"Blunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... protuberance, though it does not exceed a few inches in height, and is far from agreeing with the descriptions of the horn of the unicorn. The nearest approach to a horn in the middle of the forehead is exhibited in the bony protuberance on the forehead of the giraffe; but this also is short and blunt, and is not the only horn of the animal, but a third horn standing in front of the two others. In fine, though it would be presumptuous to deny the existence of a one-horned quadruped other than the rhinoceros, it may be safely stated that the insertion of ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... had considerable difficulty in not laughing outright, for my superior officer was a man of imposing breadth, and I knew his one weakness was the love of a good meal. The contemplation of the loss of his Christmas dinner had made him forget his usual blunt, hopeful tone of speech, and adopt this ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... special wonder," continued Dashall; "but such things have been practised. Then again, your ring-droppers, or practisers of the fawney rig, are more cunning in their manoeuvres to turn their wares into the ready blunt.{4} The pretending to find a ring being one of the meanest and least profitable exercises of their ingenuity, it forms a part of their art to ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... touch of the artist wells up within me, and calls insistently for a well-staged performance. Surely our profession, Mr. Mac, would be a drab and sordid one if we did not sometimes set the scene so as to glorify our results. The blunt accusation, the brutal tap upon the shoulder—what can one make of such a denouement? But the quick inference, the subtle trap, the clever forecast of coming events, the triumphant vindication of bold theories—are these not the pride and ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... I could trade with, and not resort to art. He was never schooled in diplomacy, and his blunt nature rejected all subterfuge. I saw that he was willing to allow me to make all that I could, knowing that he would have done the same, had he been ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... writer. Even 'the prosperity of a jest,' as Shakespeare tells us, lies less in its own merit than 'in the ear of him that hears it.' If he should happen to be unusually obtuse, the wittiest jest perishes—the most pointed is found blunt. So, with regard to books, should the reader on whom we build prove a sandy and treacherous foundation, the whole edifice, 'temple and tower,' must come to the ground. Should it happen, for instance, that the reader, inflicted upon ourselves for our ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... amiable was advancing each in the opinion of all who had hearts to value anything good. Henry Crawford was as much struck with it as any. He honoured the warm-hearted, blunt fondness of the young sailor, which led him to say, with his hands stretched towards Fanny's head, "Do you know, I begin to like that queer fashion already, though when I first heard of such things being done in England, I could not believe it; and when ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... tells us in this same chapter x., "Many speak and do good, and love not GOD." But that will not suffice his exacting demands. A man is not "good" until his interior disposition be all filled and taken up with pure love of GOD. And as he analyses the Christian Character, there is a pleasant blunt directness about this holy man:—"he that says he loves GOD and will not do what is in him to shew love, tell ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things (Rom. i. 21-23). He invented idolatry, and all those "gay religions full of pomp and gold," in order to blunt the edge of that sharp spiritual conception of God which was continually cutting and lacerating his wicked and sensual heart. Hiding himself amidst the columns of his idolatrous temples, and under the smoke of his idolatrous incense, he thought like ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... days she kept the letter locked in her desk, not having the courage to take it out again and read it. Then she sent for Captain Holt, the only one, beside Martha, with whom she could discuss the matter. She knew his strong, honest nature, and his blunt, outspoken way of giving vent to his mind, and she hoped that his knowledge of life might help ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... used on Ishi's arrows. One was the simple blunt end of the shaft bound with sinew used for killing small game and practice shots. The other was his hunting head, made of flint or obsidian. ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... thinking, and she thought to some purpose. Her natural disposition was always to obtain results by blunt, matter-of- fact methods. In school her policy was, 'Come along with you now, I'm not going to have any nonsense!' Backed by her position, her strong personality, and her prowess at games it succeeded. But here in the hostel, if she wished to effect any improvements, she must ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... pointing at the little discs, "grows precisely like these little buttons which you see here. It is a species of cactus which rises only half an inch or so from the ground. The stem is surrounded by a clump of blunt leaves which give it its button shape, and on the top you will see still the tuft of filaments, like a cactus. It grows in the rocky soil in many places in the state of Jalisco, though only recently has it become known to science. The Indians, when they go out ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... lying In a green wood, in a gloomy vale. Toward the stock wandereth a shaggy wolf. Horned cattle seeking for his sharp white fangs; But the wolf enters not the forest, But the wolf dives not into the shadowy vale, Moon, moon, gold-horned moon, Cheek the flight of bullets, blunt the hunters' knives, Break the shepherds' cudgels, Cast wild fear upon all cattle, On men, on all creeping things, That they may not catch the grey wolf, That they may not rend his warm skin My ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... been produced at a much less expenditure of intellectual effort? But since it is an unquestionable fact that we are thus totally depraved in taste and feeling, why don't some of our bards, to whom the Muse has not been propitious in other departments of metrical composition, and who, to be blunt, are good for nothing else, such as ——, or ——, and many others you know, come out here among the marble-cutters and open an epitaph-shop? Mournful stanzas might then be procured of every size and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... seemed to come from a great distance as he said: "Here, you see, he was stabbed. The knife went to the heart. Here he was hit with something heavy and blunt; but it had enough of an edge to cut the scalp and lay the cheek open. The skull ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... formidable audience he was M. Chardon. Lucien's courage sank under their inquisitive eyes. He could read his plebeian name in the mere movements of their lips, and hear the anticipatory criticisms made in the blunt, provincial fashion that too often borders on rudeness. He had not expected this prolonged ordeal of pin-pricks; it put him still more out of humor with himself. He grew impatient to begin the reading, for ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... than to see cousin Nicol Jarvie singe Iverach's plaid, like a sheep's head between a pair of tongs. But my cousin Jarvie," he added, more gravely, "has some gentleman's bluid in his veins, although he has been unhappily bred up to a peaceful and mechanical craft, which could not but blunt any pretty man's spirit.—Ye may estimate the reason why I could not receive you at the Clachan of Aberfoil as I purposed. They had made a fine hosenet for me when I was absent twa or three days at Glasgow, upon the king's business—But I think I broke up the league ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... life might be! I wanted her so badly, so very badly, to be what I needed. I wanted a woman to save me. I forced myself to see her as I wished to see her. Her tepidities became infinite delicacies, her mental vagueness an atmospheric realism. The harsh precisions of the Baileys and Altiora's blunt directness threw up her fineness into relief and made a grace ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... with a sudden round-up, on India. I had been trusting to vague outlines of history; I felt when he began to talk that I was dealing with a man who not only knew history, but had lived it. He talked in the fewest but directest words, and waxed eloquent in a blunt and colossal way. But seeing his wife's eyes fixed on him intently, he suddenly pulled up, and no more did I get from him on the subject. He stopped so suddenly that in order to help over the awkwardness, though I'm not ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... can still recognise him for the same creature that was once so gay and jumpy-jumpy: father is no such far cry from pater:—but oh what a change in sprightliness of habits is here! Time has worn away his head and limbs to almost unrecognisable blunt excrescences. Bid him move off into the oblique cases, and if he can help it, he will not budge; you must shove him with a verb; you must goad him with a little sharp preposition behind; and then he just lumps backward or forward, and there is no change for the better ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... eldest son, always called Johnnie, to distinguish him from his father, was ridiculously big for his age, portentously clever and keen-witted, awkward, blunt, rude, full of fun, extremely fond of his father, and exceedingly unlike him in person. His hair was nearly black, his forehead was square and high, his hands and feet almost rivalled those of his parent in size, and his ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... turned round in time to see her husband's blunt, brown features twisted in the grimace which ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... Englishman won her demi-Roman, semi-Grecian heart, and that while he was so smitten with her as to do her will in that business of Arezzo and Messer Simone, she, on her side, was so won by his willingness and his bulk and his blunt love-making, that she cared no longer for the winning of that wicked old wager, and had but one thought in her head, which was to become the lawful wife of Messer Griffo of the Claw. This was an arrangement of their joint affairs which Messer Griffo of ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... reckoned time, exchanged confidences, and arranged experiences, informed him that the night was yet young, and that his friend would not yet be arrived. He sat there so still and so long, that if it had not been for his resolute head and the blunt spires of his ears, he would have appeared to an onlooker below as no more than a humpy finial on an otherwise regularly built wall. Now and again the last inch of his tail twitched slightly, like an independent member, ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... Charles II a band of cavaliers, prominent amongst whom are Willmore (the Rover), Belvile, Frederick, and Ned Blunt, find themselves at Naples in carnival time. Belvile, who at a siege at Pampluna has rescued a certain Florinda and her brother Don Pedro, now loves the lady, and the tender feeling is reciprocated. Florinda's father, however, designs her for the elderly ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... some weight with you," added Polly slyly. "Trix told Belle she was going to ask you for the dress, as you would n't care to wear it now. That made Belle fire up, and say it was a mean thing to do without offering some return for a costly thing like that; and then Belle said, in her blunt way, 'I 'll give Fan all she paid for it, and more, too, if it will be any help to her. I don't care for the dress, but I 'd like to slip a little money into her pocket, for I know she needs it and is too good to ask dear Mr. Shaw for anything ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... laughing in his sleeve at the helplessness of the Supreme Council. But they laughed too soon. For the Supreme Council wired to the Food Administrator, Herbert Hoover, who was in Vienna, informing him of the facts of the situation, whereupon Mr. Hoover, who has a blunt and uncomfortably direct way of achieving his ends, sent a curt message to the Rumanian government informing it that, if the orders of the Supreme Council were not immediately obeyed, he would shut off its supplies of food. That message produced action. The troops ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... walks in public view Without of loyalty this token true: Sharp is the knife, and sudden is the stroke; And sorely would the Gallic foeman rue, If subtle poniards, wrapt beneath the cloke, Could blunt the sabre's edge, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... That blunt hint was effective, and, letting the subject drop for the time being, even the professor joined in the hurry for an evening meal, to which one and all felt able to ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... persisted upon barking still. He wouldn't let me touch him, when I tried; and then she beat him. It increased my sufferings greatly to see the pats she gave him for punishment on the bridge of his blunt nose, while he winked his eyes, and licked her hand, and still growled within himself like a little double-bass. At length he was quiet—well he might be with her dimpled chin upon his head!—and we walked away to ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... cubic feet, with pools and waterfalls. A tree that stands all along the banks here must be very fond of water; its roots lie close-packed down the stream, like hanks of guts, so as to make often a corrugated walk, each root ending in a blunt tuft of filaments, plainly to drink water. Twice there came in small tributaries from the left or western side—the whole plateau having a smartish inclination to the east; one of the tributaries in a handsome little web of silver hanging in the forest. Twice I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... small boy. Then, as Danny approached his ninth birthday, the old man had said, "They're teaching you too much at school, son. Too many wrong things, too many highfalutin' notions, too much just plain old hogwash. Why don't you kind of make yourself scarce for a few years?" It had been blunt and to the point. It had made Danny cry. He hadn't thought of what had happened that last day he'd seen his grand-uncle for years, but he ...
— My Shipmate—Columbus • Stephen Wilder
... came seemed to be interested in my work, especially in the "Bed of Ferns," of which Rossetti—whose opinion I valued more than any other, for he was very honest and blunt in his criticisms, and not at all inclined to flattery—expressed himself in strong terms of praise. As it was the first thing in which I had attempted to introduce a human interest in the landscape, I was naturally inclined to consider it my most important ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... pulled over the opacity of the swift puddle. They form also an admirable point for viewing the clumsy craft of all types which the falling tide leaves wallowing in the iridescent slime of the shoals, showing their huge flanks, and resting their blunt snouts on the ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... could see would become necessities from a merely military point of view, have had their inevitable result: they have got into the West, and have aided Secession, as in many cases they were intended to do. The plain, blunt man, seeing what must be adopted if the war is to be carried on in earnest, and yet hearing that these inevitable expediencies were all 'abolition,' became confused and disheartened. So that it is as true as Gospel, that in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... listened intently to this recital. Now he deliberately lighted his pipe before replying, and when he did it was to ask a blunt question. ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... good enough," remarked Mrs. Bathurst in her blunt way. "She isn't much to look at. I've done my best to bring her up well, but I never thought of her turning into a fine lady. I question if ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... which carries up a layer of cotton on a spiked apron from which it is removed by a rapidly revolving "doffer" underneath which is a screen which catches some of the dirt. It is next fed between rolls in front of a rapidly revolving blunt-edged knife which throws out more of the dirt through a screen. There is a suction of air through the screen which helps remove the foreign substances. The cotton passes through several of such machines, being formed into a soft web or "lap" which is ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... reserved, coy and discreet women much more than blunt, shrewd and boisterous. Falsehood, false hair, false curls, false forms, false bosoms, false colors, false cheeks, and all that is false, men naturally dislike, for in themselves they are a poor foundation on which to form family ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... mine are. Oh, how I wish I could rid myself of them! But it cannot be done. Age will not blunt them,—I am sure of that," said Mrs Broughton. "I wish ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... property in their goods, and that no part of them can be taken but by their own consent in parliament. But that the parliament was instituted to check and control the king, and share the supreme power, would in all former times have been esteemed very blunt and indiscreet, if not illegal language. We need not be surprised that governments should long continue, though the boundaries of authority in their several branches be implicit, confused, and undetermined. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... was two months in its progress through the House of Commons. During this time every exertion was made by the directors and their friends, and more especially by the chairman, the noted Sir John Blunt, to raise the price of the stock. The most extravagant rumors were in circulation. Treaties between England and Spain were spoken of whereby the latter was to grant a free trade to all her colonies; and the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... the western horizon the professor was still sound asleep; and Ben Zoof, who was especially anxious that the repose which promised to be so beneficial should not be disturbed, felt considerable annoyance at hearing a loud knocking, evidently of some blunt heavy instrument against a door that had been placed at the entrance of the gallery, more for the purpose of retaining internal warmth than for guarding against ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... paler beneath; cheeks nearly black; underside of wings, and interfemoral membrane with lines of hairs; heel bone elongated, slender; ears moderate rounded; tragus oblong blunt; fore-arm bone, 1 10-12; shin bone, 9-12 ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... It was a bold, blunt compliment, yet it was uttered with evident sincerity; but she had turned the locket so that she could see the likeness and did not catch the double meaning of his words. So she only answered calmly and earnestly, "He was a ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... nonexistent, blending the head with the shoulders and trunk, on which the dry skin stretched so thin that Rynason could see the solid bone of the chest wall. Two squat arms hung from the shoulders, terminating in four-digited hands on which two sets of blunt fingers were opposed; Horng kept moving them constantly, in what Rynason automatically interpreted as a nervous habit. The lower body was composed of two heavily-muscled legs jointed so that they could move either forward or backward, and the feet had four stubby but ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... night instead of the darkness of the storm. Perhaps some memory of her first impulsive response to his wooing came to him as he took both of her hands in his. "There's some barrier between us of late," he said. "I'm a plain blunt man, and I don't know what I may have said or done. Have I hurt ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... of home and kitchen, and shop and street and trade, seems to them lacking in due reverence. Do they forget that this is the language of the common people? And of our good old Anglo-Saxon Bible? Has anybody ever yet used as blunt homely, talk as this old Book uses? And has any other book stuck into people's memories and hearts with such burr-like ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... reaching a reasonable conclusion from the premises established was futile. The envoy treated also with the estates, and received from them in return an elaborate report, which was addressed immediately to the King. The style of this paper was bold and blunt, its substance bitter and indigestible. It informed Philip what he had heard often enough before, that the Spaniards must go and the exiles come back, the inquisition be abolished and the ancient privileges ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of one of the others must have been blunt, for finding that the scalp did not come off as quickly as he wished, seating himself on the ground with his feet against the dead man's shoulders, he pulled it away by main force. So far we had been more successful than we had expected; but our enemies might rally, and, hovering in ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... came into the field, and began to dig with a blunt shaftless knife round the root of the dandelion plant, and pulled it up out of the ground. With some of the roots she intended to make tea for herself; others she was going to sell for ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... undertaking, how completely unattainable except by carefully husbanding our time from the start, how impossible it is in the span of a human life to read the great books unless we strictly save the time which so many spend on the little books. Ruskin's words on this subject, almost harsh in their blunt common sense, bring the matter home so well that I cannot refrain ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... when professing to accord with Blunt's Lunar Chart, is entirely at variance with that or any other lunar chart, and even grossly at variance with itself. The points of the compass, too, are in inextricable confusion; the writer appearing to be ignorant that, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... sense. He is buffalo enough to love the British Raj and his squadron of Jat farmers with all his stupid Sikh heart! There could not be a better for the purpose than this Ranjoor Singh! He is stupid enough, and nearly blunt enough, to be an Englishman. He is just of the very caliber to fool a German! Trust me, sahib—I, who picked the ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... premaxillae are in contact or but very slightly separated; the ears are large, with the tragus small; the dental formula is i. 1/1 (1/2 or 1/3), c. 1/1, p. 1/2 (2/2), m. 3/3; and the fibula is strongly developed. In their blunt muzzles and many other features these bats undoubtedly resemble the Emballonuridae, from the typical members of which they differ by the production of the thick tail far beyond the margin of the interfemoral membrane. They are further characterized by their broad and stout feet, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... many limbs and lives? And when they come to an engagement, what service can be done by such pale-faced students, as by drudging at the oars of wisdom, have spent all their strength and activity? No, the only use is of blunt sturdy fellows that have little of wit, and so the more of resolution: except you would make a soldier of such another Demosthenes as threw down his arms when he came within sight of the enemy, and lost that credit in the camp which he gained ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... peeved all the same, for she dearly wanted to talk to Gay and Spiller. At last the modish gadflies got tired of having their smart talk turned against them, and one by one fell off, especially as Huddy, whose blunt speech was not much to their taste, came up and intruded without apology into ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... of all sorts, he loves her, she hates him; and is loathed of him, on whom she dotes." Cupid hath two darts, one to force love, all of gold, and that sharp,—[5840]Quod facit auratum est; another blunt, of lead, and that to hinder;—fugat hoc, facit illud amorem, "this dispels, that creates love." This we see too often verified in our common experience. [5841]Choresus dearly loved that virgin Callyrrhoe; but the more he loved her, the more she hated him. Oenone loved Paris, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... was horrible. And perhaps, after all, he was mistaken; perhaps his dislike of the work had got upon his nerves, and showed him everything in the darkest colours. It could scarcely be as bad as he thought, or human society would be impossible. But argument could not blunt the poignancy of his feelings; he preferred, therefore, to leave them inarticulate, striving to forget. In any case, the ordeal would soon be over; it had to be endured for a few hours more, and then he would plunge ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... Chamberlain was blunt and true, and sturdily said he— 'Abide, my lord, and rule your own, and take this rede from me, That woman's faith's a brittle trust. Seven twelve- months didst thou say? I'll pledge me for no lady's truth beyond the seventh day.'" —Ballad of the ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... Tumbler {212} with its small conical beak, the Pouter with its great crop, long legs and body, the Fantail with its upraised, widely-expanded, well-feathered tail, the Turbit with its frill and short blunt beak, and the Jacobin with its hood. Now, if this same person could have viewed the pigeons kept before 1600 by Akber Khan in India and by Aldrovandi in Europe, he would have seen the Jacobin with a less perfect ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... cader form'd caer, as the Spaniards now use it, by taking away the letter d according to their ordinary custome, when it is seated in the middle of words. There are another sort of people yet more sturdy and blunt in their formes of speech, who would say Car or Ker by a contraction of the two Vowels into one, as is observable among the Peasants of France, and those of Picardy, who retain very much of Antiquity, which seems to be agreeable with ...
— A Philosophicall Essay for the Reunion of the Languages - Or, The Art of Knowing All by the Mastery of One • Pierre Besnier
... rope to shreds With blunt and bleeding nails; We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors, And cleaned the shining rails: And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank, And clattered ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... capillary harvest of the past twenty-four hours with a thoroughness, a rapidity, a security, and a facility which were a surprise, almost a revelation. The idea of a guarded cutting edge is an old one; I remember the "Plantagenet" razor, so called, with the comb-like row of blunt teeth, leaving just enough of the edge free to do its work. But this little affair had a blade only an inch and a half long by three quarters of an inch wide. It had a long slender handle, which took apart for packing, and was put together with the greatest ease. It was, in short, a ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... this scene of cozey fuss Was changed to prospects queering The blunt ran shy, and Bobby brush'd, [6] To get more rag not fearing; [7] To Islington he quickly hied, A traveller there he dropped on; The traps were fly, his rig they spied [8] And ruffles soon they popped on. [9] When evening ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... abyss. The warning cry of "back" is challenged by the eager shout of "forward!" The older methods of social progress are abandoned as too slow. The older weapons of social defense are thrown aside as too blunt. Parliamentary discussion is powerless. It limps in the wake of the popular movement. The "state", as we knew it, threatens to dissolve into labor unions, conventions, boards of conciliation, and conferences. Society shaken to its base, ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... Sir Richard, after Amyas, in his blunt simple way, had told him the whole story about Rose Salterne and his brother,—"yes, sweet lad, thou hast chosen the better part, thou and thy brother also, and it shall not be taken from you. Only be strong, lad, and trust ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... interpreter if we should care to be operated upon in a similar manner—this being considered a great honour to a guest; and no sooner had we accepted the offer than an old woman made her appearance armed with the necessary implements, and with the aid of a pair of very blunt needles, and a peculiar species of dye obtained from a tree, succeeded, after a good hour's work, in embellishing us—L. with a ring on each shoulder (the sign manual of the tribe), and myself with a bird, whose genus it would puzzle most naturalists to determine, but which was popularly ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... supplied with water by giant windmills which clacked and creaked above the trees in the high-noon breeze. To the left, across the river, back from the long, slow rise of sand from the water's edge, rose five blunt heights like craters long extinct; while above these, arching across the heavens in spotless sheen, curved the turquoise dome of a southwestern midday sky, flooding the dust and dunes below in throbbing heat-rays. It was God's ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... Doctrine in 1823 and continues our historic bipartisan American policy. Franklin Roosevelt said we "are determined to do everything possible to maintain peace on this hemisphere." President Truman was very blunt: "International communism seeks to crush and undermine and destroy the independence of the Americas. We cannot let that happen here." And John F. Kennedy made clear that "Communist domination in this hemisphere can never be negotiated." Some in this Congress may ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... do so?" he repeated savagely. "Do you think I have been raised like a Yankee, to take care of my shoes? That Blunt is just fit to stand behind a counter and ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... be of a somewhat serious character, the blow having been inflicted with some heavy blunt instrument, and producing concussion of the brain; I was, however, well looked after, and as soon as it was safe to move me, I was transferred to my own home, where I was nursed, petted, and made much of to my heart's content, until I was in the greatest danger of being spoiled, through the outrageous ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... such sorrow hallow, ennoble, refine, purify the sufferer, and make him liker his God? 'He for our profit, that we should be partakers of His holiness.' Is not that God's way of glorifying us before heaven's glory? When a blunt knife is ground upon a wheel, the sparks fly fast from the edge held down upon the swiftly-revolving emery disc, but that is the only way to sharpen the dull blade. Friction, often very severe friction, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... he soon feasts upon frogs as freely and speaks with as accurate an accent as the Parisian, but he cannot quite assume the gay insouciance of the French; if to England, he adores method, learns to grumble and imbibe old ale, yet does not become accustomed to the free, blunt raillery,—the "chaff,"—with which Britons disport themselves; if to China, he lives upon curries and inscribes his name with a camel's-hair pencil, but all Oriental bizarrerie fails to thoroughly amuse him. Wherever he may go, he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... your good, I wish with all my heart you were not going away, Prissie," said Hattie in her blunt fashion. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... her the fork. "This is the only way," she said, "and you will notice that the tines are very short and blunt." ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of the old York boat. That was the boat which they formerly used on the Saskatchewan and some of these rivers for their up-stream work. It's a good deal like a Mackinaw boat. You'll see here, too, one or two scows with blunt ends, such as they call the 'sturgeon' nose. They tow a little easier than the square-ended scow. But these new square-facers are the best things in the world for going ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... know about his ability," was the blunt reply, "is his ability to borrow a few hundreds from any one fool enough to lend it to him, and then invent excuses for not paying it back. He's good at that, if you like. Still, don't let me set you against him, Mr. Phipps. Every shilling he gets out of you and your company is so much ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... held it between his thumb and one finger and drew the edge across the fat boiled meat, which fell into pieces almost at a touch, though it was tough and stringy. The host watched the operation approvingly. At that time it was forbidden to carry such knives in Rome, unless the point were round and blunt. The Roman always stabs; he never cuts his man's throat in a fight or ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... describes this whale as being about twelve yards long, having an oblong blunt head, on which there were two longitudinal furrows, and as many upright ridges. It had small eyes, two semi-lunar apertures, from whence it occasionally spouted the water, and it was mottled all ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... Walter Blunt: there's honour for you! here's no vanity! I am as hot as molten lead, and as heavy too. God keep lead ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... found, through the thick and lustrous hair, that she, too, had been struck a harsh and cruel blow; that one reason, probably, why she had been able to oppose no stouter resistance to so slender a girl as Esther Dade was that she was already half dazed through the stroke of some blunt, heavy weapon, wielded probably by him she ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... with bushy red-gray eyebrows, a stubble of roan beard over his blunt, common face. One foot was short in his boot, as if he had lost his toes in a blizzard, a mark not uncommonly set by unfriendly nature on the men who defied its force in that country. He wore a duck shooting-jacket, the pockets of it bulging ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... quiet, Dr. Renaud! You are the blunt well-wisher, I suppose, a type I detest! How can I help myself! I have chosen, and you know the ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... chuckle headed, mutton headed, maggoty headed, grossheaded[obs3]; beef headed, fat witted, fat-headed. weak-minded, feeble-minded; dull minded, shallow minded, lack-brained; rattle-brained, rattle headed; half witted, lean witted, short witted, dull witted, blunt-witted, shallow-pated[obs3], clod-pated[obs3], addle- pated[obs3]; dim-sighted, short-sighted; thick-skulled; weak in the upper story. shallow, borne, weak, wanting, soft, sappy, spoony; dull, dull as a beetle; stupid, heavy, insulse[obs3], obtuse, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... foot iron rod, sharpened at the end. At the blunt end the strip of red flag was wound, near the sharp end the conventional track torpedo was held in place by its ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... same branch of oak he has noted the following variations: (1) In the length of the petiole, as one to three; (2) in the form of the leaf, being either elliptical or obovoid; (3) in the margin being entire, or notched, or even pinnatifid; (4) in the extremity being acute or blunt; (5) in the base being sharp, blunt, or cordate; (6) in the surface being pubescent or smooth; (7) the perianth varies in depth and lobing; (8) the stamens vary in number, independently; (9) the anthers are mucronate or blunt; ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... scientific navigator. He knows the color and taste of the water all along shore from Cape Farewell to the Horn, and can tell the latitude and longitude of any place on the chart without consulting it. Bowditch's Epitome, and Blunt's Coast Pilot, seem to him the only books in the world worth consulting, though I should, perhaps, except Marryatt's novels and Tom Cringle's Log. But of matters connected with the shore Mr. Brewster is as ignorant as a child unborn. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... practice served to provide the public with convincing proof that a traitor was actually dead, and was very necessary in an age when Rumour, "stuffing the ears of men with false reports" held sway over "the blunt monster with uncounted heads, the still discordant wavering multitude." Micklegate Bar was so used. In Shakespeare's Henry VI. Queen Margaret makes, with reference to the Duke of York, this ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... Hat remarked, coming out of the kitchen; "see whar de dagger struck him right over de heart! Dat made him howl and fall dead. His froat was not cut dat sudden; it's gashed as if wid somethin' blunt." ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... which it must have speedily become a prey to the opposition. The right of ejection was retained; but what they chiefly needed was the glitter of the naked blade—the edge of it, which they feared, they took care to blunt. Besides the check involved in the nature of the office—under which the lists of the members of the aristocratic corporations were liable to revision only at intervals of five years —and besides the limitations resulting from the right of veto vested in the colleague and the right of cancelling ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... all, lest, to his own disposition, which was naturally timorous, adding now the wariness and caution of old age, by his weighing, as he would do, every particular, that he might not make one step without the greatest security, he should blunt the edge of their forwardness and resolution in a business which required all the dispatch imaginable. As indeed there were also two others that were companions of Brutus, Statilius the Epicurean, and Favonius the admirer of Cato, whom ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... but one, Sir; look, he follows me. Certes, they're neatly cloth'd. I of this mind am, Your only wearing is your grogaram. Not so, Sir; I have more. Under this pitch He would not fly. I chaf'd him; but as itch Scratch'd into smart, and as blunt iron ground Into an edge, hurts worse; so I (fool!) found Crossing hurt me. To fit my sullenness, He to another key his style doth dress, And asks, What news? I tell him of new plays: He takes my hand, and, as a still which stays A semibrief 'twixt each drop, he niggardly As loth to ...
— English Satires • Various
... and awkward phrases which were whispered from the back of her, but there was something in Charles Westmacott's clumsiness of speech which was more moving than the words of the most eloquent of pleaders. He paused, he stammered, he caught his breath between the words, and he blurted out in little blunt phrases all the hopes of his heart. If love had not come to her yet, there was at least pity and sympathy, which are nearly akin to it. Wonder there was also that one so weak and frail as she should shake this strong man so, should have the whole course of his life waiting for ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was found trod into the bloody mud, scarcely legible, and Sturk's cocked hat, the leaf and crown cut through with a blow of some blunt instrument. His sword they had found by his ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... my lord, at the head of the table, looked only like his lady in a riding-dress. However, he received one mortifying trial of his temper - he had sent to request sailing up the Tamer next day with Sir Richard Bickerton; and he had a blunt refusal, in a note, during our repast. Not an officer in the fleet would accommodate him; their resentment of the dinner ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... early in their acquaintance. Now he was reciting his painful history with the air of a man far more concerned to be scrupulously accurate than aroused in his deepest passions by the memory of past wrongs. What had happened in the interim to blunt these bygone sufferings? Iris clasped her ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... his blunt speech and misanthropic manners, the young heir of Oak Hall, at that period, was not wholly destitute of the art of pleasing. He was sensible and well-read. His figure was commanding, and his carriage good. His stern features were set off by the ruddy glow of health; and the ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... "father" and "mother," or use the more babyish form of "papa" and "mama" is a matter of parental choice, but the preference in some circles is for the former. A blunt "yes" or "no" is not thought polite from a child; he should say "yes, father," "no, mama," "yes, Mrs. Smith." "Ma'am" as a form of address ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... carefully, moving the flame several times across the blunt end. He regarded the results without expression. "A cigar should be ...
— General Max Shorter • Kris Ottman Neville
... neglige, and what plain folk call a wrapper. When it is of shepherd's plaid or snuff-coloured wool it is not an attractive garment, and it is always what the last generation but one, with their blunt tongues, called "slummocking." Most German women are busy in the house all the morning, and when they are not going to market they like to get through their work in this form of dress and make themselves trim for the day later. The advantage claimed for the plan ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... thinking our galleys would leave them, abandoned their string. The Scots, seeing them to retire, left their string. The enemy pursued very hotly; the Englishmen stood to repulse, and are put most to the sword. In this shameful retreat there were slain or drowned to the number of two thousand." The blunt Englishman was justly indignant that an enterprise, so nearly successful, had been ruined by the desertion of its chiefs. "We had cut the dyke in three places," said he; "but left it most ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... always tells the truth, a perfect contrast with the townsfolk; he is blunt in speech addressing his Sultan "O Sa'd!" and he has a hard rough humour which we may fairly describe as "wut." When you chaff him look ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... not, my lady," answered Janet—"doubt not that my father purposes well, though he is a plain man, and his blunt looks may belie ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... Adjutant, in a voice like a blunt saw going through a thick board—"I HEARD there was a new-born puppy ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling |
