "as me having waited 'ere so long, and this being a sort of opening ceremony, as a pound of tea for myself wouldn't be a welcome and reasonable gift. And if the suit," she concluded, breathlessly, "has double-seated breeches so ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... self-protection when he is cornered by a question which he does not wish to answer. But his new-found mother-in-law was evidently anxious that nothing should occur to irritate the visitor, for she blandly answered his question herself. "Of course he knows the way to Zwingelspan. Why, he lives ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... best to understand that the stake on each game is a shilling, not to say simply we play for a shilling. Once, after an eight hours sitting, a countryman after losing twenty games blandly handed Mr. F. one shilling for the sitting, and could not be induced to ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... end by the tremendous drama. I am not talking foolishly. I know as much as the ordinary man need know about Greek tragedy. But in spite of Aristotle (who ought to have been strangled at birth, like all other bland doctrinaires—and of all the doctrinaires on art, there has none been so blandly egregious since the early morning long ago when the pre-historic artist who drew an elk on the omoplate of a bison was clubbed by the superior person of his day who could not draw for nuts)—in spite of Aristotle and the rest of the ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... be called plain. One might be forgiven for surmising that the kerchief-shaped article covering a portion of the lady's bust is formed of riveted steel, for surely nothing else could support the intolerable load she is so blandly carrying off. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... hill, and took a road at the bottom at right angles to it. Colonel Rolleston, in the first sleigh, was blandly pointing out to Lady Hampshire the coup d'oeil of the whole procession as they described two sides ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... country cottage enabled her to escape from him to rabbits (figurative) and the simpler life. There, however, she fell in with Rollo, who loved her at sight, and whose daughter, Hyacinth, adored her father, but quite blandly deceived him about her own amorous adventures. A pretty tangle, you observe, and I am not sure that I can wholly acquit the author of some cowardice in her manner of cutting it. But undoubtedly Autumn remains a story to read, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... her it didn't make a darn bit of difference to him what she wore. If that is the truth, Lucy Lily must have been very stupid or very persistent, for she went on blandly stating her plans ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... continually annoyed, as every traveler in China is, by the inaccuracy of the natives, and especially of the Chinese. Their ideas of distance are most extraordinary. One may ask a Chinaman how far it is to a certain village and he will blandly reply, "Fifteen li to go, but thirty li when you come back." After a short experience one learns how to interpret such an answer, for it means that when going the road is down hill and that the return uphill will require double ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... Mr. P. remarked that his biscuits were rather hard, and he blandly requested a waiter to take one of them outside and crack it. The elder PEYTON, who runs the hotel, overheard Mr. P.'s remark, and stepping ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... There must be something peculiar in Lord Elster's constitution, he blandly said; it would not have happened in another. Of course, anything that turns out a mistake always is in the constitution—never in the treatment. Whether he lived or died now was just the turn of a straw: the chances were that he would die. All that ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... to come for pleasure, thought Sargeant—all the leagues and leagues from French camps on Lake Superior. But England and France were at peace. The gentlemen bore passports. They were welcomed to a fort breakfast and passed pretty compliments to Madame Sargeant, and asked blandly after M. Radisson's health, and had the honour to express their most affectionate regard for friend Jean Chouart. Now where might Jean Chouart be? Sargeant did not satisfy their curiosity, nor did he urge them to stay overnight. They sailed gaily on down-stream to hunt in the cedar swamps south ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... "Yes," he repeated blandly. "He is going to marry the daughter of my business partner—a girl who will inherit ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... know," he told her blandly, "you're the dearest litte woman I've met for a long time? I don't know when I've enjoyed a whole day with any ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... be asleep, or at least to be too fatigued and indifferent to take notice of this remarkable conversation. But as soon as Dr. Veiga had blandly departed under the escort of Eve, he slipped out of bed and cautiously padded to the landing where ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... Arcot blandly. "As a matter of fact, I've been busy doing some figuring. I think our chance of meeting another such region is about one in a million million million million. Considering those chances, I don't think we need to worry. I don't see how we ever met one—but the chances ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... a matter of opinion!" she said blandly. "Tom was perfectly aware of what changing his religion involved, in this country—though it's probably quite different in India. In any case, the thing is done, and as I believe it to be my Duty to send Larry to his chapel, to ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... us forget her presence for a moment, and blandly refused to understand when my raised eyebrows telegraphed, "I ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... I suppose that you could," he replied blandly, stretching out his hands, and leaving the staff which had fallen from them standing in front of him. (It was not till afterwards that I remembered that this accursed bit of wood stood there of itself without ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... particular occasion, though, as a general rule, he was accompanied in his rambles by one if not all three of his friends. Utter solitude was with him a rare occurrence, and his present experience of it had chanced in this wise. Lorimer the languid, Lorimer the lazy, Lorimer who had remained blandly unmoved and drowsy through all the magnificent panorama of the Norwegian coast, including the Sogne Fjord and the toppling peaks of the Justedal glaciers; Lorimer who had slept peacefully in a hammock on deck, even while the yacht was passing under the looming splendors of Melsnipa; ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... "Really, Monsieur, supposing I had stolen Miladi, you would be the last person I should inform of her whereabouts. You are simple, Monsieur. I had always heard that England was a country of arcadian innocence, so unlike my own black, wicked country, and now—" he shrugged his shoulders blandly, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... had paused from her talk with her husband to listen to us. I happened to say something about some Oriental curios belonging to an aunt of mine in London. Hilda seized the opportunity. "What did you say was her name?" she asked, blandly. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... to put it in my business," said Uncle Gussie, blandly; "my business in Australia." "Ho! You've got to talk to me about ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... regarded him with disfavor. There was something blandly superior in Arizona's demeanor. He had a way of putting forth his opinions as though it were not the slightest effort for him to penetrate truths which were securely veiled from the eyes ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... first name," replied the prisoner, blandly, but not discourteously. "Of late I have been customarily addressed as ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... "Do you think," blandly inquired the editorial roosters, "that when you tip the hat-check girl she gets the tip? She doesn't. It goes to a man who rents from the restaurant the privilege of bullying you out of a dime or a quarter. The ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... like a highball," he said blandly. "I guess Mrs. Curtis could do with one also. In fact, five highballs would be a ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... open door, the gathering of Orientals kept up a ceaseless buzz of subdued conversation; then, abruptly, stark silence fell, and through a lane of bowed heads, Ki-Ming, the famous Chinese diplomat, entered, smiling blandly, and took his seat upon one of the seven golden stools. He wore the picturesque yellow robe, trimmed with marten fur, which I had seen once before, and he placed his pearl-encircled cap, surmounted by the coral ball denoting his rank, upon the black ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... most difficult questions this we have in these times, What to do with our criminals?" blandly observed a certain Law-dignitary, in my hearing once, taking the cigar from his mouth, and pensively smiling over a group of us under the summer beech-tree, as Favonius carried off the tobacco-smoke; and the group said nothing, only smiled and nodded, answering by new tobacco-clouds. "What ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... "follower of Justin Martyr" turned heretic and joined the Encratites, an ascetic and mystic sect who taught abstinence from marriage, and from meat, etc.; nor does he tell us how doubtful it is what the Diatessaron—now lost—really contained. He blandly assures us that it is a harmony of the four Gospels, although all the evidence is against him. Irenaeus, as quoted by Eusebius, says of Tatian that "having apostatised from the Church, and being elated with the conceit of ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... the portrait over the mantelpiece. The calm passionless face smiled blandly at the tiny dog. One sensitive hand, white and delicate as a woman's, was raised, forefinger uplifted, gently holding the attention of the little animal's eager eyes. The magic skill of the artist supplied the doctor with the key to the problem. A woman—as mate, as wife, as part of himself, ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... the first man out, to the number of a dozen, were apparently deeply interested, though plainly skeptical. A short, fat man, who was standing near the saloon door, looked on with a half-sneer. Several others were smiling blandly. A tall man on the extreme edge of the crowd, near the rider, was watching the man in the street gravely. Other men had allowed various expressions to creep into their faces. But all ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of youth, my dear Mrs. Garman," said the dean, blandly, "is undoubtedly somewhat strange in these days; but we ought to consider how times have changed." And the pressure of his soft persuasive hand was so soothing, that when they were gone, Mrs. Garman ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... now, for the boat seemed to stand still and the sail began to flap, and, somehow, just then, as I felt what dreadful danger we were in, I began thinking about Clapham Common, and running there in the sunshine, while Uncle Joe looked blandly on, evidently enjoying ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... pictured this minister {14} pluming himself upon "his scandalous victory" because he found he had got "a Parliament, like a packed jury, ready to acquit him at all adventures." Then, glowing with his subject, Sir William Wyndham ventured to suggest a case which he blandly declared had never yet happened in this nation, but which still might possibly happen. "With such a minister and such a Parliament, let us suppose a prince upon the throne, either from want of true information or ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... the warrant of his Majesty's Minister to go where I please on secret service, sir," said the man blandly; "and you, as one of the Prince's household, dare ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... said Juke blandly. 'Jane is imperilling her immortal soul. She is yoking together with an unbeliever; she is forming an unholy alliance with mammon. We must ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... repressed a groan as he heard the proposal made, but Overton was blandly oblivious of the appealing expression of his friend; the thing he was interested in was to bring Black Bow to a communicative mood, for not a sign could he discover of a white woman in the camp, though he was convinced there was ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... an odd name," said Cowperwood, blandly. "So he has it? I never thought that road would pay, as it was laid out. It's too short. It ought to run about three miles farther out into the ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... entered the breakfast-room she found Mrs. Condiment already at the head of the table and Old Hurricane at the foot. He had quite got over his rage, and turned around blandly ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... come yet," blandly observed the lawyer. But before the words were well out of his mouth we all became aware of a new presence—a woman, whose sombre grace and quiet bearing gave distinction to her unobtrusive entrance, and caused a feeling of something like awe to follow the first sight of her cold features ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... young man expounded these questions to Mr. Iwakura, the eyes of his High Excellency began to sparkle from one sharp corner to the other, and he smiled blandly— ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... sailor who picked you up, who has related it in his own picturesque tongue to ME, who will in turn interpret it to the captain and the other passengers," replied Senor Perkins blandly. ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... the redistribution of some of the Marquis's wealth. Everybody, it seemed, was thrusting a finger into the Marquis's purse. One of his friends later admitted that the Frenchman's money had been freely used, "but, of course, only," he blandly explained, "to persuade the witnesses to tell ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... Imbrie blandly evaded the trap. "I sent a letter out privately to be passed along by the Indians—what they call ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... halt Dick & Co. plodded on for another hour. But Prescott, noting that Hazelton was still on the driver's seat of the camp wagon, blandly inquired: ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... of those?" he inquired, handing the glasses, and blandly ignoring Miss Deane's petulance. Her brain was busy with other things while she twisted the binoculars to suit her vision. Rainbow Island—Iris—it was a nice conceit. But "menial" struck a discordant note. This man was no menial in appearance or speech. ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... attendant extra scuffling of dust, sent a further graceful contribution of fine dirt on to the occupants of the car. It would have been difficult to accuse Gay of doing it on purpose, however, for she appeared blandly unconscious of the neighbourhood of fellow beings. She gave a little flick of her whip, and away she went over a great burnt-out patch of veld, leaving the long, white, dusty road to those who had no choice ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... blandly smiling at the party, showing at least a fine array of teeth, and wearing the patient, attentive air of one who realizes himself to be under discussion, yet does not understand ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... yet, not yet," replied the captain, blandly; "and it won't come any the quicker for ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... Hen blandly took to himself all the credit that was offered him for his "courage," seeing which the Grammar School boys winked slyly one at another, then busied themselves with ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... man usually eats at this time of day, and plenty of it," he said. He glanced absently, blandly past ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... can a man have," Oliver Hilditch argued blandly, "who pleads for the innocent and guilty alike with the same simulated fervour? Confess, now, Mr. Ledsam—there is no object in being hypocritical in this matter—have you not often pleaded for the guilty as though ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... along my route has been taxed to its utmost to account for my white military helmet, and various and interesting are the passing remarks heard in consequence. The most general impression seems to be that I am direct from the Soudan, some youthful Conservatives blandly intimating The Starley Memorial, Coventry, that I am the advance-guard of a general scuttle of the army out of Egypt, and that presently whole regiments of white-helmeted wheelmen will come whirling ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... Sherlock! Come in, sir," said he blandly, smiling at our surprised faces. "You don't expect such energy from me, do you, Sherlock? But somehow this ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... blandly-smiling mandarins must have twinkled their little pig eyes and tossed their pigtails in gay abandon at the simplicity of the "Outer Barbarians" whom they thus beguiled in the usual "Heathen Chinee" fashion, as we subsequently discovered to our cost, ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... under a Tory administration to shout that all was lost. It heard the uproar like the old lady upon her first railroad journey, who sat serene amid the wreck of a collision, and when asked if she was much hurt, looked over her spectacles and answered, blandly, "Hurt? Why, I supposed they always stopped so in this kind of travelling." The feeling that the denunciation was only a part of the game of politics, and no more to be accepted as a true statement ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... giving him a rap with his cane instead. One of the keepers warned him, but he laughed, and after he had teased the animal to his heart's content, walked away. After a time he was strolling by the spot again, intensely satisfied with himself, his glass stuck in his eye, and smiling blandly in the face of a young lady, who was evidently offended at his impudence, when the elephant, who was rocking backwards and forwards, suddenly threw out his trunk and seized our friend by the coat tails; the cloth gave way, and the whole back of the coat ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... rich, and yet there was no pretence in it. His wife looked less of a lady than he of a gentleman, for she betrayed conscious importance. I found afterwards that he was the only son of a railway contractor, who had himself handled the spade, but at last died enormously rich. He spoke blandly, but with a certain quiet authority ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... me a moment, as if to ascertain whether I were laughing at him. And then, after a pause, "Perhaps you don't know that I disbelieve in a future life," he remarked, blandly. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... a friendly visitor, he would question Malachi blandly and innocently on his brothers' and ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Gwen," she said blandly, as her pupil stood hesitating near the door. "I want to have a little talk with you. I've been looking over your reports for the last few weeks, and I find that you've done well—so well, that I consider the standard of the Upper Fourth is ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... other hand, it appeared that Miss Cityswell was inwardly somewhat frightened at the turn things had taken, and at the excitement every one was in. She would not move from her silly standpoint, however; but when Dandy Jack blandly, and with many elaborate compliments, proceeded to lay our proposal for compromise before her, she eagerly grasped at it as an escape from the awkwardness of ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... blandly; and in my covert I wondered what could be coming. Mark obeyed, and drawing his chair nearer the fire waited till she had laid aside her wrappings and seated herself in front of ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... friend and fellow-student," said the doctor blandly, "let us not sacrifice the delights of our profitable occupation of imbibing the sweets of intellectual intercourse to vague speculations as to our future destiny. During the course of a long and not, I trust, altogether unprofitable career, it has not unfrequently ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... they all three fired a salute of blank cartridge at the steamer as she passed them in succession. The steamer then ranged alongside of us, and the elderly gentlemen came on board and shook hands with the captain and officers, smiling blandly as they observed the neat, trim appearance of the three fine vessels, which, with everything in readiness for setting sail on the following morning, strained at their cables, as if anxious to commence their struggle with ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... did arrive he was in such a mellow state that he couldn't tell a parlor car from a lake steamer—and he didn't care! He had likewise forgotten what George's aunt looked like, but that, too, was a trivial matter. So he stood at the gate, beaming blandly at every ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... for variety's sake with us, you see," said Mrs. Starr, smoothly smiling; and once again Augustus bent blandly from his hips. ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... sight of a hypocritically affectionate face and categorical resistance to his slightest wishes? What is to be done with a wife who takes advantage of his passion to protect her coldness, who seems determined on being blandly inexorable, prepares herself ecstatically to play the martyr, and looks on her husband as a scourge from God, a means of flagellation that may spare her the fires of purgatory? What picture can give an idea of these women who make virtue hateful by defying ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... blandly. "Surely not the forty and four who went to raid the Beni Aroun? Nay, I took the liberty of sending them a message signed with Your Honor's seal. They will not come for a day or two, so we can make ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... men sprang simultaneously to their feet. This is, of course, the moment that they have both been waiting for. Each offers an arm to Miss Nevill; Monsieur D'Arblet bends blandly and smilingly forward; Denis Wilde has a thunder-cloud upon his face, and holds out his arm as though he were ready to knock somebody down ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... neared London, Selingman awoke, smiled blandly upon them, brushed the cigar ash from his coat and waistcoat, put on his hat and looked about ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... matter? I'm here," the other parried blandly. "But by the way! If you've got the makings of a meal in your car—and you look too old a hand in the desert to be without grub—I won't refuse to have a snack with you. I hate to invite myself to breakfast, ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... chair. After prayers, Miss Polehampton and the teachers rose, and their pupils came to bid them good-night, offering hand and cheek to each in turn. There was always a great deal of kissing to be got through on these occasions. Miss Polehampton blandly insisted on kissing all her thirty pupils every evening; it made them feel more as if they were at home, she used to say; and her example was, of course, followed by the teachers ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... into the village street from the beach road they met Jimmie, who had been having his after-dinner pipe with Grandfather Amos, with whom he had become a prime favorite. With him was Albertina, toeing out more than ever and conversing more than blandly. ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... performing his duty; yet he never would mix in the affairs of foreigners. Invariably in such cases he made out the warrants in blank, swore in the complaining parties themselves as deputies, and told them blandly to do their own arresting! Nor at times did he fail to temper his duty with a little substantial justice of his own. Thus he was once called upon to execute a judgment for $30 against a poor family. Gates went down to the premises, looked over the situation, ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... the Japanese, blandly. "All right to-morrow morning. You stay here.... I fix a place. You see.... I fix a very nice place ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... Franz von Blenheim approved me blandly. "Now, Miss Falconer, you know what I'm here for, isn't that so? Just hand me those papers and you'll be as free as air. I'll take myself off; you'll never see me again probably. That's a fair bargain, isn't it? What do ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... my child," observed Betty blandly. "Sylvia, I'm going down at once to put my name on the cricket list. I'll ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... "Vicksburg," I repeated, blandly, but authoritatively, endeavoring, as zealously as one of Christy's Minstrels, to assimilate my speech to any supposed predilection of the ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Harry smiled blandly on the partition for three whole days. At the close of the third day, when Susan and Joanna were brushing their hair together, Susan started the proposal that they should return to the Ewes whenever Mrs. Jardine's inventories, and settling and sorting of accounts, were ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... of fatted kids, without respect of God or of his honour, to back so infamous a cause and do so vile a wrong to sacred justice. When I had uttered these words, and many others to the like effect, Raffaello kept on blandly urging that it was far better to eat a thrush in peace than to bring a fat capon to one's table, even though one were quite sure to get it, after a hot fight. He further reminded me that lawsuits had a certain way ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini |
