"Abrupt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a thing!" he replied. "The silly old josser! pulling me down there amongst the coals and rubbish for an insane idea like that! Why, the flues wouldn't admit the passage of a child; and, even then, there's a bend, an abrupt 'elbow,' that nothing but a cat could crawl up. And that's a man who's an authority on the human brain! I sent the old silly back to bed by the way he came, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... tributaries of the Rappahannock, but the ravines on that side are not considerable. From the ridge occupied by the first line, the ground falls away to the east, until the valley of another branch of Lewis Creek is reached. The depression here is considerable, and gives an abrupt slope to the Fairview hill, which rises directly from it on the eastern side. From the first line of the creek, extends on both sides of the road a dense forest. From the latter point to Fairview heights, and to Chancellorsville, on the south side ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... the scattered savagery of the earlier stone period to the first cities, historically a vast interval, would have seemed to that still watcher, measuring by the standards of astronomy and the rise and decline of races and genera and orders, a, step almost abrupt. It took, perhaps, a thousand generations or so to make it. In that interval man passed from an animal-like obedience to the climate and the weather and his own instincts, from living in small family parties of a score or so over ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... a little pause. Westray did not look up, being awkwardly conscious that the sum was larger than Lord Blandamer had anticipated, and fearing that such an abrupt disclosure might have damped the generosity of an ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... is no one German people, no single Germany.... There are more abrupt contrasts between Germans and Germans than between ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... locality may best be described as a ground covered with fruit gardens and vineyards, narrow streets shut in by stone walls, the roads overhung by forests, the egress from which was in many places steep and abrupt. Such was the ground. One word ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... the drawing room door opened and in walked Ethel Blue and Ethel Brown Morton. The horse stopped suddenly and wiped his forehead with one of his forefeet, but maintained his horizontal position in order not to throw his rider. Elisabeth's equilibrium was somewhat disturbed by the abrupt cessation of her charger's advance but she kept a firm hold on ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... with Maurice?" she pondered, crossly; "he's backed out of helping me. Why can't he go on shingling the chicken coop?" For it was while this delightful work was under way that it, and "talk," came to an abrupt end. ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... intelligent, cheerful—in fact, a splendid girl, a girl to be enthusiastic about! But such a mere girl! A girl with so much to learn! So pathetically young and inexperienced and positive and sure of herself! The looseness of her limbs, the unconscious abrupt freedom of her gestures, the waviness of her auburn hair, the candour of her glance, the warmth of her indignation against injustice and dishonesty, the capricious and sensitive flowings of blood to her smooth cheeks, the ridiculous wise compressings of her lips, the rise and fall ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... rings upon them as upon a bell, and their fracture is brilliantly crystalline. The basalt is the same as that which caps the sandstone hills of the Vindhya range throughout Malwa. The sandstone hills around Gwalior all rise in the same abrupt manner from the plain as those through Malwa generally; and they have almost all of them the same basaltic glacis at their base, with boulders of that rock scattered over the top, all indicating that they were at one time buried, in the same manner under one great mass of volcanic matter, thrown ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... over once more the straw of these familiar topics and then fell into embarrassed silence. The father broke this with an abrupt, energetic exclamation and a ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... The abrupt change of subject seemed to have its effect upon Elmur. He turned away from the table, crossed his legs, and lit a cigarette in a leisurely manner ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... trucks—passed across the dim grey of the embankment, and were suddenly extinguished one by one in the throat of the tunnel, which, with the last, seemed to swallow down train, smoke, and sound in one abrupt gulp. ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... absurd speech of the old servant. She remembered Mehitabel from the days when in pinafores she used to visit here, and when she looked upon the tall, gaunt woman with an awe which was saved from being terror only by the fact that she had learned to associate with that abrupt speech an after gift of crisp cakes. Mehitabel was to her as much a part of the establishment as were the tall chairs, the lion-headed fire-dogs, or the silver which had belonged to her ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... trick of coming to an abrupt end without embarrassing any one. As Dan sat looking into the fire, with his thoughts far away in the past, the Maluka began to croon contentedly at "Home, Sweet Home," and, curled up in the warm, sweet nest of leaves, I listened to the crooning, ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... his usual abrupt action he put the letter in his inner pocket and proceeded to hurry his business as much as possible that he might take an earlier boat than the one he had set. And he finally succeeded by dint of working night as well as day, and ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... leads to the Queen's apartment," whispered Le Brusquet, with a shrug of his shoulders, as he led the way along the gallery, which curved with the shape of the keep. On rounding the curve it came to an abrupt ending. Here a lamp swung by a chain from the roof, and by its light we dimly saw before us a large door, firmly closed, and seeming to bar all further progress. Near the door a man was seated in an alcove in the wall, his knees almost up to his chin, his drawn sword in his hand. He swung ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... Nevertheless, the first time that his feverish eloquence brought tears and incoherent shoutings from the audience, he became suddenly fearful before the ecstasies which he had touched to life, he faltered, and brought his discourse to an abrupt end. As the crowd slowly quieted and reluctantly began to drift away there flashed on him with blinding suddenness the realization that his excitement had been as great as their own; for a moment he wondered if such passion were ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... part of Sinai, as far as we can see from the shore, reflects, in wilder forms and more abrupt lines, the opposite coast of Midian: there is, however, the important difference that the Secondaries and the quartz-veins, there so important, are here wanting. The skeletons of mountain and hill appear as if prolonged under water. The ruddy syenite is dyked and veined by the familiar ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... night-train up to London, and he thought that he would return to town by that. He had intended, when he left London, to get back as soon as possible. Then Mrs Dale, having hesitated for two or three seconds, got up and left the room, and Lily followed. "It seems very odd and abrupt," said Mrs Dale to her daughter, "but I suppose it is best." "Of course, it is best, mamma. Do as one would be done by,—that's the only rule. It will be much better for her that she should ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... two syllables. The sentiment embodied throughout is that of violent mental emotion; and it affords a further illustration of the correctness of MR. C. FORBES'S theory (Vol. i., p. 228.) that "the language of passion is almost invariably broken and abrupt." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... humor laughs with. Wit lashes external appearances, or cunningly exchanges single foibles into character; humor glides into the heart of its object, looks lovingly upon the infirmities it attacks, and represents the whole man. Wit is abrupt, scornful ...; humor is slow and shy, insinuating its ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... until I had lived for a time amid these wild scenes. My intention had been to voyage with the Morning Star, returning with her to Tahiti, but a mysterious voice called to me from the dusky valleys. I could not leave without penetrating into those abrupt and melancholy depths of forest, without endeavoring, though ever so feebly, to stir the cold brew of legend and tale fast ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... contains. It says that "His Majesty, who had entered into the negotiation with good faith, who had suffered no impediment to prevent his prosecuting it with earnestness and sincerity, has now only to lament its abrupt termination, and to renew in the face of all Europe the solemn declaration, that, whenever his enemies shall be disposed to enter on the work of general pacification in a spirit of conciliation and equity, nothing shall be ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... more brutal, more abrupt. Both intensely nervous, both highly individualised, their characters conflicted with the intensity of two real and opposing forces. A tragic aspect of it all was that it was due to Terry's teaching that Marie attained to the highly individualised character which was destined to rebel against ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... and made signals of distress, which were not regarded by him, till his officers exclaimed against his barbarity, and at last he brought to. When I had again got up with him, I sent Mr Brooks to know the reason of his abrupt departure, and to request the supply of several necessaries, which I was willing to pay for. On these terms, he spared me two of his quarter-deck guns, sixty round shot, some musket-balls and flints, a Spanish chart of the coast of Mexico, with part of China ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... stairs, swayed by a conflict of emotions. Had I indeed gone too far, been too stern and abrupt? Still it was surely better to err in this direction than to exhibit weakness, and it was only between these two that I had any choice remaining. What lay between us and our own lines was uncertain—possibly Confederate ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... abrupt contradictions. If you differ decidedly from some given opinion, soften the expression of your difference by such modifications as, "I hardly think so," or, "My idea is rather different," or, "I beg to differ." This is much more polite and less ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... and parted in the middle, was the exception. He sat in a low chair, pouting his lips, playing with his single eyeglass, and looking as sulky as an ill-conditioned school-boy. Once or twice he crossed and uncrossed his short legs with a sort of abrupt violence, laid his fat, white hands on the arms of the chair, lifted them, glanced at his rosy and shining nails, and frowned. Then he shut his little eyes so tightly that the skin round them became wrinkled, and, stretching out his ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... a rather abrupt young man," she smiled. "But you must not try to think—yet. And my name is ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... on, but scarcely had they covered a quarter of a mile when Bahama Bill called another halt. And well he might, for the trail they had been following came to an abrupt end in front of a pit several rods in diameter and twenty to thirty feet deep. The bottom of the pit was choked up with rocks, dead ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... and very high plateau in the mountains lying to the east of Ranch Number Ten. It was well watered from springs at the upper end which wandered the entire length of the tract and spilled down the cliffs which cut in abrupt fashion across the lower end, making a natural and ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... abrupt. The nun turned deadly pale, and clung to the bars of the grate for support; but the emotion was momentary. "Go on," said she, in a ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... a dark pit that seemed to reach down into the very bowels of the earth, rose an abrupt plateau—and on one of its nearer elevations, almost directly under then, loomed a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... portrait-taking by his own desire, only at my cousin Holman's request the next time that he came; and then he said he should not require any more formal sittings for only such a slight sketch as he felt himself capable of making. Phillis was just the same as ever the next time I saw her after her abrupt passing me in the hall. She never gave any explanation of her rush out ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of Orange could do with the Anglo-Saxon what it would have been impossible not to do with Spaniards or Italians. Even warlike Swiss—Teutonic tribes—will have a government with due process of law, not by the abrupt violence of the soldier. Washington could not have established a military monarchy in America had he been so wickedly disposed. Even William the Conqueror must rule the ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... abrupt way my father made me a little private speech, in which he expressed a hope that I would not disgrace ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... brief style is that which expresseth much in little; the concise style, which expresseth not enough, but leaves somewhat to be understood; the abrupt style, which hath many breaches, and doth not seem to end, but fall. The congruent and harmonious fitting of parts in a sentence hath almost the fastening and force of knitting and connection; as in stones well squared, which will rise strong ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... forward, rear, turn round, and oppose all the resistance of a horse brought to a leap which he is afraid or unable to take. Whilst galloping down a rough and stony path, on one of whose sides was a high bank, and on the other an abrupt fall in the ground, Baltasar had come upon a deep trench or rivulet of considerable width, and this his horse obstinately refused to cross. Casting a hasty glance back at his pursuer, who was still far behind, Baltasar turned his charger, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... almost compared, for extent and beauty, to those from the church of Fourvieres, and the Montagne de Rochepot. Towards the north we surveyed not only the valleys of Montelimart and the Drome, but nearly the whole of the route of the three preceding days, bordered on the one side by the abrupt and lofty mountains, from which the latter river takes its source, and on the other by the steep banks of the Rhone. On proceeding a little farther, over a road which consisted of the native rock in all its native inequality, we caught sight of the Comtat Grignan, and ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... side of the river, behind the cottages of the fishermen, soared Mount Janiculum, dark with massive foliage, from which gleamed at frequent intervals, the grey walls of many a castellated palace, and the spires and columns of a hundred churches; on the other side, the deserted Aventine rose abrupt and steep, covered with thick brushwood; while, on the height, from concealed but numerous convents, rolled, not unmusically, along the quiet landscape and the rippling waves, the sound of ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... give him an attitude of his own. While the others follow passively in a close file, he, the captain, tosses himself about and with an abrupt movement flings the front of his body hither and thither. As he marches ahead he seems to be seeking his way. Does he in point of fact explore the country? Does he choose the most practicable places? Or are his hesitations merely ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... desertion to the enemy is somewhat abrupt, and is narrated with brevity not usual with Valmiki. In the Bengal recension the preceding speakers and speeches differ considerably from those given in the text which I follow. Vibhishan is kicked from his seat by Ravan, and then, after telling his mother what has happened, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... hear of Socrates reminding his followers that they are "weak as women," and he was the first to say "woman is an undeveloped man." But Socrates was a great admirer of human beauty, whether physical or spiritual, and his abrupt way of stopping beautiful women on the streets and bluntly telling them they were beautiful, doubtless often confirmed their suspicions. And thus far he was pleasing, but when he went on to ask questions so as to ascertain whether their mental estate compared with their physical, why, that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... to see what control over this abrupt young man she really had she ventured a very slight retrograde arm-pressure, then a delicate touch to right, to left, and forward once more. It was most interesting; he backed up, guided right and left, and started forward or halted under perfect control. What had she ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... of Norwich, Mr. Daniel Baker, Mr. Ferguson the Glasgow Home Ruler, and other veterans of reform. We held our Conference on Sunday in the old meeting-place of the Secular Society, which was approached by very abrupt steps, and being situated over stables, was not devoid of flavor. On Monday the Conference was continued in one of the rooms under the Town Hall. A long political programme was concocted. I was elected Secretary, ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote
... very honourable position. The charm of this early book is its freedom from drag. It moves on always. The reader is hastened along; he has wonderful and unexpected views, which ravish him as the abrupt magnificences of the Pyrenees ravished Gautier. Perhaps you expect a tree, but you see a stream. Now, at last, it must be a great green hill, and behold! you peep down into an echoless mossy depth of glen. At the ...
— The Song of the Flag - A National Ode • Eric Mackay
... chagrin to Hartlib when the London plan came to an abrupt end, and Comenius transferred himself to Sweden. Thither we must follow him, for yet one other passage of his history before we leave him:— "Conveyed to Sweden in August of the year 1642," proceeds Comenius, "I found my new Maecenas at his house at Nortcoping; ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... point the Chief Justice appears to recoil from this abrupt dismissal of the clear and present danger formula for the more serious cases, and he makes a last moment effort to rescue the babe that he has tossed out with the bathwater. He says: "As articulated by Chief Judge Hand, it is as succinct and inclusive ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... as she had recovered, she wished to spend a fortnight at Dearport, beginning with a retreat that was held there. Remembering her old career there, and the abrupt close of her novitiate, she felt and spoke as if she was to be received as in penitence, but to the Sisters who surrounded her it was more as if ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... of the Voice, according to the various Touches which raise them, form themselves into an Acute or Grave, Quick or Slow, Loud or Soft Tone. These too may be subdivided into various kinds of Tones, as the gentle, the rough, the contracted, the diffuse, the continued, the intermitted, the broken, abrupt, winding, softned, or elevated. Every one of these may be employed with Art and Judgment; and all supply the Actor, as Colours do the Painter, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... dry, the words abrupt, but the detective's heart was dancing like a feather. The next turn he took was toward the handsome ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... exceeds in recklessness anything else written since the second part of Faust. The third act, culminating with the drive to Soria Moria Castle and the death of Ase, is of the very quintessence of poetry, and puts Ibsen in the first rank of creators. In the fourth act, the introduction of which is abrupt and grotesque, we pass to a totally different and, I think, a lower order of imagination. The fifth act, an amalgam of what is worst and best in the poem, often seems divided from it in tone, style and direction, and is more like a symbolic or mythical ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... mask which is puffy in the cheeks, and then she wipes the perspiration and washes her little face and fans herself and goes on again, flatfooted. All the motions are most elegant and graceful and subtle and serpentine, never an abrupt or sudden gesture, and never quite literal in any sense. After the dance was finished she came and sat by me and her skin was hot as if she had a fever. All the men were older and I must say they treated ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... but his reply was checked by an abrupt movement on the part of Mr. Spragg. There was a perceptible pause, during which Moffatt's bright black glance rested questioningly on Ralph; then he looked again at the older man, and their eyes held each other for a ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... few steps away together, when Maggie came to an abrupt standstill. The two stood for a moment as though transfixed, their eyes upon the arched entrance which led from the restaurant into the lounge. A man was standing there, looking around, a strange, menacing figure, a man dressed in the garb of fashion but with the face of a savage, with ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that I could not resist the fascination. I certainly gave her some cause for displeasure that unfortunate evening; for as Olivia has strong passions and exquisite sensibility, I should not have been so abrupt. A fit of jealousy may seize the best and most generous mind, and may prompt to what it would be incapable of saying or thinking in dispassionate moments. I am sure that Olivia has, upon reflection, felt more pain from this affair than I have. My Russian ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... on the brink of a steep washout at the upper edge of one of the benches on the mountain side just below where the abrupt slope began. They were alongside a little gully with sheer walls. I rode my horse to within forty yards of them, one of them occasionally looking up and at once continuing to feed. Then they moved slowly off and leisurely crossed the gully to the other side. I dismounted, ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... dark expanse towards the peak a long, low whistle, ending in an abrupt high note, had sounded. For a moment there was no repetition. The invisible foe was signalling for reply. From whom could answer ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... a rolling valley is divided by the River Dobrava, while due south the Tzer Mountains rise like a camel's back out of the plain and stretch right across from the Drina to the Dobrava. The southern slopes of Tzer are less abrupt than those on the north and descend gradually into the Leschnitza Valley, out of which rise the lesser heights of the Iverak Mountains. Both these ranges are largely covered by prune orchards, intersected with ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... both difficult and interesting to attempt to follow the history of the chief characters of the period; and the reader must pardon some abrupt transitions from person to person, and from group to group, while the details of some subsequent movements of the Bonaparte family must be thrown in to give a proper idea of the strange revolution in their fortunes. We may divide the characters with which we ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... came to the French and English ambassadors accordingly, complaining of the abrupt and peremptory tone of the States' reply, the suggestion of conferences for truce, in place of fruitless peace negotiations, was made at once, and of course favourably received. It was soon afterwards laid before the States-General. To this end, in truth, Richardot and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... sudden mode of proceeding: "Gracious Prince," said he, "we do not shoot an undergraduate at Cambridge even for walking over a college grass- plot.—Let me suggest to your Royal Highness that this method of ridding yourself of a poor devil's importunities is such as we should consider abrupt and almost cruel in Europe. Let me beg you to moderate your Royal impetuosity for the future; and, as your Highness's tutor, entreat you to be a little less prodigal ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the situations and emotional states which are exploited, promulgated, and dwelt upon in the set music pieces. Its purpose is to maintain the play in an artificial atmosphere, so that the transition from dialogue to song may not be so abrupt as to disturb the mood of the listener. Of all the factors in an opera, the dry recitative is the most monotonous. It is not music, but speech about to break into music. Unless one is familiar with Italian and desirous of following the conversation, which we have been ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... unequivocally to the effect that it was all right—Graham needn't worry—failed, altogether, to reassure him. Was this, after all, he wondered, what she had exploded about? She prevented further inquiry, however, by an abrupt change of the subject, demanding to be told what it was that he and his father, all these ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... contemporaries, and attracting to himself a share of their lustre; the honor, be it said, not the fortune, for he managed to remain the centre of intellectual movement as well as of the court, of literature and art as well as affairs of state. Only the abrupt and solitary genius of Pascal or the prankish and ingenuous geniality of La Fontaine held aloof from king and court; Racine and Moliere, Bossuet and Fenelon, La Bruyere and Boileau lived frequently in the circle of Louis XIV., and enjoyed in different degrees his favor; M. de la Rochefoucauld ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Wales expressed his pleasure to receive the gift of mint rock so kindly sent by Mr Jonas Bottomley, but explaining that there were so many gifts of this nature that it would be out of the question to give a privilege to one and not to another. I should offer a word of apology for making such an abrupt introduction of the next event. It was not many weeks after the above that Mr Bottomley came to an unfortunate end, his dead body being found on the canal bank at Leeds, where it was supposed he had been ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... crowed, while his care-taker bent over his labour, circumspect in every movement, nor once forgetting the precious thing on his back, who was evidently delighted with his new style of being nursed, and only now and then made a wry face at some movement of the human machine too abrupt for his comfort. Evidently he took it all as intended solely ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... suddenness with which it all went and he grew calm, coinciding as it did with the equally abrupt cessation of the humming and pattering outside—I think this was almost the strangest part of the whole business perhaps. For he just opened his eyes and turned his tired face up to me so that the dawn threw a pale light upon it through the doorway, and said, for ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... dialogues. For Plato is incapable of sustained composition; his genius is dramatic rather than oratorical; he can converse, but he cannot make a speech. Even the Timaeus, which is one of his most finished works, is full of abrupt transitions. There is the same kind of difference between the dialogue and the continuous discourse of Plato as between the narrative and speeches ...
— Laws • Plato
... money for my journey to America. The change that the years had wrought in her appearance was striking, and yet it was the same Matilda. Her brown eyes were still sparkingly full of life and her mouth retained the sensuous expression of her youth. This and her abrupt gestures gave ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... distributing about six hundred packages a week to soldiers in hospitals and eclope depots, and that during the month of January alone nine thousand six hundred packages were distributed both behind the lines and among the soldiers at the Front. This may go on for years or it may come to an abrupt end; but, like all the Frenchwomen to whom I talked, and who when they plunged into work expected a short war, she is determined to do her part as long as the soldiers do theirs, even if the war marches with the term of her natural life. She not only has given a great amount of practical ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... with the promptitude that he had looked for; the reason of this being, he supposed, that the few addresses she had made had not been lectures, announced in advance, to which tickets had been sold, but incidents, of abrupt occurrence, of certain multitudinous meetings, where there had been other performers better known to fame. They had brought in no money; they had been delivered only for the good of the cause. If it could only be known that she spoke for nothing, that might ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... transitions leads from bisexual to unisexual blossoms; and so in various other respects. Everywhere we may perceive that Nature secures her ends, and makes her distinctions on the whole manifest and real, but everywhere without abrupt breaks. We need not wonder, therefore, that gradations between species and varieties should occur; the more so, since genera, tribes, and other groups into which the naturalist collocates species are far from being always absolutely limited in Nature, though ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... was duly sworn, and then proceeded to give his evidence, in brief, abrupt sentences, without ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... water results from the juxtaposition of hydrogen and oxygen whenever this can be made sufficiently close and intimate, so, on the other hand, if water itself be placed in certain situations, hydrogen and oxygen are reproduced from it: an abrupt termination is put to the new laws, and the agents re-appear separately with their own properties as at first. What is called chemical analysis is the process of searching for the causes of a phenomenon among its effects, or rather among the effects produced by the action ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... scholar, and a most skillful physician; but ladies who expected from him those little polite attentions which the sex value so highly generally expected in vain, for he was no ladies' man, and his language and manners were oftentimes abrupt, even when both were prompted by the utmost kindness of heart. In his organization, too, there was not a quick perception of what would be exactly appropriate, and so, when, at last, he was about starting ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... Randolph was staggered. The abrupt revelation of his benefactor's name and fate, casually coupled with an invitation to dinner, shocked and confounded him. Perhaps Mr. Dingwall noticed it and misunderstood the cause, for he added in parenthetical explanation: "Yes, the man whose portmanteau ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... was hurriedly gathered up in a coil and thrown across our bows, and we were invited to hitch the loop at the end over the hook on our front thwart. The horse was then put in motion, and the downward career of our ark suffered an abrupt check, as we found ourselves rudely lugged ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... comes from the temples in bright waves, and gives singular light to the top of the head; the eyes steeped in a golden penumbra with tawny eyeballs, on a moist and blue crystalline lens like that of a child, send out a glance of astonishing acuteness; the nose, divided into abrupt polished flat places, breathes strongly and passionately, through large red nostrils; the mouth, large and voluptuous, particularly in the lower lip, smiles with a rabelaisian smile under the shade of a moustache ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... circulated upon a kind of ledge projecting along the sides of the box a little below the continuous mountain chain upon which the starry heavens were sustained. On the north of the ellipse, the river was bordered by a steep and abrupt bank, which took its rise at the peak of Manu on the west, and soon rose high enough to form a screen between the river and the earth. The narrow valley which it hid from view was known as Da'it from remotest times. Eternal night enfolded ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... flitting o'er the waters one by one! Slumber wraps the silent city, and the droning mills are dumb; One lone whippowil's shrill ditty calls her mate that ne'er will come. Sadly moans the mighty river, foaming down the fettered falls, Where of old he thundered ever o'er abrupt and lofty walls. Great Unktehee—god of waters—lifts no more his mighty head; Fled he with the timid otters?—lies he in the cavern dead? Hark!—the waters hush their sighing and the whippowil her call, Through the moon-lit mists are flying ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... Barsoomian day had ended, and then the brief period of twilight that renders the transition from daylight to darkness almost as abrupt as the switching off of an electric light, and Tara of Helium had found no sanctuary. But perhaps there were no beasts to fear, or rather to avoid—Tara of Helium liked not the word fear. She would have been glad, however, had there been a cabin, even a very tiny cabin, upon her small flier; ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the last quietude and desertion of the grave; in this dulness of the senses there is a gentle preparation for the final insensibility of death. And to him the idea of mortality comes in a shape less violent and harsh than is its wont, less as an abrupt catastrophe than as a thing of infinitesimal gradation, and the last step on a long decline of way. As we turn to and fro in bed, and every moment the movements grow feebler and smaller and the attitude more restful and easy, until sleep overtakes us at a stride and we move no more, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and the Cape of Good Hope, Vancouver steered south-wards, sighted St. Paul's Island, and sailed towards New Holland, between the routes taken by Dampier and Marion, and through latitudes which had not yet been traversed. On the 27th September was sighted part of the coast of New Holland, ending in abrupt and precipitous cliffs, to which the name of Cape Chatham was given. As many of his crew were down with dysentery, Vancouver decided to anchor in the first harbour he came to, to get water, wood, and above all provisions, of which he stood sorely in need. Port George III. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... did it almost at once, before Alice or her father could come in. Alice was out walking, she said, and her father was in the study. They would be in soon. She thus made Rowcliffe realise that if she was going to be abrupt it was because she had to be; they had both of them such a ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... rivals and enemies, of whom either the brilliancy of his achievements or his somewhat abrupt and pointed methods of controversy seem to have made him a great many, have risen up, or rather seated themselves, and written him down—well, an individual who strains the truth. Indeed, only this morning one of these inquired, in ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... minutes. It was impossible for me to accept the abrupt conclusion of the adventure, and, in spite of myself, I mused with some melancholy on the sad fate of certain men who appear and disappear in this world like the grass of the field, without leaving the least ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... the complement and counterpart of Lady Casterley, one would perhaps have singled out her brother. All her abrupt decision was negated in his profound, ironical urbanity. His voice and look and manner were like his velvet coat, which had here and there a whitish sheen, as if it had been touched by moonlight. His hair too had that ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... emptiness, two people were driving: a white girl of two-and-twenty summers and an Indian man a few years older. Back of them, in the direction from which they had come, was the outline of a straggling, desolate village. Ahead, to either side, was the rolling brown earth; and at the end of it, abrupt apparently as a material wall, the blue of a cloudless October sky. The team they were driving, a mouse-coloured broncho and a mate a shade darker, were restless after three days of enforced inactivity and tugged at the bit mightily. Though the day was perfectly still, ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... at the moment at which the cylinders (of which the temperature has just been taken and compared with that of the Seine, in order to prevent too abrupt a transition for the fry) are being carefully let ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... were still a long way from the entrance to the underground caverns in which lived the Nome King. There was a dim path, winding between stones and boulders, over which the walking was quite difficult, especially as the path led up hills that were small mountains, and then down steep and abrupt slopes where any misstep might mean a broken leg. Therefore it was the second day of their journey before they climbed halfway up a rugged mountain and found themselves at the entrance of ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... from easy, and as she descended the dark steep stairs she came to an abrupt decision. Something was wrong and despite the hirelings of Starr ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... hundred springs had been Slowly but exquisitely nurtured by the stars, And watered with the scented dew long cupped In lilies, that for rays of sun had seen Only God's glory, for never a sunrise mars The luminous air of heaven. Beyond, abrupt, A gray stone wall, o'ergrown with velvet moss Uprose. And gazing I stood long, all mazed To see a place so strange, so sweet, so fair. And as I stood and marvelled, lo! across The garden came a youth, ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... Keble added to it great attainments and brilliant gifts of imagination and poetry; but he never lost the plain, downright, almost awkward ways of conversation and manner of his simple home—ways which might have seemed abrupt and rough but for the singular sweetness and charm of his nature. To those who looked on the outside he was always the homely, rigidly orthodox country clergyman. On Isaac Williams, with his ethical standard, John Keble also impressed his ideas of ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... abrupt dissolution of the House of Burgesses, the members still continued on courteous terms with him, and the ball which they had decreed early in the session in honor of Lady Dunmore, was celebrated on the 27th with ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... unmistakable doctor's gig approaching, and from it emerged Harold and Mr. Yolland. I saw now that he was a sturdy, hard-working-looking young man of seven or eight and twenty, with sandy hair, and an honest, open, weather-beaten face. He had a rather abrupt manner, but much more gentleman-like than that of the usual style of young Union doctors, who are divided between fine words and affectation and ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... There is something very impressive in the abrupt bursting in of this second voice, all unnamed. It is the reverberation, as it were, of the former, giving the preparation on the side of man for the coming of Jehovah. Israel in bondage in Egypt had been ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... his arrival. Upon the receipt of his Proclamation they wrote to him and expressed their disapprobation, but those letters never reached him, as he quitted Canada before they could have arrived. They now, it seems, consider that silence is token sufficient of their displeasure at his abrupt return; but, though no doubt he fully understands them, they ought to have conveyed their sentiments openly and distinctly. There is an appearance of pusillanimity in this reserve which does them great harm, and brings them into discredit. They ought to have told ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... hardly have accomplished that, even if she had tried at once, for almost before Violet had done speaking, Miss Bethia was upon them. Her greetings were brief and abrupt, as usual; and ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... commence with the ante-Communion service from the reading-desk. This went on in due course till the end of the Nicene Creed, when without sermon, prayers, or blessing, the morning service came to an abrupt termination. The afternoon service was identical, save that it ended with a sermon and ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... much after the manner of music; by these means too, in addition to the mode of stress-undulation, it imitates the temporal and dynamic course of action and emotion, and so tends to arouse congruous types of feeling in the mind; it is swift or slow, gliding or abrupt, retarded or accelerated. Compare the slow and retarded rhythm of "When I have fears that I may cease to be," so well adapted to express the gravity of the thought, with the rapid and accelerated movement of "Hail to thee, blithe spirit!" so full of a quick joyousness. Or compare the ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... nostrils filled with the heavy scent of the pack, Miki travelled steadily in the direction of the plain. It took him half an hour to reach the edge of it. After that he came to a wide and stony out-cropping of the earth over which he nosed the spoor to a low and abrupt descent into the wider range ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... The abrupt, unexpected question startled her, and a crimson tide rushed over her face and neck; but she returned her father's gaze steadily: "No, papa; how could you think ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... and Turkish history of Laonicus Chalcondyles ends with the winter of 1463; and the abrupt conclusion seems to mark, that he laid down his pen in the same year. We know that he was an Athenian, and that some contemporaries of the same name contributed to the revival of the Greek language in Italy. But in his numerous digressions, the modest historian has never ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... questions, and I will tell you no lies," the Chevalier replied on his part. Strong thought of the words Mr. Altamont had used, and his abrupt departure from the Baronet's dining-table and house as soon as he recognised Major Pendennis, or Captain Beak, as he called the Major. But Strong resolved to seek an explanation of these words otherwise than from Colonel Altamont, and did not choose to recall them ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... but who had furtively been warned by the traitorous stage manager "to look sharp after their money." The camaraderie that had hitherto subsisted between that gentleman and Cleo had come to an abrupt end, she cutting him short impatiently in the course of some discussion and bidding him not to argue. In further token of his annoyance he had worded a notice she had told him to ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... did not deepen on the cheek of Gelsomina at this abrupt question, for the tie between her and Jacopo had become too sacred for the ordinary ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... time, hesitated; then, ashamed of his alarm and indecision, took a few hurried steps ahead; the next instant stopped dead in his tracks. Immediately in front of him all signs of the trail ceased; both tracks came to an abrupt end. On all sides, for a hundred yards and more, he searched in vain for the least indication of ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... invariable custom to be announced when I visited my wife's closet; but I had no mind now for such formalities, and swiftly passing two or three scared servants on the stairs, I made straight for her room, tapped and entered. Abrupt as were my movements, however, someone had contrived to warn her; for though two of her women sat working on stools near her, I heard a hasty foot flying, and caught the last flutter of a skirt as it disappeared through a second door. My wife rose from her seat, and looked ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... one summer through the Colorado mountain region. For a distance of forty-five miles the solitary road wound on and on, ever ascending through the dreamy, purple mountains. The entire route was a series of vistas that apparently came to an abrupt end at the base of an insurmountable height. The mountain wall seemed to utterly arrest progress, as it rose across the ascending valley through which the driver urged his "four-in-hand," and no way to pass beyond the next mountain ahead could possibly be discerned. But as ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... of Lent the Society of the Holy Gethsemane was visited by its ecclesiastical Visitor. This was the Bishop of the diocese, a liberal-minded man and not a very rigid ecclesiastic, abrupt, brusque, businesslike, and a good administrator. When the brothers had gathered in the community room, he took from the Superior the leathern-bound volume containing the rule of the Brotherhood and read aloud the text ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... mischievously as she made the suggestion. Piers frowned yet a moment longer, then laughed back with abrupt friendliness. ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... they looked expectantly forward to a greater revelation of the mountains, but this was constantly denied by ever-recurring successions of ridges still ahead. The long, smooth swell of the plain gradually gave way to the more abrupt formations of the foothills, and here and there in their rounded domes protruded great warts of green-grey rock where the winds of ages had whipped the sand down into the valleys. Little clusters of green poplars, like vast goatees, nestled on the northern chin of ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... standing, hand in hand, at my bedside, come to show me their colored shoes, or new frocks, or to let me see them drest for going out. No experience was so awful to me, and at the same time so pathetic, as this abrupt translation from the darkness of the infinite to the gaudy summer air of highest noon, and from the unutterable abortions of mis-created gigantic vermin to the sight of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various |
