"Point-blank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... should say I have," answered Hank Selby. "Why, the time those Indians charged our cave, and Joe and I, and Munson and his crowd were getting ready to fire point-blank at them, there you stood, with bullets whizzing near you more than once, grinding away at the handle of your moving picture camera as hard as you ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... anything and everything in the way of comfort, Colonel Joe McKibben brought an order from the General for me to get fresh beef for the headquarters mess. I was not caterer for this mess, nor did I belong to it even, so I refused point-blank. McKibben, disliking to report my disobedience, undertook persuasion, and brought Colonel Thom to see me to aid in his negotiations, but I would not give in, so McKibben in the kindness of his heart rode several miles in ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... a mistake and offered to make reparation. It would seem that either the officer was under the influence of liquor, or else had a mind to bully the Indians, for he would accept neither explanation nor payment, but demanded point-blank that the young men who had killed the cow be delivered up to summary punishment. The old chief refused to be intimidated and was shot dead on the spot. Not one soldier ever reached the gate of Fort Laramie! Here Red Cloud led ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... then," said Richard, as he took back the bank-note. He had learned, perhaps, in America, to be a very inquisitive man. He added point-blank, "Pray what was it?" ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... Gospels is set before us. I do not wish to dogmatize, but I will only say that the more clearly we realize the nature of the creative process on the spiritual side the more the current objections to the Gospel narrative lose their force; and it appears to me that to deny that narrative as a point-blank impossibility is to make a similar affirmation with regard to the power of the Spirit in ourselves. You cannot affirm a principle and deny it in the same breath; and if we affirm the externalizing ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... appeared upon one of the lookout plates a vivid picture of the pirate vessel—a huge, black globe of steel, now emitting flaring offensive beams of force. Her invisibility lost, now that she had gone into action, she lay revealed in the middle of the first zone—at point-blank range. ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... idea of letting his purpose be seen until he was fully ready. It required all his self-mastery to avoid betraying himself by look or tone, but he was so natural that Myrtle was thrown wholly off her guard. He meant to make her pleased with herself at the outset, and that not by point-blank flattery, of which she had had more than enough of late, but rather by suggestion and inference, so that she should find herself feeling happy without knowing how. It would be easy to glide from that to the impression she had produced upon him, ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... become a priest, but he completed his seventeenth year without having yet begun his education so necessary to the fulfillment of his desire. Such a result seemed to be all the more impossible of accomplishment inasmuch as his father declared point-blank that he had no money to ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous
... love of country as a prejudice, or a passion for freedom as an illusion. The cosmopolitan or international idea which such teachers as Cobden have tried to impress on our stubborn islanders, would have found in Macaulay not lukewarm or sceptical adherence, but point-blank opposition and denial. He believed as stoutly in the supremacy of Great Britain in the history of the good causes of Europe, as M. Thiers believes in the supremacy of France, or Mazzini believed in that ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... ever; but, unharmed as he was physically, it was evident to all the company that he was suffering from some mental discomposure. Miss Macdonnell, with a frank curiosity which might have been trying in any one else, asked him point-blank the reason of his absence from the meal for which, in spite of his partiality for French cookery, he ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... she's the only lady in the family)—'when that wretched Polly Muggins was bringing out Blanche, with her radish of a nose, and her carrots of ringlets, and her turnip for a face, she was most anxious—as her father had been a cowboy on my father's land—to be patronized by us, and asked me point-blank, in the midst of a silence at Count Volauvent's, the French Ambassador's dinner, why I had not sent her a card ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ready. Cougar tracks were so numerous I got tired of looking at them, but I did not forget that I might meet a tawny fellow or two among those narrow passes of shattered rock, and under the thick, dark pinyons. Going on in this way, I ran point-blank into a pile of bleached bones before a cave. I had stumbled on the lair of a lion and from the looks of it one like that of Old Tom. I flinched twice before I threw a stone into the dark-mouthed cave. What impressed me as soon as I found I was in no danger of being pawed and clawed round ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... could not advise our president," he said, "to send the letter that was demanded of him. And yet I couldn't take the responsibility of injuring the company by advising him to refuse the Church request. You know, if we had refused it, point-blank, they would have destroyed every interest we had within the domain of their power. I should have been ruined financially. All our stockholders would have suffered. They would ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... Wilson's efforts to bring about an agreement proved futile. The roads agreed to arbitrate all the points, allowing the President to name the arbitrators; but the Brotherhoods, probably realizing their temporary strategic advantage, refused point-blank to arbitrate. When the President tried to persuade the roads to yield the eight-hour day, they replied that it was a proper subject ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... "will you promise to answer me, with all frankness, a delicate, an absurd question, if you will, one of those questions that is not generally put, but which I am going to ask you, nevertheless, without preface, point-blank?" ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... requisitioned to wait at table, and John had no livery for the purpose. The family as a rule never required attendance at meals. On this occasion it was supposed to be essential, and as Betty refused point-blank to stir from the kitchen, John had to ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... his present object was to draw him out of himself. He would have been glad to gain Harry's confidence, and to hear from him how matters stood, though he very well knew he should fail if he asked the question point-blank. He therefore beat about the bush for some time, talking of his own love affairs when he was a young man, and of those ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... Forcheville," she would answer carelessly: "Yes, my dear boy, we're starting on the 19th; we'll send you a 'view' of the Pyramids." Then he was determined to know whether she was Forcheville's mistress, to ask her point-blank, to insist upon her telling him. He knew that there were some perjuries which, being so superstitious, she would not commit, and besides, the fear, which had hitherto restrained his curiosity, of ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... jumped at his pistols very quick. "Here's our money, you scoundrel!" says he, and fired point-blank at the rogue's head. Confusion! the pistol missed fire. He aimed the second, and ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... have given La Torpille an aunt, for her mother is too decidedly dead on the field of dishonor; du Tillet would have given her a mansion, Lousteau a carriage, Rastignac her footmen, des Lupeaulx a cook, Finot her hats"—Finot could not suppress a shrug at standing the point-blank fire of this epigram—"Vernou would have composed her advertisements, and Bixiou her repartees! The aristocracy would have come to enjoy themselves with our Ninon, where we would have got artists together, under pain of death by newspaper articles. Ninon the second would ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... discovery that he must bide in the poorhouse the Jews had built there till the elders had examined him. And there he had herded all day long with the sick and cripples and a lewd rabble, till evening brought the elders and his doom—a point-blank refusal to allow him to enter the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... but what would be done. The supposed prophet was the supposed historian of times to come; and if he happened, in shooting with a long bow of a thousand years, to strike within a thousand miles of a mark, the ingenuity of posterity could make it point-blank; and if he happened to be directly wrong, it was only to suppose, as in the case of Jonah and Nineveh, that God had repented himself and changed his mind. What a fool do fabulous systems ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... was a pause, so long that the Englishman thought he was going to be refused point-blank; then an even voice said, "Come ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... accomplished the things he had done. However, before any proposition appealed to him he had to see money in the deal. Whether he saw it in this particular instance, nobody knew; and only one person had the courage to ask him point-blank what his ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... interest, as showing how firmly the English naval tradition was already fixed, should be noticed the twenty-fifth, relating to seamen gunners, the twenty-sixth, forbidding action at more than point-blank range, and above all the fifth and sixth, aimed at obliterating all distinction between soldiers and sailors aboard ship, and at securing that unity of service between the land and sea forces which ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... reply, but in due course I heard the name of the mysterious contributor. He was said to be no other than Nipper Nasmyth himself. I asked Raffles if it was true. He replied that he would ask old Nipper point-blank if he came up as usual to the Varsity match, and if they had the luck to meet. And not only did this happen, but I had the greater luck to be walking round the ground with Raffles when we encountered our shabby friend in front of ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... proposing to undertake. He went so far as to put clearly before them aspects of the case which they might have overlooked and to read them legal extracts of a discouraging nature. They were unmoved, and the sindaco, still dissatisfied, asked Berto point-blank whether he really wished, under the circumstances, to take Giuseppina to be his wife. Berto replied in the affirmative. Concealing his surprise, the sindaco turned to Giuseppina and asked her whether she wished to be married to Berto. She said she did; and indeed it was the reason why ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... Germans attacked from the La Bassee region and gained several small villages. Both Allies and Germans suffered immense lasses. Much of the slaughter was due to the point-blank magazine fire and the intermittent ...
— 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
... fixing themselves, and me, into a deliberate stare. Every now and then the spokes-boy of the party—he was the oldest, evidently, but his face was smaller and whiter, and his eyes were more like little black beads than those of either of his brethren—would fire off a point-blank pistol-shot of a question; when this was answered or evaded, they resumed their steady stare. I was lapsing rapidly into a helpless imbecility under the horrible fascination, when their mother summoned me to supper; they vanished then, with a derisive chuckle, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... seem to find out," Beulah said. "I asked Eleanor point-blank this morning what they had to eat last night and where they had it, and she said, 'That's a secret, Aunt Beulah.' When I asked her why it was a secret and who it was a secret with, she only looked worried, ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... this point-blank shot, uttered in a voice so loud as to attract the attention of those in immediate proximity, I made a random reply, and took the occasion to ask if I could see him in his study at the close ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... seemed to contradict him point-blank. It was so magnificent that even the careless sailors, used as most of them were to the glories of the Southern sky, stood still to admire it, and pronounced it "the finest show they'd ever seen, by a long way." Not a cloud above, not a ripple below; the steamer's track lay across ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Mr. Romanes speaks point-blank of the new-born child as "EMBODYING the results of a great mass of HEREDITARY EXPERIENCE" (p. 77), so that what he is driving at can be collected by those who take trouble, but is not seen until we call up from our own knowledge matter whose relevancy ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... dropped from the fence to his assistance. He drew his revolver, and, just as a hideous great black wretch rushed at him, he fired point-blank. Down fell the man across the fallen officer, and then, as if by magic, half-a-dozen wild-looking figures ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... out." Tabs still spoke with friendliness. "While we were together your telegram arrived and I agreed to be the bearer of her message. But as for her second request, that I should become engaged to her, I refused that point-blank." ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... bringing up of children is religion. When two people are engaged and are making plans for living together, they are sure to discuss religion. You remember how suddenly Marguerite turned to Faust and asked him point-blank, "Do you believe ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... Guy; "I seldom say rude things—never intentionally. I don't know which is in worst taste, that, or paying point-blank compliments. Without being mathematical, you may have heard that the line of beauty ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... seemed, what in fact it was, exceptionally point-blank; though she guessed that her father had some hand in framing it, knowing, rather to her cost, of his unceremonious way of utilizing her for the benefit of dull sojourners. At the same time, as Mr. Smith's ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... could only be received with caution; that the Brethren had no desire to disturb those whose outward mode of religion was already fixed; that they lived in a mystical communion with Christ which others might not understand; and, finally, that they refused point-blank to rob the other Churches of their members, and preferred to act "as a seasonable assistant in an irreligious age, and as a most faithful servant to the other Protestant Churches." Thus were the society members blackballed; ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... vague sentences of dissent, while the passenger in spectacles, consigning his lozenges to an inner pocket, buried himself in the broad sheet of the Times. But it was his turn now, and not even thus could he escape. Staring grimly at him, over the top of the paper, his tormentor fired a point-blank question, from which ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... now crowded with a dense mass of savages, amounting probably to five or six hundred. We had not rowed off above a couple of hundred yards when a loud roar thundered over the sea, and the big brass gun sent a withering shower of grape point-blank into the midst of the living mass, through which a wide lane was cut, while a yell, the like of which I could not have imagined, burst from the miserable survivors as they fled to the woods. Amongst the heaps of dead that lay on the sand just where they had fallen, I could ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... but the enemy had posted his men more thickly than we had guessed, and by-and-by I crossed a small clearing and rode straight into the arms of a dragoon. Providentially I came on him with a suddenness which flurried his aim, and though he fired his pistol at me point-blank he wounded neither me nor my horse. But hearing shouts behind him in answer to the shot, we wheeled almost right-about and set off ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... quite disapproves of you and yet he'll go to any amount of trouble to do things to make you happy or comfortable. Then he conceals his graciousness by being curt about it. Then, when he's at his crankiest, he's apt to startle you by saying the divinest things point-blank in your face, and as likely as not, after treating you as he would a rather backward child of whom he rigidly disapproves, he'll make love to you and do it with a fine old Anglo-Saxon directness. He hates swank, of course, for he's a truffle-hound ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... had thought you would draw the line at assassination, but we live and learn. Last night, as I was returning to the shelter of my humble roof, a dirty hairy fellow—but why should I describe him to you?—leapt out and fired at me point-blank with a huge old-fashioned horse-pistol, and missed. I give you my word he singed half an inch off my left whisker. Of course they say he was a ruffianly suitor offended by my just decision in favour of his opponent, ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... to ascertain it. He had even seen the mysterious messenger on her last visit to England, but she had refused point-blank, declaring that she had been ordered to disclose nothing. She was merely ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... self-respect and shyness made Aurelia shrink from the point-blank question whether the ungrateful little things had acknowledged their obligations to her. She was always hoping they would say something of their own ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... whereas with more negligence he might pass better, makes himself with a great deal of endeavour ridiculous. The fancy of some odd quaintnesses have put him clean beside his nature; he cannot be that he would, and hath lost what he was. He is one must be point-blank in every trifle, as if his credit and opinion hung upon it; the very space of his arms in an embrace studied before and premeditated, and the figure of his countenance of a fortnight's contriving; he will not curse you without-book and extempore, but ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... Sir Oliver remonstrated with him and in such terms as to put heart into him anew. Moreover, there was other news that day to allay his terrors: the Justices, at Truro had been informed of the event and the accusation that was made; but they had refused point-blank to take action in the matter. The reason of it was that one of them was that same Master Anthony Baine who had witnessed the affront offered Sir Oliver. He declared that whatever had happened to Master Godolphin as a consequence was no more than he deserved, no more than he had brought upon ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... age of prose, when men's hearts turn point-blank from blank verse to the business of chaining two worlds by cable and of daring to fly with birds; when scholars, ever busy with the dead, are suffering crick in the neck from looking backward to the good old days when Romance wore a tin helmet on his head or lace in his ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... driving out the British and had killed the Prime Minister a month before. They warned Roosevelt that if he dared to touch on this subject he, too, would be assassinated. But such threats did not move him then or ever. Roosevelt reproved them point-blank for killing Boutros Pasha, and told them that a party which sought freedom must show its capacity for living by law and order, before it could expect to ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... toward her and then he himself began to speculate upon the truth of the ape-man's charges. The longer he looked at the girl, the less easy was it to entertain the thought that she was an enemy spy. He was upon the point of asking her point-blank but he could not bring himself to do so, finally determining to wait until time and longer acquaintance should reveal the truth or ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... confessing to you I've no great fancy for this place. Man told me at dayjooney this morning he'd just come in from sitting under the palms before the Casino entrance. . . . All of a sudden a young fellow walked out and shot himself there, point-blank. Man who told me doesn't take any interest in play—over from Mentone for the day, just to see things.—Well, this young fellow, as I say, shot himself—put revolver to his forehead—there on the steps. And by George, sir, he was mopped up and into a sack within twenty seconds! One porter ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... directness and energy. This method had certainly an advantage when combined with unmistakable sincerity. There could be no sort of doubt that he meant precisely what he said, or that he was obeying the dictates of one of the warmest of hearts. But point-blank language of this kind seems to acquire a certain impropriety in print. I must ask my readers, therefore, to take it for granted that no mother could have received more genuine assurances of the love of a son; and that his other domestic affections ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... to his novel; but, alas! the inventive faculty point-blank refused to work under the weight of such a Sunday in prospect. He wandered out, quite dispirited; but, before long, to take his revenge upon circumstances, resolved at least to have a dinner out of them. So he went to a ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... archdeacon asked for proof of the episcopal charges, but of course no proof was forthcoming. It was a matter of prejudged guilt. The bishop was not skilful in the negotiations, and at last lost his temper and demanded point-blank the surrender of the deeds.[9] Henry Williams felt that he was unjustly accused, and, still holding out for "substantiation or retractation," left the scene of the conference in a fit of indignation, which was still further increased when he found that the unscrupulous governor had been trying ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... jealousies arising without any foundation, complaints, despair, running away with, and its consequences. Thus things are carried on in fashionable life, and veritable gallantry cannot dispense with these forms. But to come out point-blank with a proposal of marriage,—to make no love but with a marriage-contract, and begin a novel at the wrong end! Once more, father, nothing can be more tradesmanlike, and the mere thought of it makes me ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... long, irksome three years. Monsieur was not of a reflective mind, content to stand aside and watch while other men fought out great issues. It was a weary procession of days to him. His only son, a lad a few years older than I, shared none of his father's scruples and refused point-blank to follow him into exile. He remained in Paris, where they knew how to be gay in spite of sieges. Therefore I, the Forester's son, whom Monsieur took for a page, had a chance to come closer to my lord and be more to him than a mere servant, ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... facing the butts at a rifle-range, the three sharp-shooters were firing point-blank at the windows from which Prothero and Pearsall were waging their war to the death upon the instruments of law and order. Beside them, on his knees in the snow, a young man with the silver hilt of an ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... the gunners, and we were quickly made aware of the loss we had sustained by receiving a frequent artful ball which seemed to light with unerring instinct on any nose that was the least bit exposed. I have known one of Pepper's snowballs, fired point-blank, to turn a corner and hit a boy ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... was sprung from a race more honored now than a hundred years ago. But the women declared that it could not be; and the rector desiring to christen him, because it might never have been done before, refused point-blank to put any "Isaac" in, and was satisfied with "Robin" only, the name of the man who ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... voted for the supply bills. He took and maintained his position with entire manliness and honesty, and stated his principles with perfect clearness, neither shading nor abating nor coloring by any conciliatory or politic phrase. It was a question of conscience, and he met it point-blank. Many of his critics remained dissatisfied, and it is believed that his course cost the next Whig candidate in the district votes which he could not afford to lose. It is true that another paid this penalty, yet Lincoln himself would have liked well to take his ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... Frank had recovered from his attack, he determined to have a ride round the city and its suburbs to judge for himself how matters stood, and gave orders through the Sheikh for his horse to be brought round; but upon their guardian being summoned they were met by a point-blank, ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... a year the shape of wolves; Pliny says that one of the family of Antaeus, chosen by lot annually, became a wolf, and so remained for nine years; Giraldus Cambrensis will have it that Irishmen may become wolves; and Nennius asserts point-blank that "the descendants of wolves are still in Ossory;" they retransform themselves into wolves when they bite. Apuleius, Petronius, and Lucian have similar stories. The Emperor Sigismund convoked a council of ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... seemed to come into the field of battle. Dyck Calhoun could see the struggle going on. The two sets of enemy ships had come to close quarters, and some were locked in deadly conflict. Other ships, still apart, fired at point-blank range, and all the horrors of slaughter were in full swing. From the square blue flag at the mizzen top gallant masthead of one of the British ships engaged, Dyck saw that the admiral's own craft was in some peril. The way lay open for the Ariadne to bear down upon the French ship, engaged ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... heart of his adored mother by telling her the truth. The adored mother suspects her son, but no trace of the suspicion appears in her letters to him. The questions which an English parent would level at him point-blank she is entirely too delicate to address to her dear Maurice; but she puts them to the Prefect of Police, and ferrets out the marriage through legal documents, while yet no trace of this knowledge dims the affectionateness of her letters, or the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... world was secure beyond peradventure; these could spring only from a quiet conscience or from a heart perfectly attuned to villainy. So unconscious was his poise that one often doubted the evidence of memory, and found one's self going back over the record, only to fetch up point-blank against the incontestable fact that he had stolen his ship and had ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... seen nothing of young men besides the awkward and blushing clodhoppers of Chaney Creek, was somewhat dazzled by the free-and-easy speech and manner of the hard-cheeked bagman. Yet there was something in his airy talk and point-blank compliments that aroused a faint feeling of resentment which she could scarcely account for. Aunt Abigail was delighted with him, and when he bowed his adieux at the gate in the most recent Planters'-House style, she cordially invited him to call—"to drop in any time: he ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... boat slid forward over the boom, he brought the torpedo full against the somber side of the huge ram, and instantly exploded it, almost at the same time that the pivot-gun of the ram, loaded with grape, was fired point-blank at ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... and becoming a burthen to his allies, whilst wintering in a friendly country? how, again, was he to prevent Pharnabazus from overriding the Hellenic states in pure contempt with his cavalry? Accordingly he sent to Pharnabazus and put it to him point-blank: Which will you have, peace or war? Whereupon Pharnabazus, who could not but perceive that the whole Aeolid had now been converted practically into a fortified base of operations, which threatened his own homestead of Phrygia, ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... was it by Scripture tried? No, sure; to that the rebel would not yield; Squadrons of texts he marshall'd in the field: That was but civil war, an equal set, 160 Where piles with piles[112], and eagles eagles met. With texts point-blank and plain he faced the foe. And did not Satan tempt our Saviour so? The good old bishops took a simpler way; Each ask'd but what he heard his father say, Or how he was instructed in his youth, And by tradition's ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... spinster is sure that the stranger is Mr. Smith. The attorney doubts whether such a remarkable preacher would go about in such a costume. The British mother solves the whole difficulty by walking straight up to him, and with an eye on the announcement in question, asking point-blank whether she has the pleasure of addressing that eminent divine. Smith hesitates, and is lost. His egg and coffee disappear. The table is cleared, and the chairs arranged with as little regard to comfort as may be. ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... state of excitement, and his wife in tears. Mueller attempted to state the object of his visit, but Kershaw, with wild gestures, waved him aside, and—in his own words—flabbergasted him by asking him point-blank for another loan of two pounds, which sum, he declared, would be the means of a speedy fortune for himself and the friend who would help him ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... recorded of some tribes of American Indians. Thus we are told that "the name of an American Indian is a sacred thing, not to be divulged by the owner himself without due consideration. One may ask a warrior of any tribe to give his name, and the question will be met with either a point-blank refusal or the more diplomatic evasion that he cannot understand what is wanted of him. The moment a friend approaches, the warrior first interrogated will whisper what is wanted, and the friend can tell the name, receiving a reciprocation ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... twitching body, alert, every nerve taut, his finger crooked to the trigger of his rifle. But again Blenham had withdrawn. In the little rudely circular hollow from which Blenham had fired point-blank at Yellow Barbee was Terry's hat, trodden underfoot. Again it was as though the mountain had swallowed the man and the girl he had ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... he had said, the wind, and being able to go nearer it than the Spaniard, kept his place at easy point-blank range for his two eighteen-pounder culverins, which Yeo and his ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... suggested by nothing, assented with a modest air, and, shaking his head and his wig, began to talk to some one else. But M. de Gesvres had not commenced without a purpose. He went on, addressed M. de Villeroy point-blank, admiring their mutual good fortune, but when he came to speak of the father of each, "Let us go no further," said he, "for what did our fathers spring from? From tradesmen; even tradesmen they were themselves. Yours was the son of a dealer in fresh fish ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... emerged into light again close to the table with napkins on her arm. She removed the work-box reverentially, the doctor's manuscript unceremoniously, and proceeded to lay a cloth: in which operation she looked at Rose a point-blank glance of admiration: then she placed the napkins; and in this process she again cast a strange look of interest upon Rose. The young lady noticed it this time, and looked inquiringly at her in return, half expecting some communication; but Jacintha ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... processes, beyond any which have yet been found; and on this point, in order to be brief, I will give but one particular, which will astonish good shots of every degree. This is, that when I charged my gun with powder weighing one-fifth of the ball, it carried two hundred paces point-blank. It is true that the great delight I took in this exercise bid fair to withdraw me from my art and studies; yet in another way it gave me more than it deprived me of, seeing that each time I went out shooting I returned with greatly ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... to the high-bred what billingsgate is to the vulgar; and when one gentleman thinks another gentleman an ass, he does not say it point-blank, he implies it in the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... her. One of the bullets grazed his cheek, the others swept harmlessly through the room. He seized from another table two of his remaining pistols and discharged them squarely into the face of the crowding mass at the other end of the room at point-blank range. The sounds of the shots still ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... assault. In the first place, it is impossible to take Vicksburg in the front without too great a loss of life and material, for the reason that the river is only about half a mile wide, and our forces would be in point-blank range of their guns, not only from their water-batteries which line the shore, but from the batteries that crown the hills, while the enemy would be protected from the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and his daughter smiled contentedly as she heard him stamping about in the larder. He made but a poor meal, and then, refusing point-blank to assist Annie in moving the piano, went and smoked a very reflective pipe in ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... not give him any peace now. His London success must not be wasted. At first his victim refused point-blank, and with great brevity. But he was overborne and persuaded, and made occasional appearances, wiring at last this final ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... this poor little expensive old woman in the following terms, converting her by a violent metonymy into a comprehensive plural. "You infernal land thieves!" I said point-blank into her face. "HAVE YOU COME TO ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... They refused point-blank to throw their rifles down, bringing a laugh and a shout of encouragement from the German. But she screwed the muzzle of her pistol into the lieutenant's ear, and bade him enforce her orders, the gipsy women applauding with a chorus of "Ohs" and "Ahs." The lieutenant succumbed ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... this tirade one of them drew a revolver and fired point-blank at the Russian. The fellow's aim was poor, but his act so terrified Rokoff that he turned and ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Harborough again before he was taken back to Norcaster, and again he pressed him to speak, and again Harborough gave him a point-blank refusal. ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... Bill looked sheepish and shaky, while the ill-favored Johnnie was more sulky than ever. She gazed at them reproachfully, and then asked them to collect some more penguin's eggs, which Johnnie refused point-blank to do, saying that he wasn't going to collect eggs for landlubbers to eat; she might collect eggs for herself. Bill, however, started on the errand, and in about an hour's time returned, just as the rain set in in ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... furiously round on the Mahratta cavalry, and scattered them to the four corners of the field. They then attempted to gallop back, but it was through a Valley of Death. The whole of the regular troops of the enemy lined the way; the guns of de Boigne, rapidly served, pelted them with grape at point-blank distance; the squares maintained their incessant volleys; by nine in the morning nearly every man of the 4,000 who had charged with their prince lay dead upon the ground. Unfatigued and almost uninjured, the well-trained infantry of de Boigne now became assailants. The battalions ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... I had met at your house, came here under pretext of seeing your sons, but called upon me, and asked point-blank if I would give him my help in a charitable deed of some importance. 'What is the nature of the deed?' was my first question. 'The salvation of a soul.' 'In what form?' I did not get a direct answer, ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... say such things of your sister. Well, anyhow the town is full of it. When I went out yesterday Mrs. Morris asked me point-blank if I hadn't news for her, and Miss Peters has taken so frightfully to rolling her eyes whenever Matty and Captain Bertram are seen together, that I'm quite afraid she will contract a regular squint. How long was he with Matty on the ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... was so astonished at this point-blank question, that for a moment he sat speechless upon the sofa. Being a man of ready resource, however, and one who was accustomed to sudden emergencies, he ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... love with Irene. In a week's time I had all but told her so; and finding myself alone with her father one night after dinner, I boldly asked him for her hand. Somewhat to my surprise,—for considering the difference in our years, we had become very friendly,—he refused me point-blank. The first reason which he gave staggered me: Irene was already engaged to a Roumanian nobleman, who would be coming soon to claim her. But apart from that, he went on, he would never have consented to the match on the score of our different ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... shot a man dropped dead on the beach; but the American stood untouched. The appalling brutality of the action seemed to awe the rest of the crew. They stood motionless, dumb with their rage; but when they recovered themselves they rushed upon us with wild ferocity; and the Yankee fired at Black point-blank. I thought, truly, that the end was then; but I heard a shout from the water, and, looking there, I saw Dr. Osbart in the launch; and there was a Maxim gun in the bows ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... hour when through the mist they saw an Indian cautiously riding in. He was reconnoitering the wallow. Their hearts sank. They kept quiet until he was within point-blank range—they could see his red blanket, rolled beneath ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... not without receiving a warm glance from the lady interrupted in her pleasure. This was all his substance, pittance and enjoyment during a whole month, since on the brink of his joy always came the said husband, and he always arrived wisely between a point-blank refusal and those little sweet caresses with which women always season their refusals—little things which reanimate love and render it all the stronger. And when the sculptor, out of patience, commenced, immediately upon his arrival, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... June that she was wasting her time; even were she to put a question point-blank, she would never get anything out of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... circumstances she would have refused point-blank. Davilof had offended her—and more than that, the revelation of the upsettingly vehement order of his passion for her that day in the Mirror Room had frightened her not a little. There was something stormy and elemental about it. To ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... "She declined point-blank. I determined then to change mine, and sent word of my intention to the Countess." He flung himself into a chair. "Her reply was to send back to me her marriage contract and her wedding-ring, and to beg to be informed ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... that same "Not do so any more" which really was prompted, I fear, much more by that charity in her which hopeth all things than by any signs of amendment in myself. Well was it for me that no time was allowed for an investigation into my morals by point-blank questions as to my future intentions. In which case it would have appeared too undeniably, that the same sad necessity which had planted me hitherto in a position of hostility to their estimable families would continue to persecute me; and that, on the very next day, duty to my brother, howsoever ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... find an opportunity to sell the Maud at Aden, you will not be disappointed?" asked the captain, point-blank, looking earnestly into the ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... his kinsfolk stop the way Point-blank, there could not be A happening in the world to-day More ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... much. Also, it is hard to believe that Schreiber, who was driving the car, would risk a smash-up to his own car and possible death for himself and party, in order to try to make Felderson go into the ditch. Then, too, if Zalnitch recognized Felderson's car, why didn't he fire point-blank at Felderson instead of waiting till he got past? No! The case against Zalnitch falls down. We can ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... she disturbed him ten times a day with importunate visitors, and then every evening laid out for him a dress suit and light gloves, and dragged him from drawing-room to drawing-room. You will tell me he could have rebelled, could have replied point-blank: "No!" But don't you know that the very fact of our sedentary existences leaves us more than other men dependent on domestic influence? The atmosphere of the home envelopes us, and if some touch of the ideal does not lighten it, soon wearies ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... nurse idea, and all the while kept my eyes open. Bottles—chemicals—everywhere. Balance, test-tubes in stands, and a smell of—evening primrose. Would he subscribe? Said he'd consider it. Asked him, point-blank, was he researching. Said he was. A long research? Got quite cross. 'A damnable long research,' said he, blowing the cork out, so to speak. 'Oh,' said I. And out came the grievance. The man was just on the boil, and ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... Session so much, that they held several meetings to look over their spiritual artillery, if haply any of it might be pointed against (p. 032) profane rhymers. Unluckily for me, my wandering led me on another side, within point-blank shot of their heaviest metal. This is the unfortunate incident which gave rise to my printed poem, The Lament. This was a most melancholy affair, which I cannot yet bear to reflect on, and had very nearly given me one ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... dear Eugenius, that you are hesitating between the novel and the drama: you know not which to attack; and you wish me to give you some suggestions on the subject. You are candid enough to say that it is not point-blank advice that you ask, which you would probably heed just as much as good counsel is generally heeded by those who apply for it; but you would have me lay before you such ideas as may occur to me, in order that you may ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... days, Fraulein and Miss Jebb soon found out that they could only obtain their desires by means of carefully worded requests, or pathetic appeals to her good feelings and sense of right. An unreasonable order, or a reasonable one unexplained, promptly met with a point-blank refusal. And this characteristic still obtained, though modified by time; and even the duchess, as a rule, said ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... into political methods as practiced in the Twenty-first District of knowing a little more than his colleagues knew about the local issues. Three months of the session elapsed before he stood up in the Chamber and attacked point-blank,one formidable champion of corruption. Listen to an anonymous writer in the Saturday ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... made a point-blank shot at Alfieri. He is more remarkable than enjoyable. His works are explained by his life. He torments his readers and listeners, just as he torments himself as an author. He had the true nature of a count and was therefore blindly aristocratic. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... watery glance, an unnatural, pale-violet complexion, a wrinkled skin and dyed hair; a woman of whom it might be said that she had escaped grandmotherhood, if indeed she had escaped it, by mere luck—and he was point-blank commanded to believe that she and Rose Euclid ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... the countess showed some little curiosity about the lover; and at last, after about ten days, when she found herself beginning to be intimate with her new companion, she put the question point-blank. "I hate mysteries," she said. "Who is the young man you ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... is indeed," assented Miss Vincent. "Is he rich?" she asked, point-blank, in the very ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... was walking hardly three hundred yards from where Stone, rifle in hand, lay, and had reached the footpath leading from the bench to the creek bottom when Stone, half rising, covered him slowly with point-blank sights. In the path ahead, the dog had struck a fresh gopher hole and, still yelping, was pawing madly into it, when a rifle cracked. The man with the pail, swung violently half around by the shock of a spreading bullet, jerked convulsively ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... him? This brute, Baraja, as well as Oroche, were both drunk with mezcal; and Diaz refused to assist me, point-blank. While I was endeavouring to arouse the other two, the fellow had taken leg bail through an opening in the wall of the garden—at least that's all we can ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... that affair, which I am very ready to defend, need not concern you, though (if I remember rightly) you professed yourself anxious on that account. Now for my denials. I deny flatly that I did any service to my distinguished friend at your expense. I deny it point-blank. And I deny that, when—not for the first time—you took the law into your own hands, I purposely removed myself from the city. That suspicion of yours is not worth so many words. What should my purpose be? ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett |
