"Point-blank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 power of the Spirit in ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... 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 ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... 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 ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... 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 guns, which Yeo and his mate worked with ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... horse-racing and the gambling which invariably goes with it, by the Colonel's wasted life and her own ensuing loneliness, nevertheless prayed night and day that Queen Bess would be victorious, for Frank had finally refused, point-blank, to let her risk her fortune in the scheme for the development of his coal-lands, and so, if the mare lost and the eastern firm refused to purchase her at the large price which would enable him to join the syndicate, his great chance would ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... admitted of no argument, that he had to tell Sylvia all that had happened in those ten minutes while the grey morning grew rosy. This sense of compulsion was deaf to all reasoning, however plausible. He knew perfectly well that unless he told Sylvia who it was whom he had shot at point-blank range, as he leaped the last wire entanglement, no one else ever could. Hermann was buried now in the same grave as others who had fallen that morning: his name would be given out as missing from the Bavarian corps to which he belonged, and in time, ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... have stated admirably, though admitted by all naturalists and denied by no one of common sense. We all admit development as a fact of history: but how came it about? Here, in language, and still more in logic, we are point-blank at issue. There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well a physical. A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly. 'Tis the crown and glory of organic science that it DOES through FINAL ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... You see, Stanley came to my home on the evening of the day he returned from Oregon. As you know, I had decided to have a plain talk with him. It began pleasantly enough, but before it ended we were both very angry. He declared point-blank that after we were married I would positively have to give up my settlement work. He said a great many hateful, sneering things about the poor people I've been trying to help. I was going to give him back his ring then, but I remembered what you advised about ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... up to the mountain-crib the artillery of a ghostly face, and training it point-blank at Second ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... at her, but he couldn't help himself very well while she stood directly in front of him. He compromised weakly instead of refusing point-blank, as he told himself he ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... 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, but I know better. 'Sweet Hal, by my faith!' thinks ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... heard from Jean Garland some of the talk of the country, for long dared not ask her uncle point-blank if it were true about the princess, but she showed such continual curiosity about his love affairs, that he would keep her waiting while he made an entry in his diary, or other book of written notes, and then declare solemnly that the only girl he had ever loved ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... acknowledged. "These outrages throughout the States are, to my mind, blatant and criminal. Directly or indirectly, the German-American public is responsible for them—indirectly, by inflammatory speeches, reckless journalism, and point-blank laudation of illegal acts; directly—well, here I can speak only from my own suspicions, so I will remain silent. But my mind is made up. A man in this country, as you know," he added, "need make only one mistake and his political future is blasted. ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... him point-blank just what his life had been, and why he had never been to school, Ruth did not see how she was to learn more than the white-haired ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... artists, Mr. Lindsay's poetry really goes back to the origins of the art. As John Masefield is the twentieth century Chaucer, so Vachel Lindsay is the twentieth century minstrel. On the one occasion when he met W. B. Yeats, the Irishman asked him point-blank, "What are we going to do to restore the primitive singing of poetry?" and would not stay for an answer. Fortunately the question was put to a man who answered it by accomplishment; the best answer to any question is not an elaborate theory, ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... had always looked with grudging sullenness upon the great Wolfhound and his doings, refused point-blank to be a party to the exodus, and croakingly warned the others against following a new-comer and an outlier such as Finn. He gave them to understand that he had been born in the shadow of Mount Desolation, like his sire and ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... Shoop. Why don't you write to Torrance and ask him point-blank if he has had a hand in getting you nominated for Senator? Torrance is a big man in his line, and he probably knows what ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... suddenly to June that she was wasting her time; even were she to put a question point-blank, she would never get anything ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... representative, Mr. Coombs, speak, and whether his hearers agreed or disagreed with his sentiments on the tariff question, all realised that he knew what he was talking about, and his easy delivery and point-blank manner of statement were impressive. So, also, at the White House, whether people liked the Administration or disliked it, all reasonable persons agreed that good morals presided over the nation, and that well-worn jest about ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... most important of these fortresses. At this place the opposite shores of New York and Vermont are pushed out into the lake toward each other, thus forming two peninsulas, with the lake contracted to a width of half a mile, or point-blank cannon range, between them: one is Ticonderoga; the other, Mount Independence. Thus, together, they command the passage ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... bread that evening when there came a knock at the cabin door. At sight of Big Bill and his two companions the prospector closed the oven and straightened with alert suspicion. He was not on visiting terms with any of these men. Why had they come to see him? He asked point-blank the question in ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... Thus asked point-blank, Ulyth was obliged to relate what she had overheard; and Miss Bowes, determined to get at the root of the business, cross-questioned her closely, until she had dragged from her reluctant pupil the account of the occurrence in the ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... them; in 1795, the black collar which the aristocrats substituted for the former green one, in sign of mourning, gave rise to many difficulties and altercations. In the midst of the Palais-Royal a republican received a bullet point-blank in his chest in return for an insult. Another, meeting one of these collets noirs, said to him: "B . . . of a Chouan, for whom dost thou wear mourning?" "For thee!" replied the other, and blew out his brains. When Napoleon came into power, there arose that misdirected imitation of the antique known ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... anything about it, but Bell was ignored by all except a few old friends, and henceforth he devoted his attention to criminology and the evolution of crime. It was Bell's boast that he could take a dozen men at haphazard and give you their vices and virtures point-blank. He had a ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... 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 ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... say, and now I will have mine. As to being dictated to by you, or any Jack, Jem, or Jonathan on earth, I shall not suffer it for a moment. You desire me to quit the country; you request me to part with my machinery. In case I refuse, you threaten me. I do refuse—point-blank! Here I stay, and by this mill I stand, and into it will I convey the best machinery inventors can furnish. What will you do? The utmost you can do—and this you will never dare to do—is to burn down my mill, destroy its contents, and shoot me. What then? Suppose that building was a ruin and ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... in the thick of it. I scarcely know what happened for the next few moments, so terrible were the excitement and confusion. Union troops and officers were rushing in on all sides, without much regard to organization, under the same impulse which had actuated me. I found myself firing point-blank at the enemy but a few feet away. I saw a rebel officer waving his hat upon his sword, and fired at him. Thank Heaven I did not hit him! for, although he seemed the leading spirit in the charge, I would not like to think ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... reporting his decision, said "the river is so narrow that the soldiers are shooting at each other across." There was the further difficulty that, to reach the open lake, the vessels would have to go three miles against a current that ran four knots an hour, and much of the way within point-blank range of the enemy. Nevertheless, after examining all situations on Lake Erie, Elliott had reported that none other would answer the purpose; "those that have shelters have not sufficient water, and those with water ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... to hear much of it. But, when trout refuse to rise, and time hangs heavy in a boat on a loch, it is a good plan to tell the boatman some ghostly Sassenach tales. Then, perhaps, he will cap them from his own store, but point-blank questions from an inquiring southron are of very little use. Nobody likes to be cross-examined on such matters. Unluckily the evidence, for facts not for folklore, is worthless till it has ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... mar it. Traitor as he was he was unable to foresee punishment—materialist to the heart's core, he had no knowledge of the divine law of compensation. Now and then a dangerous impulse stirred me—a desire to say to him point-blank: ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... from the posse—a screaming bullet high overhead—a command to stop! But they did not stop. Instead, Johnson, rising in his stirrups, unholstered a huge revolver and fired point-blank at the rangers. It was the wrong thing to do, and instantly Jim drew away from the leader. This left a clear gap between, and exposed the speeding Glover ahead to fire from the rear. And suddenly it came, a volley of rifle-shots, ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... with the gun's recoil. But the guns were rarely stationary long, and we soon had the unwonted experience of finding ourselves well behind our own artillery. Finally, in places our batteries were firing at almost point-blank range; the enemy was simply blasted ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... untenanted by day. On this salient and on its approaches, a total trench line of about 150 yards, the Bavarians threw during an hour about 400 5.9's, not to mention smaller shells, while two field guns galloped into Gommecourt Park and unlimbering in full view fired obliquely at the wire from point-blank range. They were harassed and eventually forced to retire by the action of Lieut. Coombes, of the Bucks, on our left, who gallantly got a machine gun into the open and took them in the flank. Our own guns were not available at the time, ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... sworn that he had seen Nokes drag his lighted torch along the ground; he had also seen other horsemen—two or three, as he thought—but could not identify them. Jacko's deposition was also taken as to the man who had been heard and seen in the wool-shed at night. Jacko was ready to swear point-blank that the man was Nokes. The policemen suggested that, as the night was dark, Jacko might as well allow a shade of doubt to appear, thinking that the shade of doubt would add strength to the evidence. But Jacko was not going to be taught what sort of ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... that they do not redound to the credit either of the faculty of Paris, or of the fourteenth century in general. This famous faculty found themselves under the painful necessity of being wise at command, and of firing a point-blank shot of erudition at an enemy who enveloped himself in a dark mist, of the nature of which they had no conception. In concealing their ignorance by authoritative assertions, they suffered themselves, therefore, to be misled; and while endeavouring ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... 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 who considered ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... as 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 had a ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... determination of all my doubts, and a response in all things agreeable to the oracle that gave it? He is a great fool, that is not to be denied, yet is he a greater fool who brought him hither to me,—That bolt, quoth Carpalin, levels point-blank at me,—but of the three I am the greatest fool, who did impart the secret of my thoughts to such an idiot ass ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... less and less alone, smiled at him as tenderly as ever. And then there came a day when he left me full of courage, and going to her house he asked her to marry him. He met her alone by chance, and before asking her mother he spoke to the girl herself. She said no, point-blank. She said 'Nothing would induce her to.' He was so astonished that he didn't stay a second longer in the house. He didn't even come to me, but went back into the country, and ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... certain height above the water, depending on the class of vessel and the deck on which it is mounted, it is evident that, when the axis of the bore is horizontal, the shot will have a range proportionate to this height. This range or distance is commonly called point-blank, or point-blank range, and is the number noted in the column marked P.B., or 0 deg., or level in ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... had been speedily subdued by the 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 city and ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Valerie was posed as Delilah. Stidmann, too sharp to ask for Madame Marneffe, walked straight in past the lodge, and ran quickly up to the second floor, arguing thus: "If I ask for Madame Marneffe, she will be out. If I inquire point-blank for Steinbock, I shall be laughed at to my face.—Take the bull by ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... who killed him made no attempt to escape, but, waiting to see that the three shots he had fired point-blank at the Attorney General had done their work, he deliberately turned the pistol on himself. He placed it at his right temple and fired, ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... 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 shrapnel ...
— 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
... She began to complain about Evangelina, but it was only after many months that she ventured to suggest to her husband that he sell the girl. Esteban, of course, refused point-blank; he was too fond of Sebastian's daughter, he declared, to think ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... suddenly he gave a cry of horror. Henri was a little ahead of him for he had not been able to stop as abruptly as Frank. And the German officer, too furious, perhaps, to think of what he was doing, raised his pistol and fired point-blank at the French boy! He fired—but there came from his pistol not a sharp report, but only the dull click as the hammer fell. Twice more he pulled the trigger. But something was wrong. He had made a ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... remained silent at the bed-head for the space, perhaps, of ten minutes, meditating over it all. If her son was, in truth, engaged to this woman, at any rate she would find that out. If she asked a point-blank question on that subject, Margaret would not be able to leave it unanswered, and would hardly be able to give a directly ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... it occurred to Mr Waller that perhaps the best plan would be to interview Psmith. Psmith would know exactly how matters stood. He could not ask Mike point-blank whether he had been dismissed. But there was the probability that Psmith had been informed and would pass on ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... length, turned their faces away and shot at random; it was clear that very few knew how to shoot, and that their Sniders could be of use only at short range. This is confirmed by the fact that all their murders are done point-blank. ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... village street, had been fired upon by a machine-gun controlled by a few men left behind by the enemy to inflict the greatest possible damage before discovery and capture. They had done their work well, for, concealed in the roof of a house, they had swept the street at point-blank range and literally mown down a whole company before they had been located, and "put out of action." Still they must have been brave men, for the personal result of such an ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... 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 ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Colonel. "Whipple refused point-blank to go to the country. He said that he would be shirking the only work of his life likely to be worth anything. So the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... route to fill the gap), in desiring to get rid of him, he certainly had some right on his side. The day before we reached Yung-ch'ang he was told that at that place he would not be required any longer; but he decided then and there to go no farther, and refused point-blank to carry when we were ready to start. I should have recompensed him fully, however, for his disappointment had he not made some detestable reference to my mother, in what Lao Chang assured me was not strictly parliamentary language. As soon as I learnt this—I was standing ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... when I saw her yesterday that she has not told you of what, I fear, will give you much pain. I asked her point-blank whether she wished the matter kept from you, and her answer was, 'He had better know—only I'm sorry for him.' In sum it is this: Bellow has either got wind of our watching him, or someone must have put him up to it; he has anticipated us and brought a suit against your ward, joining George ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... have said adieu to that mole-hill of Gay, Emile de Girardin and Company. I seized the first opportunity, and it was so favorable that I broke off, point-blank. A disagreeable affair came near following; but my susceptibility as man of the pen was calmed by one of my college friends, ex-captain in the ex-Royal Guard, who advised me. It all ended with a piquant ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... I found in a pocket-book of my uncle's, which I took possession of when the police and I searched his effects. I went to see Burchill about the will, of course. When I said that a will had been found he fenced with me. He would only reply ambiguously. Eventually he asked me, point-blank, if I would make it worth his while if he aided me in upsetting the will. I replied that if he could—which I doubted—I would. He told me to call at ten o'clock that night. I did so. He then told me what I had never suspected—that ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... powerful field-glasses trained on the scene most of the time. The poor lady had a mania for selling discarded clothing at top prices. We used to ask each other when we met at supper, "Did you buy anything today?" I refused point-blank to buy her wreckage, but the rangers were at a disadvantage. They wanted to be gentlemen and not hurt her feelings! Now and then one would get cornered and stuck with a second-hand offering before he ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... commando at Vryheid as commandant under General Lucas Meyer. It is said that at the battle of Dundee General Meyer, feeling convinced that the God of Battles had decided against him and his forces, decided to surrender to the British, but Louis Botha fiercely combated his general's decision, and point-blank refused to throw down his arms or counsel his men to do so. What followed all the world knows, and Botha went up very high in the estimation of the better class of fighting burghers. At the Tugela, before the first big battle took place, General Meyer was taken ill, and had ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... varieties of stone-throwing machinery; "the war-wolf" was long the chief of projectile machines, as the ram was of manual forces. The power of a battering-ram of the largest size, worked by a thousand men, has been proven to be equal to a point-blank shot from a thirty-six pounder. There were moveable towers of all sizes and of many names: "the sow" was a variety which continued in use in England and Ireland till the middle of the seventeenth century. The divisions of the cavalry ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... manner impressed them; a very rare flash of raillery did good. Severe or continuous mental application they could not, or would not, bear: heavy demand on the memory, the reason, the attention, they rejected point-blank. Where an English girl of not more than average capacity and docility would quietly take a theme and bind herself to the task of comprehension and mastery, a Labassecourienne would laugh in your face, and throw it back to you with ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... however, firmly refused to commit the double crime of sacrilege and murder, and, point-blank, declined all further share in the conspiracy. Here was an entirely unlooked-for situation, and an alternative plan was not easy to arrange. Francesco de' Pazzi seemed inclined to step into the breach, but detestation ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... for the unthinking but gallant seaman, so, despite Mr Rawlings' strict injunctions to the contrary, he levelled his rifle and fired point-blank into the group of ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... If he had got the money, he would have refused point-blank; as it was, he thought, perhaps the only chance of getting it was to go on. With no small reluctance and misgivings he mixed himself another tumbler of gin and water, and, changing seats, resumed the game. Nor was our discreet friend far wrong in his calculations, for luck now changed, and ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... fetters, which she abhorred, which bound her to Greece. Then, in 1876, the atrocities committed by the Turkish inhabitants of Bulgaria took place. The Porte, when besought by the Constantinople Conference to make concessions, refused point-blank. Then Russia stepped in and declared war, and proposed themselves to make a Bulgarian State. England and Austria promptly refused to lend themselves to this scheme, and a Berlin Congress was summoned. The Berlin Treaty in 1878 arranged the limits and administrative ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... of steam poured out. It was six feet from the gun muzzle before it condensed enough to be visible. Then a huge white cloud developed; but the metal pellets went on with deadly force. Half an inch in diameter, they carried seven hundred yards at extreme elevation. Point-blank range was seventy-five yards. They would kill at three hundred, and stun or disable beyond that. At a hundred yards they would tear through a ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... shrill cry, strangely high and wild, and this came from one of the Indians. It was answered by hoarse shouts. Then the leader of the trio, the Mexican who packed a gun, pulled it and fired point-blank. He missed once—and again. At the third shot the Papago shrieked and tumbled off his burro to fall in a heap. The other Indian swayed, as if the taking away of the support lent by his comrade had brought collapse, and with the fourth shot he, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... will do about it will be to make Esther miserable. They have begun to gossip already. A young man, even though he is a clergyman, can't be seen always in company with a pretty woman, without exciting remark. Only yesterday I was asked point-blank whether my niece was engaged to ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... came through the sleeve of his coat; he wanted to have it attended to, and begged the Duke of Saxe-Altenburg to assist him in leaving the battle-field; at that very moment, Falkenberg, lieutenant- colonel in the Imperial army, galloped his horse on to the king and shot him, point-blank, in the back with a pistol. The king fell from his horse; and Falkenberg took to flight, pursued by one of the king's squires, who killed him. Gustavus Adolphus was left alone with a German page, who tried to raise him; the king could no longer ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... about an 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, ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... cannon swept the deck of the Arab, splintering the cabin and accomplishing ten times as much damage as all her muskets had done to us. But she in turn, exasperated by the havoc we had wrought, fired simultaneously her two largest guns at point-blank range. ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... artful design Mrs. Morley put that question point-blank, fixing keen eyes on Isaura while she put it. She saw the heightened colour, the quivering lip of the girl thus abruptly appealed to, and she said inly: "I was ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... be, an enigma to her. In the middle of July, when the heat was so intense as to be almost intolerable, Daisy received a pressing invitation to visit an old friend, and to go yachting on the Broads. She refused it at first point-blank; but Muriel, hearing of the matter before the letter was sent, interfered, and practically insisted upon ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... warning, von Horn drew his gun, wheeled, and fired point-blank, first at one of his companions, then at the other. Both men fell in their tracks, and scarcely had the pungent odor of the powder smoke reached Bulan's nostrils ere the white man had plunged into ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... that they step out to the veranda, where it was cooler. From the veranda they strolled to the big gate, and there she asked him, point-blank, to tell her just what had happened in Phoenix. She had read the papers, and she surmised that there was more to the affair than the papers printed. For instance, Senator Brown, upon his return to the Box-S, had kindly sent ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... lancers joined them. More than 5,000 strong, these horsemen rode into the valley, formed at the foot of the slope, and then, under cover of their artillery, began to breast the slope. At its crest the guns of the allies opened on them point-blank; but, despite their horrible losses, they swept on, charged through the guns and down the reverse slope towards the squares. Volley after volley now tore through with fearful effect, and the survivors swerved to the intervals. Their second ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... the place, but 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 ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... state! What does I do? Why, sir, the very next time he and I meet, I says to him, 'Fitzalbert, it's very hard a man of your rank can't do something for his friends.' I knew the right way was to put the thing to him point-blank. 'So it would be,' says he, 'if it was, but it isn't.' 'Oh, isn't it?' says I; 'then, if you are the man I take you to be, you'll do the thing as is handsome by me.' He said nothing then, but took hold of my hand, and shook it ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... out of the pavement, and would sink into it again and reappear at some other spot the instant you left him behind. The expression of his eye was perfectly respectful, but terribly fixed, holding your own as by fascination, never once winking, never wavering from its point-blank gaze right into your face, till you were completely beyond the range of his battery of one immense rifled cannon. This was his mode of soliciting alms; and he reminded me of the old beggar who appealed so touchingly to the charitable sympathies of Gil Blas, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... hint of that decline which was in time to undermine the whole fabric of the Arts. Architecture was deposed from its high intellectual dominance. It tended more and more to become a conventional affair, and it was an easy transition from the exuberance of Hellenistic art to the point-blank vulgarity ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... guns with a superb charge, but though he got through himself he lost more men, amongst whom was a splendid fellow, his second in command, named Berwkoff, who was greatly loved by us all. A Magyar soldier seeing Kalmakoff with his Ataman banner borne by his side, took a point-blank shot at his head, but he forgot the high trajectory of the old Russian rifle, and the bullet merely grazed the top of the Cossack leader's head and sent his papaha into the mud. His banner-bearer could not see his leader's cap so left, and jumped off his horse to rescue it. Raising the ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... secret leaked out. Either Groseillers told it or his wife dropped some hint of it to her father confessor; but the two explorers were amazed to receive official orders to conduct the Jesuits to the North Sea by way of the Saguenay. They refused point-blank to go as subordinates on any expedition. The fur trade was at this time regulated by license. Any one who proceeded to the woods without license was liable to imprisonment, the galleys for life, death if the offense were repeated. ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... I addressed 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 OFFER ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... will secret, and of course the young people are all agog to know what is in it. One day he accidentally leaves his desk open, and realises that someone has been at his desk, and has read the will. He calls all the young people to his bed, and asks them point-blank who it was. Of course he gets various kinds of answer, from the offended, to the frightened and cowed. But by chance he finds out exactly who had peeked into his desk and read the will. We won't spoil the story for you, but would say this: that it ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... investigated with religious care; and the waters of the Clyde, as high as they will honestly flow, let in upon them without ceremony or remorse. As for the others, who, with no great semblance of either grace or grammar to support them, persist in affirming, with point-blank stolid effrontery, that Macpherson "must have been an impostor," and that Ossian is a "fudge"—they may safely be consigned in silence to ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... of round and grape too well succeeded in thinning the British ranks." [Footnote: James, "Military Occurrences," i, p. 151.] Meanwhile the troop-boats, under Captain Perry and Colonel Scott dashed in, completely covered by a heavy fire of grape directed point-blank at the foe by the Hamilton, Scourge, and Asp. "The fire from the American shipping committed dreadful havoc among the British, and rendered their efforts to oppose the landing of the enemy ineffectual." [Footnote: Loc. ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... government, and was, in effect, arbitrarily appropriating the property of subjects without their consent asked or obtained. Pitt disposed of the argument of virtual representation by denying it point-blank; Americans were not in the same position with those Englishmen who were not directly represented in Parliament; because the latter were inhabitants of the kingdom, and could be, and were indirectly represented in a hundred ways. But while opposing the right of Parliament to rob America, he asserted ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... a solemn countenance and in deep measured tones. Yet somehow I got an irresistible conviction that he was exasperated by something in particular. In the unworthy hope of being amused by the misfortunes of a fellow-creature I asked him point-blank what was ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... Of course, if he should ask me point-blank if I had told any one, I should answer truthfully, tell him that I had told you and explain why I did it. And some day I shall tell him whether he asks or not. But when he first comes here I want him to be—to be—well, as nearly happy as ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... made it his business to expostulate with a lax young cynic he met with somewhere about there—son of some landowner up that way—and who has a mother afflicted with blindness. My father addressed himself to the gentleman point-blank, and there was quite a disturbance. It was very foolish of my father, I must say, to intrude his conversation upon a stranger when the probabilities were so obvious that it would be useless. But whatever he thinks ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... possible she—even she—that young, childlike-looking creature—might be, and probably was the actual author of the clever book everybody was talking about, and though no one had the hardihood to ask her point-blank if the report was true, people glanced at her inquisitively and murmured their "asides" of suggestion or incredulity, finding it difficult to believe that a woman could at any time or by any means, alone and unaided, snatch one flower from ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... Briefly, as against the fathers, we find a sufficient refutation in what followed Christianity. If, at a period five, or even six hundred years after the birth of Christ, you find people still consulting the local Oracles of Egypt, in places sheltered from the point-blank range of the state artillery,—there is an end, once and forever, to the delusive superstition that, merely by its silent presence in the world, Christianity must instantaneously come into fierce activity as a reagency of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... point-blank to retract, effectually destroyed whatever hopes of mediation or reconciliation had been entertained by the milder and more moderate adherents of the Church who still wished for reform. Nor was any union possible with ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... parentage, nothing was known. She had met Adela's delicately-searching touches in that direction with a marked reserve. It was impossible to ask her point-blank, after probing her with a dozen suggestions, for the ingenuousness of an indifferent inquiry could not then be assumed, so that Adela was constantly baked and felt that she must some day be excessively 'fond with her,' which was annoying. The girl ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not even necessary to adjust sights, as the enemy were within "point-blank" range. Enfilading the enemy these guns were raking his flank with fire, whilst he was preparing to make a final rush down into the wadi. Had not this move been circumvented in the "nick of time," it is ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... the form of a man's figure, standing still and motionless as a statue in the midst of all this tumult, and thereupon, as by some instinct, knew that that must be the master-maker of all this devil's brew. Therewith, still kneeling upon the deck, he covered the bosom of that figure point-blank, as he supposed, with his pistol, and instantly pulled ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... and when a man is apt to be perplexed in his affections between a fine woman and a truffled turkey. Her ladyship was certainly rivalled, through the whole of the first course, by a dish of stewed carp; and there was one glance, which was evidently intended to be a point-blank shot at her heart, and could scarcely have failed to effect a practicable breach, had it not unluckily been directed away to a tempting breast of lamb, in which it immediately produced a formidable incision. Thus did this faithless general go on, coquetting during ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... I gripped my musket and ran to the bulwarks. A heave of the swell had lifted the boat up to receive our discharge, which must have burst point-blank upon her bottom boards; for I leaned over in bare time to see her settling down in a swirl beneath the feet of her crew, who, after vainly grabbing for hold at the Gauntlet's sides, flung themselves forward and were swimming one ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... holding by the neck his poor little Abdiel, curled up into the shape of a flea. The brute was making his way with him to the cage of the puma, whose wrath, grown to an indescribable frenzy, now blazed point-blank ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... at once. Thought old thing was going to be drowned in a shower of bullets. Germans dashed up from all sides. We fired at them point-blank. The survivors had another try. More of them went down.... A rain of bullets resumed. It was like as if hundreds of rivets were being hammered into the hide of the 'tank.' We rushed through.... Got right ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... this request 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
... Nationalist Party, which aimed at 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 ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... had remained in their original positions—she on the doorstep, he on the sidewalk, bareheaded for the sake of coolness, and with the bandbox on his arm. But upon this last speech Harry, who was unable to support such point-blank compliments to his appearance, nor the encouraging look with which they were accompanied, began to change his attitude, and glance from left to right in perturbation. In so doing he turned his face toward the lower end of the ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... over with a few words which glitter, but convey little light and less warmth—is a dishonest use of the poor single half hour in a week which is put into our hands—'Tis not preaching the gospel—but ourselves—For my own part, continued Yorick, I had rather direct five words point-blank to the heart.—As Yorick pronounced the word point-blank, my uncle Toby rose up to say something upon projectiles—when a single word and no more uttered from the opposite side of the table drew every one's ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... herself down in front of him, and, with her elbows on the sand, and her chin on her hands, watched him with all the frank curiosity and unmoved nonchalance imaginable, as she launched the question point-blank. ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... worst days of the French monarchy, which his clients were being subjected to. The whole investigation was in keeping with the spirit evinced by the bench. The witnesses seemed to come for the special purpose of swearing point-blank against the hapless men in the dock, no matter at what cost to truth, and to take a fiendish pleasure in assisting in securing their condemnation. One of the witnesses was sure "the whole lot of them wanted to murder everyone who had any property;" another assured his interrogator in ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... his brain—poor old 'Bias!" said Cai to himself, and thought no more about it. Nor did it occur to his mind that, overnight, Mrs Bowldler had point-blank refused to lay another meal in the room inhabited by the parrot, until, descending to 'Bias's parlour and becoming aware, as he lifted the teapot, that the room was brighter and sunnier than usual, he cast a glance toward the window. The parrot-cage no longer darkened ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... made him a liberal offer for "Splatchett's" about six years ago; but he had refused point-blank, being ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... ordered his own battered ship to be abandoned for the Minion, telling Drake to come alongside in the Judith. In these two little vessels all that remained of the English sailed safely out, in spite of the many Spanish guns roaring away at point-blank range and of two ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... A; B's the moon; it is clear How the rest of the alphabet brings up the rear Of the planets. Now ask Arago, ask La Place, (Your sages, who speak with the heavens face to face!) Their science in plain A B C to accord To your point-blank inquiry, my friends! not a word Will you get for your pains from their sad lips. Alas! Not a drop from the bottle that's quite full will pass. 'Tis the half-empty vessel that freest emits The water that's in it. 'Tis thus with men's wits; Or at least ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... horse belongs ter you, does it?" asked the strange man, coming forward and addressing Frank in a point-blank manner. "I am a horseman, and I know all about critters. If there's anything the matter—and there seems to be—I can tell what it is in five minutes. Shall I ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... boys had engaged me on the previous day for a game of ninepins, and when it was over, they came close to me, and looking at each other to keep up their courage, they put to me the following questions, point-blank: ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... man I liked had not enough to keep a wife and family; he looked before he leaped. He never leaped at all; he never even proposed to me point-blank, but it came round to me through a friend. But you working-people, you never look, and you always leap, and when you have got your ten children and nothing to feed them on, then you think that the gentlefolks who would not marry because they had ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... last resting-place. But Olivier begged him to go, and promised that he would faithfully watch over her in his stead: he induced him to leave the house: and, to make sure of his not going back on his decision, went with him to the station. Christophe refused point-blank to go without having a sight of the great river, by which he had spent his childhood, the mighty echo of which was preserved for ever within his soul as in a sea-shell. Though it was dangerous for him to be seen in the town, yet for his whim he disregarded it. ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... springing to her feet. "That is just the dreadful, dreadful part of it! Why don't you say straight out what I am to do and keep to it, and not tell me I must make use of my own faculties? When I do, you put on a face and object. Either don't object, or tell me point-blank ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... the root of the disease. This remark, however, was not addressed to his face, but to a crumb of ashes on the cloth, which I was trying to remove with the point of a knife. He might not have answered, or liked it, had I fired the question at him point-blank. ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... was a pause, so long that the Englishman thought he was going to be refused point-blank; then an even voice said, "Come in," ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... Federals moved forward the grey skirmishers fell back through the Groveton wood, and scarcely had they reached the railroad before the long blue lines came crashing through the undergrowth. Hill's riflemen, lying down to load, and rising only to fire, poured in their deadly volleys at point-blank range. The storm of bullets, shredding leaves and twigs, stripped the trees of their verdure, and the long dry grass, ignited by the powder sparks, burst into flames between the opposing lines. But neither flames nor musketry availed ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... 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 green ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... sometimes come to me, when in the wayfaring of my patient academic duties, I speak about Pater, and ask me point-blank to tell them what his "view-point"—so they are pleased to express it—"really and truly" was. Sweet reader, do you know the pain of these "really and truly" questions? I try to answer in some blundering manner like ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... damage was soon repaired: a considerable post was taken from the enemy by assault, and afterwards regained by the French grenadiers, through the timidity of the sepoys, by whom it was occupied. By the fifteenth clay of January, a second battery being raised within point-blank, a breach was made in the curtain: the west face and flank of the north-west bastion were ruined, and the guns of the enemy entirely silenced. The garrison and inhabitants of Pondicherry were now reduced to an extremity of famine which would admit of no hesitation. General Lally sent ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... building, in the stockyards district, the automobile was stopped by a wave of dead. It was for all the world like a wave tossed up by the sea. It was patent to us what had happened. As the mob charged past the corner, it had been swept, at right angles and point-blank range, by the machine-guns drawn up on the cross street. But disaster had come to the soldiers. A chance bomb must have exploded among them, for the mob, checked until its dead and dying formed the wave, had white-capped and flung forward ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... squirming, but I thought I would pin him down hard and fast, so I asked him the pat question: 'Then you have not bought any straw hats for this season's business, Brother Ward?' 'Nope, nope,' said he—telling what I knew to be a point-blank lie. ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... regime of the musket it required the soldier's weight in lead to kill him. Its point-blank range was about sixty yards, but precision even at that short distance it by no means possessed. At the battle of Fontenoy the English and French Guards, drawn up in opposite lines, conversed with each other prior to firing, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... still watching me sullenly. "I got up and went forward along the roof of the house, so as to have an eye on either rail. You understand, this business had to be done with. I kept straight along. Every shadow I wasn't absolutely sure of I made sure of—point-blank. And I rounded the thing up at the very stem—sitting on the butt of the bowsprit, Ridgeway, washing her yellow face under the moon. I didn't make any bones about it this time. I put the bad end of that gun against the scar on her head and squeezed the trigger. It snicked on an empty ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... army who resigned their commissions was Colonel Robert E. Lee, who was sent for by General Scott, and asked point-blank whether he intended to resign with those officers who proposed to take part with their respective states, or to remain in the service of the Union. Colonel Lee made no reply, whereupon "Old Chapultepec" came directly to the point, saying, "I suppose you will go with the rest. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... as you can imagine, a proposal that M. Binet would swallow at a draught. He began with a point-blank refusal ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... mind owning, sir," the younger man resumed, nervously, "she had me sparring for wind when she put it to me point-blank her ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... appearance, and alarmed the Kirk 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 or two of the principal qualifications for a place among ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... Englishman in general is like my friend the Member of Parliament, and believes, point-blank, that for a thing to be an anomaly is absolutely no objection to it whatever. He is like the Lord Auckland[34] of Burke's day, who, in a memorandum on the French Revolution, talks of "certain miscreants, assuming ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... The perspective of the stage is not that of real life, and the result of seeming is achieved by means which, judged by themselves, would seem to be indirect. It is only the raw recruit who tries to hit the bull's-eye by point-blank firing, and who does not allow for elevation and windage. Are we to take it for a moment, that in the Art of Acting, of which elocution is an important part, nothing is to be left to the individual idea of the actor? ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... to me for 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 order to procure the beef himself, and thus ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... who were "not playing the game". One was Jack Brady, who persisted in walking first with one party and then the other, and refused point-blank to be distant towards anyone. The other was the youngest scholar of Brincliffe, one Hugill Trevelyan, commonly known as "Toppin". He was only seven, and did not understand the meaning of a civil war. Toppin ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... 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 caloric Pole, love ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... Scandinavians adventurous because their country is cold; Englishmen naval because they are islanders; Switzers free because they are mountaineers. It is all very nice in its way. Only unfortunately I am quite certain that I could make up quite as long a list exactly contrary in its argument point-blank against the influence of their geographical environment. Thus Spaniards have discovered more continents than Scandinavians because their hot climate discouraged them from exertion. Thus Dutchmen have fought for their freedom quite as bravely as Switzers because the Dutch have ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... of taxing Nat with it," declared Dave. "For he would deny it point-blank, unless you ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... Hornet and Penguin, as well as those of the Reindeer and Avon, showed that the excellence of American gunnery continued till the close of the war. Whether at point-blank range or at long-distance practice, the Americans used guns as they had never ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... almost suddenly the Ariadne 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 Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... strong debate? 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
... a point-blank challenge in his eyes. The doctor leaned a little toward him, as if about to speak, but caught himself. For several moments his keen eyes gazed squarely into Philip's, and when he broke the silence the same nervous flush that Philip had noticed ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... dispositions, and the little force marched boldly out from its shelter and faced the enemy. At this the whole Moorish army halted, still out of point-blank range, and contented themselves with continuing their artillery fire, which we returned as best we could with our few guns. Colonel Clive passed to and fro along the line several times, noting everything that happened, and anxiously watching for some symptom of the ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... highly intelligent chief engineer of a big tramp steamer telling tales of the fairies! Von Staden couldn't understand it. It was so childish—and yet there was nothing childish about Terence Reardon. The German wondered if Terence Reardon believed in the fairies and finally he asked him point-blank if he did; whereupon Terence turned a solemn eye upon ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... conditions were on March 23 rejected by the States-General. Wiser counsels however prevented this point-blank refusal being sent to Paris, and it was hoped that a policy of delay might secure better terms. The negotiations went on slowly through March and April; and, as Blauw and Meyer had no powers as accredited plenipotentiaries, the Committee determined to send ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... the whole line of sandbags became alive with other white figures pouring in one crashing volley at point-blank range, and with a full-throated British cheer the Reedshires vaulted over the wet ditch and hurled themselves upon the astonished ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... again. The rhinoceros trotted off a little way from the pool, looking angrily around, but suddenly stopped, and then, much to our satisfaction, down he came to the ground. The body lay still within point-blank range of my rifle. This was a matter of great importance. It must be understood that I killed the rhinoceros, not in mere wantonness, but that the carcass might serve as a bait to a lion, of which I was so anxious to get possession. I waited for some time, during which ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... too preoccupied to notice her handmaiden's significant emphasis, as she indicated a fresh-looking, bashful young fellow, whose confusion was evidently heightened by the unexpected egress of Mr. Hamlin, and the point-blank presence ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the paper. Runcorn is strong on the side of blackguardism. We had a great fight the other day over a leader offered by Kenyon,—a true effusion of the political gutter-snipe. I refused point-blank to let it go in; Runcorn swore that, if I did not, I should go out. I offered to retire that moment. "We must write for our public," he bellowed. "True," said I, "but not necessarily for the basest among them. The standard at the best is low enough." "Do you call ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... 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 for ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... greatly distinguished), and both officers and men were made to feel the necessity of success. [Footnote: Ibid.] At the same time Crook succeeded in bringing a light howitzer of Simmonds's mixed battery down from the hill-tops, and placed it where it had a point-blank fire on the further end of the bridge. The howitzer was one we had captured in West Virginia, and had been added to the battery, which was partly made up of heavy rifled Parrott guns. When everything was ready, a heavy skirmishing fire was opened all along the bank, the howitzer threw in double charges ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... 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. The divine retires for the sermon which—prescient of his ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... because our English novelists are such dabs at the art of omission." And after the briefest pause, "Mere idle and impertinent curiosity," he postulated, "is one thing: honest neighbourly interest is another. If I were a bolder man, I should ask you point-blank what part of Italy your part ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... this fox, in a point-blank view, is black, but viewed at an angle it is a dark silvergray, whence has arisen the notion that the black and the silver-gray are distinct varieties. The tip of ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... drilled into and fully adopted by his assistant, that the editor must be personally responsible for every word that appeared in his columns. Those columns, to be kept pure, must represent nothing but the editor's personal views. Therefore, on more than one occasion, the Colonel had refused point-blank to prepare articles which his directors wished printed. He always accompanied these refusals with his resignation, which the directors invariably returned to him, thereby abandoning their point. Queed was for the moment editor in the ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... he and the gray must swing onto the floor of the valley before him unless he urged Molly to top speed. He must get there at a sufficient distance from them to escape close rifle fire, and certainly beyond point-blank revolver range. Accordingly he threw his weight more into the stirrups and over the withers of the mare. This brought greater poundage on her forehand and made her apt to stumble or actually miss her step, but it ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... made in the legation wall, Captain Halliday followed by his men crept through, and at once came upon the enemy, and before he was able to use his revolver received a serious wound from a rifle at point-blank range, the bullet breaking his shoulder and entering the lung; notwithstanding, he shot three of the enemy and walked back unaided to the hospital. For this gallant action Captain Halliday was awarded ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... to unseemliness occurred when, in response to a formal intimation that "discussion within reasonable limits" would be permitted, one of the Kilburn Sisters, a woman who had given up a fortune and relinquished a title, got up and asked the chairman point-blank what his interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount was, and further, if any of the noble and reverend gentlemen on the platform could give a better exposition of it as a rule of Christian life ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... military honour, used the standard of France to wipe away mud and shame, put handcuffs on the generals of Africa, made the representatives of the people travel in prison-vans, filled Mazas, Vincennes, Mont Valerien, and Sainte-Pelagie with inviolable men, shot down point-blank, on the barricade of the law, the legislator girt with that scarf which is the sacred and venerable symbol of the law; gave to a colonel, whom we could name, a hundred thousand francs to trample duty under foot, and to each soldier ten francs a day; distributed in four days forty ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... shook his head and his fist at the young Irishman, and discharged a double-headed oath at him, within point-blank shot. Nevertheless, Bohun continued, "If you will let me have one man, only ONE man, I may be able to save ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... scene followed. It appears that scattered groups of Chinese soldiers, some with their arms, and some without, had collected during this crisis and point-blank firing at once commenced. The first shots appear to have been fired—though this was never proved—by a Chinese regimental groom, who was standing with some horses some distance away in the gateway of some stabling and who is said to have killed ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... persecutions of fathers, the 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 ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... gun-carrier. One of the file fell at the first volley, two more broke through the line, and the remaining six or seven, led by a fierce old fellow, from whose long tusks the foam dripped, turned up the line and charged point-blank on the next gunner, who fired and missed, but succeeded in keeping them between the line and the jungle. The fourth gun brought down the second pig and wounded the boar in the shoulder. Frantic with rage and pain, the old fellow tore up the ground and grass with his ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman |
