"Abrupt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... repose McNally's face was clouded, and the occasional spells of interest into which he somewhat studiously aroused himself could not conceal his general inattention. Her father, too, was preoccupied, and was so abrupt in his conversation as to leave small trace of the easy lightness of manner that Katherine had ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... so for the nonce. So melancholy a face may well suggest some painful family secret. But how explain the violent part played by the young man, who is not mentioned in these abrupt and hastily penned sentences! It is all a mystery, madam, a mystery which we are wasting time to attempt ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... 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 in ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... such I had regarded it. But I soon saw the difficulty of keeping "a state secret." I had scarcely sent in my acceptance of the appointment, when I found a letter on my table from my old Israelite friend, Mordecai, congratulating me on "my decision." It was in his usual abrupt style:— ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... It is an abrupt transition from these homely scenes, which humor commends to our liking, to the chivalrous pageant unrolled for us in the "Conquest of Granada." The former are more characteristic and the more enduring of Irving's writings, but as a literary artist his ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... as an organizer and worker. We owe everything to Wood, and he is really a thoroughly noble, good fellow, and a hero. He is a short, rather thick set, somewhat awkward, and "slouchy" man, extremely careless in his dress, blunt and abrupt in his manner, with a queer inexpressive face, little blue eyes which can look dull or flash fire or twinkle with the wickedest fun. He is so witty, sarcastic, and cutting, that he is a terrible foe, and will put the laugh even on his best ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... band had now ceased mellowing out the favorite medley which begins with "Casta Diva" and runs over into the lovely cadences of "Gentle Annie"; and the abrupt transition from that mournful strain to a light cotillon air warned four hundred holiday-people that the festive dance was about to begin on the wide floor between the engine-room and the saloon. Cotillons are a leading pastime among the people; and as the water was pretty smooth ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... suddenly broke forth a loud oath from Uliades, who, lingering a little behind the rest, had laid rough hands on the Mothon, as the latter once more attempted to pass him. With a dexterous and abrupt agility, Alcman had extricated himself from the Samian's grasp, but with a force that swung the captain on his knee. Taking advantage of the position of the foe, the Mothon darted onward, and threading the rest of the party, disappeared through the neighbouring gates ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... one of the most picturesque and beautiful streams in the world. Its bluffs never rise higher than fifty or sixty feet; it has no abrupt precipices; the whole formation about it is tertiary and drift or modern terrace; but its first eighty miles from its mouth are broad as a bay of the sea, and its narrow upper course above Pilatka, where current ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... seemed endless hours of paddling and chanting the river took an abrupt turn and the boys found themselves at the foot of a steep cliff that towered up, it seemed, for six hundred feet at least. It was formed of black basalt and was crowned with a fringe of contrasting vegetation, ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... them, smiling mistily, and asked his captain if the new tow-line had been delivered. While MacLaurin went to make inquiries, Peter watched a sampan, bow on, floating down-stream, with the intention, evidently, of making connections with the Hankow's ladder. On her abrupt foredeck was a slim figure ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... but he cared nothing for the episode. His sympathies were immediate if temporary, and experience had eaten off the very cover of the book of seals. He followed her through every mental phase she unconsciously rehearsed; and when she brought the story to an abrupt close, lacking the art to run it off into generalities, he inferred something of the last development and did not press her to continue. He pitied her grimly. But he was an intensely ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... different phases of life. The cabin life in amongst the mountains and miners, the Ranch, and town, and certainly give the palm to the first-mentioned. As we anticipated, our Ranch life was brought to an abrupt end the moment we owned to Mr. W—— how our slumbers were disturbed with the B flats; we had to return into Ouray, and have been ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... individual sections. Possibly this is due, in large measure, to later redactors of the book, or to the fragmentary reports of the prophet's addresses; perhaps, however, it also expresses something of the abrupt passion of his speeches, which, as Kautzsch says, were "more sob than speech." The general theme of this division appears in its opening words, "There is no fidelity or love or knowledge of God in the ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... too 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 ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... afraid my speech was rather rude and abrupt, but Mr. Lucas did not seem to mind it. His eyes still retained their amused twinkle, but he condescended to argue the point more seriously with me, and sat down in Miss Ruth's low chair, as though to bring himself more ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... seemed rather startled by this abrupt dismissal, but the steel-blue eyes of Inspector Kerry were already bent again upon the dead man, and, murmuring "good night," the doctor took ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... Ralph, and put her hand on his arm, looking steadily at Chris. Ralph laid his other hand on hers a moment, then raised it, and made an abrupt ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... said North, with trembling lips. "Oh, no, I do not—do not hate you. I am rude in my speech, abrupt in my manner. You must forget it, and—and me." A horse's feet crashed upon the gravel, and an instant after Maurice Frere burst into the room. Returning from the Cascades, he had met Troke, and learned the release of the ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... crawl up the perpendicular side of a burrow, pushing his load in front of him. The side generally selected for this attempt was the one nearest your head as you lay; and often the first intimation you had that the performance had begun was the abrupt descent on to your face of beetle and load. Neither the fall nor the subsequent profanity discouraged him in the least; on the contrary, it spurred him to greater efforts. The next attempt would land him an inch or two higher up, when ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... another by a good system of streams; since here the opposite peculiarities of the populations of the highlands and coast-lands(227) tend to produce a nationality both one and varied. Where the transitions are too abrupt, as for instance, in New Holland, they easily impede inter-communication; and, still more, where the several parts of the country are of very great extent; as, for example, the desert of North Africa, the plateau ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... differences concerning Free Trade. The strength of Lord John's Ministry in the country depended largely upon the foreign policy of Palmerston, who was disliked and mistrusted by the Court. While Palmerston was defending his abrupt, highhanded policy towards Greece in the speech which made him the hero of the hour, a war was going on between Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein, in which the Prince Consort himself was much interested. It was a question ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... "I had forgotten—but what condition, Gerald, (and here he spoke as if piqued at the abrupt manner in which his brother had concluded his half confidence), what condition, I ask, may a woman entitled to our respect, as well as to our love, propose, which should be held of more account than that severest ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... are merely oppressed; nay, rather they are persecuted. There are no people in London who are not appealed to by the rich; the appeals of the rich shriek from every hoarding and shout from every hustings. For it should always be remembered that the queer, abrupt ugliness of our streets and costumes are not the creation of democracy, but of aristocracy. The House of Lords objected to the Embankment being disfigured by trams. But most of the rich men who disfigure the street-walls with ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... to the highest order of minds, and what a change! Instead of thoughts of concrete things patiently following one another in a beaten track of habitual suggestion, we have the most abrupt cross-cuts and transitions from one idea to another, the most rarefied abstractions and discriminations, the most unheard-of combinations of elements, the subtlest associations of analogy; in a word, we seem suddenly introduced into a seething caldron ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... gracefully-curving fronds cut clear as cameos against the azure sky. Nor is it a dead level plain, as pampas and prairies are erroneously supposed always to be. Instead, its surface is varied with undulations; not abrupt as the ordinary hill and dale scenery, but gently swelling like the ocean's waves when these have become crestless after ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... nothing but a series of abrupt cliffs and headlands, six to eight hundred feet high—as well as could be judged from the distance they were off—at the base of which the waves thundered, sending up columns of spray, without any bay or opening ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... The abrupt departure was necessary indeed; for the two infants, engaged in a noisy quarrel, were fighting with their spoons, and flinging the ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... system, take that commonest of all ills that afflict humanity—headache. Surely, this is not a curative symptom or a blessing in disguise, or, if so, it is exceedingly well disguised. And yet it unquestionably has a preventive purpose and meaning. Pain, wherever found, is nature's abrupt command, "Halt!" her imperative order to stop. When you have obeyed that command, you have taken the most important single step towards the cure. A headache always means something—overwork, under-ventilation, eye-strain, underfeeding, ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... picked his way carefully among these, setting his feet down daintily in the interstices of the rocks. He climbed a long slope that proved itself to be a considerable hill when one looked back at the desert below. The farther side was more abrupt, and he took it in patient zigzags where the footing promised some measure of security. At the bottom he turned short off to the right and made his way briskly along a rough wagon ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... like the other fishermen and never worked on the land. Humming away and talking to himself he fiddled about in his shed, around his boat-house or his croft, his hands all grubby with tar and grease. If addressed, he was abrupt and curt in his answers, sometimes even abusive. Hardly anyone dared ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... the angry blood darkened his cheeks. Boston wriggled uneasily on his seat, and cleared his throat as though about to speak. But, at the instant, Lynch's booming voice came into the foc'sle, calling the watch on deck, and putting an abrupt end to ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... emotion. "You are doubtless already apprised that the King has withdrawn from the capital in anger, but you have yet to learn that he has left me no whit more satisfied than himself. I was unprepared for so abrupt a departure; and as I had still much to say to him on the subject of our disagreement, I find myself compelled to the exercise of my clerkly skill, and am now occupied in telling him in writing all that I had left unsaid. There is the letter," ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... rest, she was merely clever and fearless, and her moral inheritance was not all that might be desired; for her father had left her mother in a fit of pardonable jealousy, after nearly killing her and quite killing his rival, and her mother had not redeemed her character after his abrupt departure. On the contrary, if an accident had not carried her off suddenly, Regina's virtuous parent would probably have sold the girl into slavery. Poor people are not all honest, any more than other kinds of people are. ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... the habit of asking people to repeat their remarks. Argument should be avoided and contradicting is always discourteous. When it seems that a heated disagreement is about to ensue it is wise tactfully to direct the conversation into other channels as soon as it can be done without too abrupt a turn, for to jerk the talk from one topic to another for the obvious purpose of "switching someone off the track" ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... his steps through the winding arches, thinking with some satisfaction as he went, what a romantic incident he would have to relate to Lorimer and his other friends, when a sudden glare of light illumined the passage, and he was brought to an abrupt standstill by the sound of a wild "Halloo!" The light vanished; it reappeared. It vanished again, and again appeared, flinging a strong flare upon the shell-worked walls as it approached. Again the fierce ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... steeper, the fir-woods below were like a green sea, and white clouds above sailed along over the blue sky. The wildness of the region was, as it were, tamed by its uniformity and the simplicity of its elements. Nature, like a true poet, abhors abrupt transitions. Clouds, however fantastically formed they may at times appear, still have a white, or at least a subdued hue, harmoniously corresponding with the blue heaven and the green earth; so that all the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... angry with me, and I concluded that I had been too abrupt, in my eagerness for another man, and that my ideas on the subject were becoming warped. I decided that I must be more diplomatic in the future, in my dealings with the Captain of ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... once a mountainous and a maritime country. Abrupt mountain-walls fence it off into a great number of isolated districts, each of which in ancient times became the seat of a distinct community, or state. Hence the fragmentary character of its political history. The Hellenic ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... this opinion by contrasting creation and development as irreconcilable ideas. But this contrast does not actually exist, for as soon as we look upon creation as a divine effect, not merely belonging to the past, or appearing in single abrupt movements, but connected and universally present in time, we can seek and find it nowhere else but in the natural history of development itself.... Theologians themselves, according to the Mosaic documents, acknowledge a history of creation; natural history, ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... day, and almost instantly Drum's gruff voice could be heard in rebuke; almost as quickly the practised riders could be seen closing the outer leg and rein. Another moment and the little line was trotting almost boot to boot. Then as they neared the point where the slope became abrupt, Graham's right hand, palm forward, went straight aloft, a gesture instantly repeated by the sergeant, and in two seconds more the horses, panting a little with excitement, were pawing the turf, and Drum's voice, low and ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... be an abrupt, ill-mannered, dapper business man; purse-proud, I should call him, as there was every reason he should be, for he had earned his own fortune. He was doubtless equally proud of his new title, which he was trying to live up to, assuming now and then a haughty, domineering ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... line, I expect, on this little debate of ours. Yep! Gerald is No. 8 on Pyramid Gordon's list. He'd been a private secretary for Mr. Gordon at one time or another; but he'd been handed his passports kind of abrupt one mornin', and had been set adrift in ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... intolerable. The first comer makes no attempt to insist upon his position of advantage, because he knows that to-morrow he may be the last comer. The sense of individual inconvenience is swamped in the sense of general convenience. People laugh and rather enjoy the joke when a too sudden start or an abrupt curve sends a whole group of them cannoning up against one another. It must be remembered that the transit is rapid, so that there is no irritating sense of wasted time: and that the cars are brilliantly lighted, and, on the whole, well ventilated, so that there is no fog, ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... a pathetic tone, which in spite of his sternness, he could not suppress. "Poor, poor, forlorn girl—it was thus she begged and supplicated, but he denied her." He suddenly recollected himself, and with an abrupt motion he raised the ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... amazingly. But the Red Indian, caught blatant in the hunting stage, refused to be tamed, and could not swallow civilisation. He pined and dwined and decreased in his "reservations." The change was too great, too abrupt, too brusque for him. The papoose before long ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... low end of the Great Isabel the eye plunges through an opening two miles away, as abrupt as if chopped with an axe out of the regular sweep of the coast, right into the harbour of Sulaco. It is an oblong, lake-like piece of water. On one side the short wooded spurs and valleys of the Cordillera come down at right angles to the very strand; ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... should not be replaced by some machine even more suitable for the proper turning and stirring of the soil. The moldboard plow is, everything considered, the most satisfactory plow for dry-farm purposes. A plow with a moldboard possessing a short abrupt curvature is generally held to be the most valuable for dry-farm purposes, since it pulverizes the soil most thoroughly, and in dry-farming it is not so important to turn the soil over as to crumble and loosen it thoroughly. Naturally, since the areas of dry-farms are very large, ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe
... the mills had been quarried from the solid rock, which rose abrupt and bare on one side of the cinder-covered road, while the river, sluggish and black, crept past on the other. The mills for rolling iron are simply immense tent-like roofs, covering acres of ground, ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... continued to fall, and we felt the sloop begin to list. We played on until the chess men began to fall over. The list increased, and we went on deck. Bow-line and stern-line were drawn taut. As we looked the boat listed still farther with an abrupt jerk. The lines were now ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... abrupt confession was received only made me the more self-reproachful. The worst of beginning to tell the truth is that it is so hard to stop. I could not inform him that I had fallen in love with a tone in his daughter's voice, with a ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... taken aback by this abrupt question; but reflected and slapped his thigh: "Why, that is ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... represents the submersion 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 down into ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... ABRUPT. A word applied to steep, broken, or craggy cliffs and headlands, especially such as are ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... of Mrs. Buscot's alarm, it will be necessary to return to the receiving-room, and ascertain what occurred after Nizza's flight. Charles, who at first had been greatly annoyed by Parravicin's abrupt entrance, speedily recovered his temper, and laughed ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the subject of their conversation, and different as were the ingenuous young man and his somewhat cynical and worldly companion, they found that they were cordially agreed as to the desirability of Bubbles abandoning the practices which had led to Mr. Burnaby's abrupt departure that morning. ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... left some serious imputation upon her constitution. At last, seeing that the debate had assumed the character of a cyclone or circular storm, going round and round and round and round till one could never say where it began nor where it ended, I made some apology for an abrupt departure and retired to ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... assertions relating to herself for the second time, Lady Lydiard's meditations came to an abrupt end. She rose, took the letters in both hands to tear them up, hesitated, and threw them back in the cabinet drawer in which she had discovered them, among other papers that had not been arranged ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... for a year and a half for printing the Duke of Richmond's Letter on Reform, when he first walked out into the narrow path of the adjoining field, was seized with an apprehension that he should fall over it, as if he had trod on the brink of an abrupt declivity. The author of the loyal Speech at the Liverpool Dinner has been so long kept in the solitary confinement of his prejudices, and the dark cells of his interest and vanity, that he is afraid of being dashed to pieces ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... and desperation; but from his behaviour during his journey home after the war, from his later conversations with Lady Macbeth, and from his language to the murderers of Banquo and to others, we imagine him as a great warrior, somewhat masterful, rough, and abrupt, a man to inspire some fear and much admiration. He was thought 'honest,' or honourable; he was trusted, apparently, by everyone; Macduff, a man of the highest integrity, 'loved him well.' And there was, in fact, much good in him. We have no warrant, I think, for describing him, with many writers, ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... said, in his abrupt fashion, holding them out to her, and slightly bowing, with that nothing-doubting assurance of his, while his blue eyes (to put her entirely at her ease) smiled, frank and friendly and serene, into her ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... was held on the Theresien Wiese, a vast meadow on the outskirts of the city. The ground rises on one side of this by an abrupt step, some thirty or forty feet high, like the "bench" of a Western river. This bank is terraced for seats the whole length, or as far down as the statue of Bavaria; so that there are turf seats, I should judge, for three quarters of a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... count before the war, if he can accomplish it: and if he cannot, then he would send messengers of peace, and cede in all things he may without sin. If it be but more honour and wealth to our king,(397) should we destroy the kingdom to purchase that? Our rash and abrupt proceedings show our folly. Ver. 20. "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." A man will be, must be, assimilated to his company, and then partake ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... enriching himself with the labors of his 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
... distance of two and a half miles across the valley is an abrupt rocky mountain range of most irregular and picturesque formation, covered with scanty brushwood here and there, or rising into barren pinnacles and plateaux of rock. In outline and appearance this portion of the ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... 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 ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... his daughter from walking in the sun, lest she should prove "a breeder of sinners;" for though conception (understanding) in general be a blessing, yet as Ophelia might chance to conceive (to be pregnant), it might be a calamity. Hamlet's abrupt question, "Have you a daughter?" is evidently intended to impress Polonius with the belief of the ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... I have the most perfect confidence in you, from all I have heard of you, I trust you will not think me abrupt in saying that any ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... bulged inward, as though a snake would bring it down; the coarse china shepherdesses on the mantel-shelf, and the flowers which Catherine had put there the day before. He asked a few questions, said an abrupt word or two to the mother, and they tramped downstairs again and into the street. Then Robert took him across to the little improvised hospital, saying to him on the threshold, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... began to sing at his work. He had a fluty old tenor voice, and he put in turns and quavers that no ear not of the mountains could possibly follow and fix. First it was a hymn, all abrupt, odd, minor cadences and monotonous refrain. Then he shifted to a ballad—and the mountains are full of old ballads of Scotland and England, come down from the time of the first settlers, and with local names ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... Size medium, 1-3/8 x 7/8 inches; oblong; color grayish-brown marked well down the sides from the apex with purplish-black splashes; base flattened, rounded; apex abrupt, blunt; shell slightly ridged, of medium thickness, 1.3 mm.; partitions rather thick, corky; cracking quality medium; kernel full, plump, brownish-yellow, narrow and moderately deep, sutures narrow, of moderate depth, secondary ones well defined; texture fairly solid; flavor sweet, ...
— The Pecan and its Culture • H. Harold Hume
... had been too long away from the children, especially from Roddy. Suddenly, her haste was arrested by an unexpected sight. A tiny spot of colour lay right in her pathway on the ground. It was only a yellow rose-leaf, but it brought a catch in Christine's breath and her feet to an abrupt halt. How had it come there? If it had fallen from one of Roddy's roses, it meant that he had been out of doors since she left! That set her hurrying on again, but, as she walked, she reflected that of the ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... those abrupt and perilous rocks, The Man had fallen, that place of fear! At length upon the Shepherd's mind It breaks, and all is clear: He instantly recall'd the Name, And who he was, and whence he came; Remember'd, too, the very day On which the Traveller ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... she felt that she wanted to explain how she had spent her time, and she told him in abrupt, haughty words, that having to buy some furniture in a shop a long distance off, very far off, in the Rue de Rennes, she had met Limousin at past seven o'clock on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, and that then she had gone ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... but not separated from them by so great a distance as that which intervenes between them and the main-land, there stretches beneath the water another Reef, abrupt, like the first, on its seaward side, but sloping gently toward the inner Reef, and divided from it by a channel. This outer Reef and channel are, however, in a much less advanced state than the preceding ones; only here and there a sand-flat large enough to afford ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... see, was moored parallel with the abrupt brick shore of a very narrow canal, with somber, uninviting houses close on either hand. It was as if a ship were tied up along the curb of a street. Up and down the gang planks and back and forth upon the deck hurried men in blouses ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... from the supper-table, he well-nigh fell backward when Fagon, coming forward, cried in great trouble that all was lost. It may be imagined what terror seized all the company at this abrupt passage from perfect security to hopeless despair. The King, scarcely master of himself, at once began to go towards the apartment of Monseigneur, and repelled very stiffly the indiscreet eagerness of some courtiers who wished to prevent him, saying that he would see his son again, and be ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... and the public and departmental confidence he enjoyed acting favourably upon an amiable nature, disposed him to feel friendly towards the successive Assistant Commissioners he had seen pass through that very room. There had been three in his time. The first one, a soldierly, abrupt, red-faced person, with white eyebrows and an explosive temper, could be managed with a silken thread. He left on reaching the age limit. The second, a perfect gentleman, knowing his own and everybody else's place to a nicety, on resigning to take up a higher appointment out of England got decorated ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... England find the problem of their future one not too easy to solve. Mr. Carlyle, among others, has grappled with it. His brow has long been beaded with the sweat of this great wrestling; and if he seem to some of us a little abrupt and peculiar in his movements, we must at least do him the justice to remember that he, after the manner of ancient Jacob, is struggling with the angel of England's destiny. Mr. Mill, too, with an earnestness less passionate indeed, but perhaps ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... present abode, he knew not that all his former hopes of becoming the Sachem's son-in law, and succeeding to his dignity, were already blasted by the marriage of Oriana to Henrich, and the association of the latter in the cares and the honors of the chieftainship. For some years after his abrupt departure from the Nausetts—and while he was striving for distinction, as well as for revenge, among the Narragansetts—he had contrived, from time to time, to obtain information of the proceedings of those whom he had thought it politic to leave for a time; and, as he ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... followed out for nearly two years, develops to the full the subtler side of character. Naturally not abrupt, except when nervously excited, Jolyon had become control incarnate. The sad patience of old people who cannot exert themselves was masked by a smile which his lips preserved even in private. He devised continually all ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... An abrupt ascent, long and steep, formed a pleasant change to the monotony of the rugged plain. Up this 'berg' our ponies wound their way zigzag between the rough boulders of rock which strewed the path. At the top we met several men with their train of ponies, waiting ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... interposed smoothly, "I rather think we'd better give the warden a ... a more detailed picture, shall we say? We have been rather abrupt, ...
— Criminal Negligence • Jesse Francis McComas
... at the speaker, shook his head in negation, looked up at the top of the tent, and after a long pause said, in abrupt sentences, with frequent interruptions: ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... character, from a flat beach to a range of, perhaps, the wildest and most picturesque cliffs on the east coast of Scotland. Inland the country is rather flat, but elevated several hundred feet above the level of the sea, towards which it slopes gently until it reaches the shore, where it terminates in abrupt, perpendicular precipices, varying from a hundred to two hundred feet in height. In many places the cliffs overhang the water, and all along the coast they have been perforated and torn up by the waves, so as to present singularly bold and picturesque ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... their decision. They kept on saying: "To-morrow, to-morrow..." And they turned their eyes away from their to-morrow, Christophe's mighty soul had Wild spasms Of revolt: he would not consent to his defeat: he despised suicide, and he could not resign himself to such a pitiful and abrupt conclusion of his splendid life. As for Anna, how could she, unless she were forced, accept the idea of a death which must lead to eternal death? But ruthless necessity was at their heels, and the circle was ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... been there. Lost in painful reflections, Trirodov did not hear the noise of the departing carriage; the unexpected call of the dark-faced, fascinating visitor, with his flaming speech and his fiery eyes, stirred his memory like a midday dream, like an abrupt hallucination. ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... the time being, acknowledging almost complete defeat. There was only a single consoling thought. At least, he had talked with her intimately concerning his affairs. With an abrupt change of manner, she stood up listlessly, and spoke in such a fashion as might become an old-fashioned wife, although her voice ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... death. To have gold and silver was to risk the same penalty. The heavy iron money only could be held, and this was without value in foreign parts. The soldier was part of an animated machine. His simple duty was to obey. Speech was repressed. It became abrupt, brief, pithy. Relief was found at the Lesche, near the training-ground, where talk was often free and even merry. The whole aim of the discipline was to form the soldier. Marriage was delayed for the sake of vigorous offspring. The girls were trained for motherhood. They ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... And he would grow abrupt and stern. But days would pass and in spite of himself into their talks would creep a natural friendly tone. Again he found himself friends with her—friends as though nothing whatever had happened! Could it be ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... of Harlequin had occasioned, he was seized with such a dread of the resentment of Mr Harrel, that, forgetting blows, bruises, and wounds, not one of which were so frightful to him as reproof, he made the last exhibition of his agility by an abrupt and hasty retreat. ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... short work of it, General," he said, in his bluff, abrupt fashion. "It will come rattling about their heads, and they must take to the walls behind, and these will soon give way before a steady cannonade. Or if we take the cannon up to yonder heights of Rattlesnake Hill, we can ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... rebound, once more in Paris—often as Pemberton had seen them depressed he had never seen them crushed—and communication was therefore rapid. He wrote to the boy to ascertain the state of his health, but awaited the answer in vain. He accordingly, after three days, took an abrupt leave of the opulent youth and, crossing the Channel, alighted at the small hotel, in the quarter of the Champs Elysees, of which Mrs. Moreen had given him the address. A deep if dumb dissatisfaction with this lady and her companions bore him company: ...
— The Pupil • Henry James
... noise of feet began to die away, and the uneven groping tread of the twelve Americans to sound more distinctly for the lessening of the surrounding turmoil. And in another few seconds Bruce came to a halt—not to an abrupt stop, as when he had allowed an enemy squad to pass in front of him, but a leisurely checking of speed, to denote that he could go no farther with the load he ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... 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 his colleagues had ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... away to theyre owne dinner and came backe to wait on the King and Prince: but the greatest error was that the goodman of the house was neither invited nor spoken of but dined that day at the Temple." Camden's account of this dinner (Ed. 1719, Vol. II., p. 648), although very abrupt, is to the point: "The wife of Sir Ed. Coke quondam Lord Chief Justice, entertained the King, Buckingham, and the rest of the Peers, at a splendid dinner, and ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... had altogether done, and had turned his stool round to the kitchen fire, "where do you think Nina would go if she were to marry—a Jew?" There was an abrupt solemnity in the manner of the question which at first baffled the man, whose breath was heavy with the comfortable repletion which had been bestowed ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... is really going to marry Mrs. Montague," was the somewhat abrupt communication which he made with pale lips ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... a frightful mess of it. B—— led me away to the door." This woful account was, of course, an imaginary and symbolical representation of the terrors which enforced conversation caused him; the good officer's surprise at the abrupt introduction of a new subject had supplied him with the ludicrous suggestion. Mr. Curtis has given an account of ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... to be surveying that part which looked over towards the weed, and I made across to join him. Here, again, I saw that the hill fell away very sheer, and after that we went across to the seaward edge, and there it was near as abrupt as on ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... and, in short, abrupt sentences, seemed to give directions; whereupon some whitened, entire gourds, with long handles, and apparently filled with pebbles, were produced; and men took their stations with them on mats, while those who had been seated all ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... K'yahtah (Carter) and speak of playing k'yahds or of riding in the k'yahs. And they have the pleasant custom—long ago fallen into decay in the North—of frequently employing the respectful 'Sir.' Instead of the curt Yes, and the abrupt No, they say 'Yes, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... elegancies broke upon me, so deceptively did their delicacy of outlines mingle with the dark blue softness beyond. In places the coast ran up to a height of two or three hundred feet, in others it sloped down to twenty feet. For some miles it was like the face of a cliff, a sheer abrupt, with scarce a scar upon its front, staring with a wild bald look over the frosty beautiful blue of that afternoon sea. Here and there it projected a forefoot, some white and massive rock, upon which the swell of the ocean burst in thunder, and flew to almost the height of the cliff in a very great ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... jumpers, digging in like gophers on the best of Bunker Hill's claims, was brought to an abrupt termination by the appearance of one man with a gun. He came on unconcernedly, Dave's six-shooter at his hip and the strength of a lion in his stride; and the first of the gun-men, after looking him over, ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... day?" at this point the merry voice of Clem interrupted, as he came hastily in, still bearing the burden Cyn had piled upon him. Then becoming aware of Miss Kling's presence, he added to her, "I beg pardon for my abrupt entrance, but the outer door being open, I made bold to enter;" then explanatory to Cyn, "Your door was locked, as also was mine, of which Quimby has the key; and as Celeste has not yet been able to part with him, ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... he paused in front of the statue of the younger Brutus, which stood close to the statue of Julius Caesar. He gazed long and earnestly at both of the grave, solemn faces; but, suddenly, as though just awaking from a deep dream, he sharply raised his head, and, laying his hand with an abrupt movement upon Josephine's shoulder, as he looked up at the statue of Brutus with blazing, almost menacing glances, said in a voice that made the hearts of both the ladies bound ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... two, and recovered from his shock. He saw the sights, conversed with affability with all and sundry, drank agraz in the Cafe de la Luna. He must have beamed without knowing it upon Don Luis, for his brisk appearance, twisted smile and abrupt manner were familiar to that watchful gentleman by the time that, sweeping aside the curtain like a buffet of wind, he entered the goldsmith's shop in the Plaza San Benito. He came in a little before twilight one afternoon, holding by a string in one hand some swinging object, taking ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... desolate. Hanging rocks and hoar precipices overlooked the tideless ocean; black caverns yawned; and for ever, among the sea-worn recesses, murmured and dashed the unfruitful waters. Now my way was almost barred by an abrupt promontory, now rendered nearly impracticable by fragments fallen from the cliff. Evening was at hand, when, seaward, arose, as if on the waving of a wizard's wand, a murky web of clouds, blotting the late azure sky, and darkening and disturbing ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... but little of the graces of diplomacy, had much more than its usual decision. It was abrupt and unhesitating. My demand had evidently taken his "lordship" by surprise. He started from the magisterial chair, in which he was yet to awe so many successions of rustic functionaries, and with a flushed cheek asked "Whether ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... assuming the unexpected necessity for McKeith's abrupt departure—also that he had already bidden ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... of loving companionship, her only regret was that she could not die before him. John had been a loyal friend, a faithful companion, both in fair weather and foul, and now their life's journey together had come to an abrupt end. It was too dreadful to think of. It seemed to her that all these happenings of the last few days—this sudden sickness, the coming of the trained nurse, Dr. Everett's grave demeanor—was a hideous dream from which ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... an abrupt chilling and lowering of Landis' voice. "The colonel knows him? He's one of ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... across the other two, the two loose contacts thus formed being arranged in series with a battery, the line, and the receiving instrument. Such a device when slightly jarred, by the voice or other means, causes abrupt variation in the resistance of the line, and ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... plan and neither would attempt to violate it now. But this moment, with Jane's affectionate manner as a lure, was indeed a strong temptation! What might have happened did not happen, however, for a team of girls burst in at that very minute and put an abrupt end ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... finding these abrupt and repeated interruptions hindered any real talk, they pointed out to her that reasoned conversation was impossible if one of the parties persisted in not being in the room, and inquired of her whether it were peculiar to her, or typical of the inhabitants of ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... he heard his brother suggest to him, that a Dictionary of the English Language would be a work that would be well received by the publick[529]; that Johnson seemed at first to catch at the proposition, but, after a pause, said, in his abrupt decisive manner, 'I believe I shall not undertake it.' That he, however, had bestowed much thought upon the subject, before he published his Plan, is evident from the enlarged, clear, and accurate views which it exhibits; ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... contact with the free virility of the ancient world, and emancipated from the thraldom of improved traditions. The force to judge and the desire to create were generated. The immediate result in the sixteenth century was an abrupt secession of the learned, not merely from monasticism, but also from the true spirit of Christianity. The minds of the Italians assimilated paganism. In their hatred of mediaeval ignorance, in their loathing of cowled ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... on his head with a certain abrupt fierceness, and strode angrily away, before she could answer or even grasp the full significance of ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini |
