"Abrupt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the mellow exuberance of autumn. In the distance, running down the centre of the island, rise the Blue Mountains, their tops dimly seen through the fleecy clouds, the greater portion of the range being covered with impenetrable forests, their sides often broken into inaccessible cliffs and abrupt precipices. These forests and cliffs have afforded for several centuries an asylum and fortress to fugitive blacks, who have there set pursuit at defiance, the game and wild fruits the woods supply enabling them to find subsistence without the necessity ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... Mountain, whence the view is said to be magnificent, and proceeding northward, we first reach the Plattekill Clove, up whose steep and wooded cleft winds a wild road, chiefly used for quarrying purposes, and down whose abrupt declivity the Plattekill leaps from crag to crag in a series of fine falls and cascades. The quantity of water during the summer months, except after considerable rain, is small, but the rock formations are very interesting, reminding the traveller of wild passes ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... His abrupt, incredible recovery had been the first open manifestation of the way it worked. Not that she had tried it on him first. Before she dared do that once she had proved it on herself twenty times. She had proved ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... poles standing when we reached the spot. The men, by digging where the fireplace had been, ascertained that the Indians had quitted it the day before and, as their marches are short when encumbered with the women and baggage, we sought out their track and followed it. At an abrupt angle of it which was obscured by trees the men suddenly disappeared and, hastening forward to discover the cause, I perceived them both still rolling at the foot of a steep cliff over which they had been dragged while endeavouring ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... path whilst the ark of the covenant stood some time on the sands in the midst of Jordan; so also the martyr, with a thousand others, opened a path across the noble river Thames, whose waters stood abrupt like precipices on either side; and seeing this, the first of his executors was stricken with awe, and from a wolf became a lamb; so that he thirsted for martyrdom, and boldly underwent that for which he thirsted. The other holy martyrs were tormented ...
— On The Ruin of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae) • Gildas
... says I. 'He seems impatient at times, and when you think of his late professional pursuits one would look for abrupt actions if ...
— Options • O. Henry
... from the crown was futile, but Henry felt compunction for his abrupt recall of the monopoly. The result was that De Monts, in recognition of his losses, {61} was given a further monopoly—for the season of 1608 only. At the same time, he was expressly relieved from the obligation to take out colonists. ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... pair set out to finish their exploration of the object of their latest "strafing" feat when a battle had been brought to an abrupt close with all hands in full flight simply by a dextrous movement of Perk's arm and the tossing of a couple of innocent looking tear-bombs into the midst of ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... Excuse my Taking the Liberty in Writing to you. But as a poor Creminall Confined, hopes that you and the Gentleman in the Cabin will Pardon the abrupt Treattment, I have Used Latly, but all Owing To a Moros Way in answering when Called: Which I Acnowledge is Not showing agood Decoram: Sr, as for the Afair I Was Accused with last night it was Done intirely Thro ignorance, that is that I thought I might Speak freely without Shewing any Sedition: ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... at last, after a fortnight, of course it did not break. That would have been a violence of which English weather would not have been capable. There was no abrupt drop of the mercury, as if a trap were sprung under it, after the fashion with us. It softly gave way in a gradual, delicious coolness, which again mellowed at the edges, as it were, and dissolved in a gentle, tentative rain. But how far the rain ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... [Footnote 50: The abrupt entrance of the great moo, as of its disappearance later in the story, is evidently due to the humanized and patched-together form in which we get the old romance. The moo is the animal form which the god takes who serves Aiwohikupua's ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... Merillia again exchanged a glance which was not unobserved by Lady Enid. Then Sir Tiglath, with an abrupt and portentous gravity, exclaimed in ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... supposed inhabitants. He at the same time preserves the utmost propriety of action and passion, and gives all their local accompaniments. If he was equal to the greatest things, he was not above an attention to the smallest. Thus the gallant sportsmen in CYMBELINE have to encounter the abrupt declivities of hill and valley: Touchstone and Audrey jog along a level path. The deer in CYMBELINE are only regarded as objects of prey, "The game's a-foot," etc.—with Jaques they are fine subjects to moralise upon at leisure, "under the shade of ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... stepped aside, with a half bow, to facilitate the exit of the Marquis, who bent gracious acknowledgment of the courtesy. Then, with an abrupt start of surprise, the two men straightened themselves. Directly in front of them, leaning lightly against the brass-rail which guarded the entrance to the Board Room, stood ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... if the abrupt departure of her lover was in some sense a relief to Etta Sydney Bamborough. For, while he, lover-like, was grave and earnest during the small remainder of the evening, she continued to be sprightly and gay. The ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... witch, displeased at her son's choice, maliciously arrests by witchcraft the birth of Willie's son. Willie's travailing wife sends him again and again to bribe the witch, who refuses cup, steed, and girdle. Here our version makes such abrupt transitions, that it will be well to explain what takes place. The Belly Blind or Billie Blin (see Young Bekie, First Series, pp. 6, 7) advises Willie to make a sham baby of wax, and invite his witch-mother to ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... up at her flushed face beside him. Instead of a law-book, he flung down a time table in which he had been investigating the trains to a quail shooting club in the southern part of the state: The transition to Mr. Hodder was, therefore, somewhat abrupt. "Why, Nell, to look at you, I thought it could be nothing else than my somewhat belated appointment to the United States Supreme Court. How has Hodder changed? I always thought ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... longed and yet dreaded to communicate. But Nick made no farther effort to bridge the gulf of his own preoccupations; and Mr. Buttles, after an expectant pause, went on: "If you see me here to-day it is only because, after a somewhat abrupt departure, I find myself unable to take leave of our friends without a last look at the Ibis—the scene of so many stimulating hours. But I must beg you," he added earnestly, "should you see Miss Hicks—or any other member of the party—to make no ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... also once more brought the story of David's adventures to an abrupt end. "And it really is the end this time, David," I said severely. (I ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... movement of the native with the spear as he slipped into the wood, the sudden advance of Jared Long, whose face became like a thunder-cloud, when every hope of a friendly termination vanished, and the abrupt halt of the bowman, showed that all parties had thrown off the cloak of good will ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... this legendary period, that unless we break from it at once, we shall have no space left to give any idea whatever of the manner in which Mr Grote treats the more historical periods of his history. We must be allowed, therefore, to make a bold and abrupt transition; and, as every one in a history of Greece turns his eye first toward Athens, we shall, at one single bound, light upon the city of Minerva as she appeared in the age of Solon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... half right in his estimate of Miss Keene's feelings, although the result was the same. The first shock to her delicacy in his abrupt speech had been succeeded by a renewal of her uneasiness concerning his past life or history. While she would, in her unselfish attachment for him, have undoubtingly accepted any explanation he might have chosen to give her, his continued reserve and avoidance of her left full scope ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... of Herrera's abrupt departure was to prepare for the execution of a plan so wild and impracticable, that, in his cooler moments, it would never have suggested itself to him, although, in his present state of excitement, he fancied it perfectly feasible. He had ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... square bastion forming a terrace, whose mossy walls were bathed by the waters of a large stagnant marsh. The west front which was plainer, was separated by only a few feet of level ground from the abrupt, wooded hill by which Tournebut was sheltered. A wall with several doors opening on the woods enclosed the chateau, the farm and the lower part of the park, and a wide morass, stretching from the foot of the terrace ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... the daytime there were long rows of windows in the roof, which let in a vague, dusky, inadequate twilight. At night those windows were shuttered. This meant that the shadows were a little sharper and the contrasts of light and shade a trifle more abrupt. All other changes that Joe could see were the normal ones due to the taking down of scaffolding and the fastening up of rocket tubes. It was clear that the shape of the Platform proper would be obscure when all its rocket ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... your children as you should be, at all times? Husband, are you as kind and gentle toward your wife as you should be? Do you believe you fill the Bible measure in this particular? Are you as gentle to your domestic animals as you should be? or do you have impatient feelings and act in a hasty, abrupt manner towards them? If you meet with something quite provoking from your wife or the children or the animals, do you keep as mild and sweet as you know you should? Now, I hope you will examine closely. ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... a little, shyly, as if asking help were quite another matter, especially about unknown things. But pondering this one a minuteit looked so harmless,out it came, in Hazel's usual abrupt fashion. ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... from the center toward the sides. 3. Keep the stack evenly trodden, or it will settle unevenly, and the stack will lean to one side accordingly. 4. Increase the diameter from the ground upward until ready to draw in or narrow to form the top. 5. Aim to form the top by gradual rather than abrupt narrowing. 6. Top out by using some other kind of hay or grass that sheds the rain better than clover. 7. Suspend weights to some kind of ropes, stretching over the top of the stack to prevent the wind from removing the material put on to protect ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... orders and that afternoon Albert and he had the "business talk." Conversation at dinner was somewhat strained. Mr. Fosdick was quietly observant and seemed rather amused about something. His wife was dignified and her manner toward her guest was inclined to be abrupt. Albert's appetite was poor. As for Madeline, she did not come down to ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... proof of the 'Graphic Arts,' and sent it off with a new finish, as the other seemed too abrupt. Spent a good deal of time over the finish, ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... Mauleon approached, the financier brought his speech to an abrupt close. He knew in the Vicomte de Mauleon the writer of articles which had endangered the Government, and aimed no pointless shafts against its ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... high, with his two sailing ships, the Erebus and the Terror, whose progress southward was impeded by this mighty obstacle. He examined the ice wall from a distance, however, as far as possible. His observations showed that the Barrier is not a continuous, abrupt ice wall, but is interrupted by bays and small channels. On Ross's map a bay of considerable magnitude ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... which his Excellency accosted me. It was so novel and unexpected from a man, whose discretion, humanity, and decorum I had from the first of our acquaintance stood in admiration of, that I was for some time unable to make any coherent answer to questions so abrupt, and in a great measure to me unintelligible. The terms, I think, were these: 'I desire to know, sir, what is the reason, whence arises this disorder and confusion?' The manner in which he expressed them was much stronger and more severe than the expressions themselves. When I recovered ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... insensible officer across the quarter-deck, but as they reached the side abreast the wreckage of the superstructure they came to an abrupt halt. ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... Mr. Ray's abrupt announcement was a surprise to the dense throng of listeners is putting it mildly. To say that it was received with incredulity on part of the soldiery, and concern, if not keen apprehension, by old friends of Sandy's father who were present, ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... start up of a sudden; and, in the hurry of his elevation, overturned his plate into the bosom of the baron. The emergency of this occasion would not permit him to stay and make apologies for his abrupt behaviour; so that he flew into another apartment, where Pickle found him puking and crossing himself with great devotion; and a chair, at his desire, being brought to the door, he slipped into it more dead than ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... him up the lake in person: They were about to go on board, as I Left Flueelen; but still the gathering storm, That drove me here to land so suddenly, Perchance has hindered their abrupt departure. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... obliged him to go away in the middle of his instructions. I think he was feverish that night. Every now and then he spoke so rapidly that I could hardly follow him. Then there were pauses in which he seemed lost, and abrupt changes of subject, as if he could hardly control the order of his thoughts. And in all the evident strain and anxiety to say everything that he wished to say to me appeared that morbid fancy of its being "the ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Lord Malmesbury was now again in France, treating for peace with fair hopes of success, since the Preliminaries of Leoben had removed England's opposition to the cession of the Netherlands, the discomfiture of the moderate party in the Councils brought his mission to an abrupt end. Austria, on the other hand, had prolonged its negotiations because Bonaparte claimed Mantua and the Rhenish Provinces in addition to the cessions agreed upon at Leoben. Count Ludwig Cobenzl, Austrian ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... the fishing clauses of the treaty of Washington, in pursuance of the joint resolution of March 3, 1883, must have resulted in the abrupt cessation on the 1st of July of this year, in the midst of their ventures, of the operations of citizens of the United States engaged in fishing in British American waters but for a diplomatic understanding reached with Her Majesty's Government in June ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the silence of surprise occasioned by my abrupt entrance.—"My name, Mr. Inglewood, is Francis Osbaldistone; I understand that some scoundrel has brought a complaint before you, charging me with being concerned in a loss which ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... [227] The 'abrupt and laconic structure' of Glover's periods appears at the very commencement of Leonidas, which has something military in its movement, but rather the stiff gait of the drilled soldier than the proud ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... you had a poetical streak in you, sergeant," said Dick, who marked his abrupt change from the discussion of the war to a ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... interview which had kindled such fires within her had already come to an abrupt conclusion. For as Stane declined her suggestion Miskodeed ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... who, with a short abrupt reply to the good-natured greeting of Sir Reginald, had scrambled down from his saddle, and stood fixing his large gray eyes upon Gaston, whose tall active figure and lively dark countenance seemed to afford him an ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... heard from me, sir," answered Charles gravely, "that I have any difficulties at all. Excuse me if I am abrupt; I have had many persons calling on me with your errand. It is very kind of you, but I don't want advice; I was a fool ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... must be very ill-bred, very loutish, and very badly taught, my friend, to speak to me in that fashion, without first taking off your hat, without observing rationem loci, temporis et personae. What! you begin by an abrupt speech, instead of saying Salve, vel salvus sis, doctor doctorum eruditissime. What do ...
— The Jealousy of le Barbouille - (La Jalousie du Barbouille) • Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere
... gives a majority, which, though not compact, is decided at once against the extreme Tory and the extreme Radical party. With such a House of Commons the great interests of the Throne and the Constitution are safe. An abrupt dissolution would ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... dark eyes glanced indifferently at Miss Adams, but gazed with a smouldering fire at the younger woman. Then he gave an abrupt order, and the prisoners were hurried in a miserable, hopeless drove to the cluster of kneeling camels. Their pockets had already been ransacked, and the contents thrown into one of the camel-food bags, the neck of which was tied up by Ali ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... came closer, and stood tense and ready. The lancing plane cut through one end of their control room, and Stevens leaped with his companion toward the new-made opening; while the air shrieked outward into space and their suits bulged suddenly with the abrupt increase in pressure differential. While they were in midflight, the frightful blade of destruction cleaved its way through the control board and through the spot upon which they had been standing a moment before. As they passed the severed edge, en route into open spare, Stevens ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... served us admirably. The abrupt character of the slopes momentarily increased, but these remarkable stone steps, a little less difficult than those of the Egyptian pyramids, were the one simple natural means by which we were enabled ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... had been dead when her brother and sister-in-law arrived. A sudden attack of fainting had resulted in death. This abrupt termination of her illness was not quite unexpected by herself or her friends, as it was known she had disease of the heart, and the doctors had given warning that such might be her end. However, she herself had not liked to look this probability in the face, and had preferred ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... all this sameness rose a hill in that abrupt manner which strikes a peculiar character into this southern landscape, and upon the hill were jutting rocks and a broken mass of strangely-jumbled masonry-roofs rising out of roofs, gables crushing gables, feudal towers, great walls, and one tall heaven-pointing spire. ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... 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 ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... Kangourou, clad in a suit of gray tweed, which might have come from La Belle Jardiniere or the Pont Neuf, with a pot-hat and white thread gloves. His countenance is at once foolish and cunning; he has hardly any nose or eyes. He makes a real Japanese salutation: an abrupt dip, the hands placed flat on the knees, the body making a right angle to the legs, as if the fellow were breaking in two; a little snake-like hissing (produced by sucking the saliva between the teeth, which ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... been described by Renan: "The view from the town is limited; but if we ascend a little to the plateau swept by a perpetual breeze, which stands above the highest houses, the landscape is magnificent. On the west stretch the fine outlines of Carmel, terminating in an abrupt spur which seems to run down sheer to the sea. Next, one sees the double summit which towers above Megiddo; the mountains of the country of Shechem, with their holy places of the patriarchal period; the hills of Gilboa, ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... hints, often, I fear, too didactic and abrupt, upon the full use of one's time to the great end of living (as distinguished from vegetating) without briefly referring to certain dangers which lie in wait for the sincere aspirant towards life. The first is the terrible danger of becoming ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... smelt of trade, having shops in the lower stories; in the outskirts, where there are cottages in other cities, there were mills here; the trees, which some deluded dreamer had planted on the flat pavements, had all grown up into abrupt Lombardy poplars, knowing their best policy was to keep out of the way; the boys, playing marbles under them, played sharply "for keeps"; the bony old dray-horses, plodding through the dusty crowds, had speculative eyes, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... man bade them an abrupt good night, and left the room to retire to his own chamber. Cora felt sorry for him, despite all his harshness. She stepped ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... that people behind her smiled, as her abrupt pause upon the stairs arrested their own progress, and she was promptly urged forward again by her ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... There were numerous abrupt bends to the river just below the Florida town, and with that swift current it was difficult to navigate around these places successfully. By degrees, of course, Frank expected to become more familiar with both the engine ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... peculiarity of mind or character are reflected in the style. It may be gay, humorous, serious, sad, melancholy, according to the state of the writer's feelings. It may be colloquial or stately, concise or diffuse, plain or florid, flowing or abrupt, feeble or energetic, natural or affected, commonplace or epigrammatic,—as varied, in fact, as the character and mental constitution of the writers. But every writer has a prevailing style; and it is an interesting ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... minute Roberts stood there, the fire from the open grate lighting his face, his big capable hands loose at his sides. He made no motion to leave, nor for a space to speak; characteristically abrupt, he turned, facing ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... the mouth of the cave and looked the wall over carefully. Then, on one side and the other, she ran along the base of the wall to where its abrupt bulk merged from the softer-lined landscape. Returning to the cave, she entered its narrow mouth. For a short three feet she was compelled to crouch, then the walls widened and rose higher in a little round chamber ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... case is that in which the decline in prices is abrupt—at the beginning at all events—and is precipitated by much forced liquidation of a character disastrous to the enterprises forced to undertake it. In short, when it is brought about by an industrial ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... and inconsequence, and for the vain iterations which suggest that the author has forgotten what he said. In places there are dead allusions to persons and tales which are left dark, e. g. vol. i. pp. 43, 57, 61, etc. The digressions are abrupt and useless, leading nowhere, while sundry pages are wearisome for excess of prolixity or hardly intelligible for extreme conciseness. The perpetual recurrence of mean colloquialisms and of words and idioms peculiar to Egypt and Syria[FN306] also ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... instance, when making ministerial statements on matters connected with finance, or foreign policy, or important changes in the law—this short, abrupt, devil-may-care style is changed for one eminently adapted to the object. No one can then complain of a want of the proper information. All the historical facts, or figures, or principles, or general details, are then marshalled forward with ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... feelings and anxieties. He was startled at last into an exclamation of fright by receiving an unexpected slap on his shoulder, which came from Mr. Bennett, who, rising at that moment, gave this as a token of having arrived at a happy solution of the difficulty. In this respect he was as abrupt as Dr. Chellis ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the German lady had eaten pieces of game-pie with her knife, instead of using her fingers, as a lady should, before forks were invented. On the following morning the Lady Goda had been taken away again by her husband, and her experiences of court life had been brought to an abrupt close. If the great Earl Robert of Gloucester had deigned to bestow a word upon her, instead of looking through her with his beautiful calm blue eyes at an imaginary landscape beyond, her impressions of life at the Empress's court might ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... temperament. Both aimed at colossal achievements in their respective fields of action. The imagination of both was fired by large and simple rather than luxurious and subtle thoughts. Both were uomini terribili, to use a phrase denoting vigour of character and energy of genius, made formidable by an abrupt, uncompromising spirit. Both worked with what the Italians call fury, with the impetuosity of daemonic natures; and both left the impress of their individuality stamped indelibly upon their age. Julius, in all ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... friendship, and continues:—'Now, of whom shall I proceed to speak? Of whom but Mrs. Montagu? Having mentioned Shakespeare and Nature, does not the name of Montagu force itself upon me? Such were the transitions of the ancients, which now seem abrupt, because the intermediate idea is lost to modern understandings. I wish her name had connected itself with friendship; but, ah Colin, thy hopes are in vain.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 101. See post, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... had got into a hollow in the valley, and at this moment, as he sat in his summer-house, was looking from a verge abrupt into what seemed a bottomless gulf of humiliation. For his handsome London house, he had little better than a cottage, in which his study was not a quarter of the size of the one he had left; he had sold two-thirds of his books; for three men and four ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... exactly what to think of such an abrupt ending to the roadway, and sat down behind a large rock to meditate. As he sat there a voice within the cliff said, "Open the door," and a door in the cliff opened itself. A man richly dressed came out, followed by several others, whom he told that they were going to a town at a considerable ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... it is described as Extrait, it seems to contain, at all events, the greater part of the missing chapters to which I have already referred, Chapters IV. and V. of the last volume of the Memoirs. In this manuscript we find Armelline and Scolastica, whose story is interrupted by the abrupt ending of Chapter III.; we find Mariuccia of Vol. VII., Chapter IX., who married a hairdresser; and we find also Jaconine, whom Casanova recognises as his daughter, 'much prettier than Sophia, the daughter of Therese Pompeati, whom I had left at London.'[3] It is curious that this ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... an abrupt stop after that one word. He would not tell the dreadful news to this spirited young woman. It ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... BLUFF. An abrupt high land, projecting almost perpendicularly into the sea, and presenting a bold front, rather rounded than cliffy in outline, as ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... of Sir John Jamieson, situated several miles above Emu, commands an extensive view over that noble stream, the rich margins of which are hemmed in, on the west, by the abrupt precipices of the Blue mountains. The intermediate space beyond the ford is called Emu plains. At the inn near this ford I passed the night, being desirous to cross ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... illustrate the right way and the wrong way of introducing religious conversation. In his office there was sitting one day a sort of lay preacher, who was noted for lugging in his favorite topic in the most forbidding and abrupt manner. A sea captain came in, who was introduced ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... river, from the inch-deep streamlet that crosses the village lane in trembling clearness, to the massy and silent march of the everlasting multitude of waters in Amazon or Ganges, owe their play, and purity, and power, to the ordained elevations of the earth. Gentle or steep, extended or abrupt, some determined slope of the earth's surface is of course necessary, before any wave can so much as overtake one sedge in its pilgrimage; and how seldom do we enough consider, as we walk beside the margins of our pleasant brooks, how beautiful and wonderful is that ordinance, of which every ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... about for some less abrupt way of broaching the subject uppermost in his mind than he now found himself obliged to use. With a husky voice that trembled as ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... narrow trail which threaded its way over a yawning chasm. He moved slowly, shuffling one foot ahead and dragging the other after it. In this way he had gone perhaps one hundred feet when the path seemed to come to an abrupt end. His foot dangled over nothing. He almost lost his balance. When he recovered himself, he was so weak and dizzy that it was with difficulty he clung to the rock. In a moment he was able to think. He had been moving on a downward slope and it was probable that this was only ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... not even look at your card when it was brought to me," she said, with an abrupt change of the subject; "had I done so I would not have kept you waiting so long. Tell me something about yourself, Saberevski; and why it is that you have deemed it wise, or perhaps necessary to become an expatriate, and to deprive St. Petersburg and all who are ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... of this was a salon—this was where the Chinese panels were to find a haven—and already cream-and-gold furniture had been placed at artistic angles with blue velvet hangings for an abrupt contrast. There was a multitude of books bound in dove-coloured ooze; cut glass, crystal, silver candelabra sprinkled throughout. Men were working on fluted white satin window drapes, and Mary glanced toward the dining room to view the antique mahogany ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... She looks sideways at my face, already with the quiet controlled watchfulness of a woman interested in a man, she smiles and she talks of flowers and sunshine, the Canadian winter—and with an abrupt transition, of old times we've had together in the shrubbery and the wilderness of bracken out beyond. She seems tremendously grown-up and womanly to me. I am talking my best, and glad, and in a manner scared at the thrill her newly discovered beauty gives me, and keeping up my dignity ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... after a few words more of chat, did he press his hands on his eyes and shake a puzzled head; then, after an abrupt turn up and down the room, come back to where he stood at first and ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... a time there was an abrupt turn in the road, and she suddenly came upon smooth and even ground that was thick with pine needles. She recognized it as the road of her dream. There stood the selfsame towering pines, and on the moss were the selfsame yellow ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... understand from the rapt moments of her own production, how disordering a thing it is to bring foreign matter to one's mental solution in an abrupt fashion. She saw that the organisation of ideas for expression is a delicate process; that it never occurs twice the same, and that the genuine coherence is apt to be at its best in the first trial, for one ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... reciprocity. Should a child occasionally be killed, the payment of a small fine will satisfy the accommodating spirit of the authorities. The ill-favored mother was not, therefore, in any way bound to answer this somewhat abrupt question; but, observing the appearance of high gentility, and touched by the engaging manner of the interrogator, she answered, that her appetite had of late been uncertain, and that she was endeavoring to restore it by a little ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... certainly rather an abrupt and unconnected mode of commencing conversation. It might indeed be supposed to refer to the course of Gluck's thoughts, which had first produced the dwarf's observations out of the pot; but whatever it referred to, Gluck had no inclination to ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... fractured by forces which would be insufficient to break a healthy bone. In locomotor ataxia the fractures affect especially the bones of the lower extremity, and may occur before there are any definite nerve symptoms, but they are more often met with in the ataxic stage, when the abrupt and uncontrolled movements of the limbs may play a part in their causation. They may be unattended with pain, and may fail to unite; when repair does take place, it is sometimes attended with an excessive formation of callus. Joint ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... wound round a swell, to turn this way and that, always going up. I began to see similar mounds of rock all around me, of every shape that could be called a curve. There were yellow domes far above and small red domes far below. Ridges ran from one hill of rock to another. There were no abrupt breaks, but holes and pits and caves were everywhere, and occasionally deep down, an amphitheater green with cedar and pinon. We found no vestige of ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... simplicity, graphic and vigorous, and glowing with the thoughts and images of a luminous though unpolished mind, flowed from his lips majestic and resistless. Added to all was that awakening voice whose echoes had so long resounded through thy great North-west. Now it rang out, stern, abrupt, imperious, like the call of a trumpet to battle; now softened down to tones broken, tender, and pitying as those of a bereaved father sorrowing over his hapless children; then, as visions of the utter extinction of his race would break upon his prophetic soul, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... stockings fitted a leg which might have been envied by a porter, and his breadth of shoulder was extreme. He had a slouch, probably contracted by long poring over the desk; and his address was as abrupt as his appearance was unpolished. His forehead was large and bald, eye small and brilliant, and his cheeks had dropped down so as to increase the width of his lower jaw. Deep, yet not harsh, lines were imprinted on the whole of his countenance, ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... when the strong and helpful, yet tender and sympathetic, friendship of Alfred Tennyson and Arthur Hallam was at its height, there came a brief and abrupt word from Vienna to the effect that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... can give an idea of the rapid, abrupt, elliptical style of this familiar correspondence, where the meaning is sometimes suggested by a single word, unintelligible to any but those for ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... flutter of surprise, the Martians had shown no interest in the abrupt termination of the year's divinations. They melted away, a trifle more silently perhaps than usual, when I shattered the magic globe, but with their invariable indifference, and having handed the reviving Heru over to some women who led her ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... unusual matter it 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 wanting on his part to contribute ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and Parliament had been summoned for July 25th. But peace had already been secured, and immediate supply was no longer necessary. The King prorogued Parliament on July 29th, but not before the House had passed a resolution against a standing army. This abrupt dismissal of Parliament, when its presence was no longer called for, inflamed the anger against Clarendon. Those who had hoped to find an opportunity of pressing home their attack upon him in Parliament were indignant at the loss of this opportunity. Even the moderate men ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... from the plateau to the Great Gheet are steep and abrupt. The other rivers rise in wet marshes, in some places impassable. The French left was on the crest of the ridge, above the marshes of the Little Gheet, and extended to the village of Autre Eglise; while the extreme right stood on the ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... to tell him he was being rude and forgetting that he spoke to a lady," said Ernest Travers. "One makes every allowance for a father's sufferings; but they should not take the form of abrupt and harsh speech to a sympathetic fellow-creature—nay, to anyone, let alone a woman. His sacred ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... free flourish in a vocal or instrumental composition, introduced immediately before the close of a movement or at the end of the piece. The object is to display the performer's technique, or to prevent too abrupt a contrast between two movements. Cadenzas are usually left to the improvisation of the performer, but are sometimes written in full by the composer, or by some famous executant, as in the cadenza in Brahms's Violin Concerto, written ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... preparing to infect foreign countries with their correspondence, our Bretons did not run away on Thursday. It is true that when they saw the Saxons emerging from their holes and shouting hurrah, our Bretons were a little troubled by this abrupt and savage joke, but"—then follows the statement of several of the heroes themselves that they fought like lions. The fact is, as I have already stated in my letter of yesterday, the Mobiles fought only tolerably ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere |
