"Abrupt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... yet experienced what can be effected by indomitable rage united with despair, and so having driven back the enemy beyond the abrupt precipices of the Balkan, they seized upon the rugged defiles in order to hem in the barbarians on ground from which they would be unable to find any exit, and where it seemed they might be overcome by famine. ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... had given him the shilling and the lecture on falsehood. He was writing so busily that our hero was obliged to stand for a moment or two unquestioned; but at last he looked up, and in seeming amazement at the presence of a stranger. "How long have you been here, and what do you want?" was the abrupt salutation. ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... smite the hardiest of us with dismay. No sooner does the panther find himse'f in the midst of that he'pless bevy of little ones, than he stops, turns round abrupt, an' sets down on his tail; an' then upliftin' his muzzle he busts into shrieks an' yells an' howls an' cries, a complete case of dog hysterics! That's what he is, a great yeller dog; his reason is now a wrack because we harasses him ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... to recommend him to the friendly reception of all, from Mr. Raymount to little Saffy, who had the rare charm of being shy without being rude. If not genial, his manners were yet friendly, and his carriage if not graceful was easy; both were apt to be abrupt where he was familiar. It was a kind of company bearing he had, but dashed with indifference, except where he desired to commend himself. He shook hands with little Saffy as respectfully as with her mother, ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... been in Chicago a week when Lucy wrote home what she had done, and begged forgiveness for being so abrupt about it. At least, I suppose that is what she ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... how happy it made her to be with Aunt Adeline, walking slowly, slowly, with her round the garden, stretched out beside her on the terrace, following her abrupt moves from the sun into the shade and back again; or sitting for hours with her in the big darkened bedroom when Adeline had one of the bad headaches that attacked her now, brushing her hair, and putting handkerchiefs soaked in ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... John Jamieson, situated several miles above Emu, commands an extensive view over that noble stream, the rich margins of which are hemmed in, on the west, by the abrupt precipices of the Blue mountains. The intermediate space beyond the ford is called Emu plains. At the inn near this ford I passed the night, being desirous to cross the ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... builds up a drama. From the opening shimmer and rustle of the garden, through the Gregorian chant that solemnizes the drawing of the lots, and is interrupted by the youth's start of joy at his own luck (an abrupt glissando); through his sturdy resolve to go to war in his friend's place, on through many battles to his death, all is on a high plane that commands sympathy for the emotion, and enforces unbounded admiration ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... fracture is brilliantly crystalline. The basalt is the same as that which caps the sandstone hills of the Vindhya range throughout Malwa. The sandstone hills around Gwalior all rise in the same abrupt manner from the plain as those through Malwa generally; and they have almost all of them the same basaltic glacis at their base, with boulders of that rock scattered over the top, all indicating that they were at one time buried, in ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... surprise at the speaker, shook his head in negation, looked up at the top of the tent, and after a long pause said, in abrupt sentences, with frequent interruptions: ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... thought, coming to an abrupt halt; "I screwed down that lamp and blew into the chimney in the orthodox fashion, so it couldn't have been that I unconsciously left ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... carts along the highest ground. Again ascend Murroa and partially clear the summit. Mount Rouse. Australian Pyrenees. Swamps harder than the ground around them. Again reach the good country. Mounts Bainbrigge and Pierrepoint. Mount Sturgeon. Ascend Mount Abrupt. View of the Grampians from the summit. Victoria range and the Serra. Mud again, and a broken axle. Mr. Stapylton examines the country before us. At length get through the soft region. Cattle quite exhausted. ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... this marked the consummation of Chichikov's relations with his host, for he hastened stealthily to pack his trunk and, the next day, figured in a fresh lodging. Also, he ceased to call the Chief Clerk "Papenka," or to kiss his hand; and the matter of the wedding came to as abrupt a termination as though it had never been mooted. Yet also he never failed to press his late host's hand, whenever he met him, and to invite him to tea; while, on the other hand, for all his immobility and dry ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... been informed by Emma of the intended abrupt departure of Mary Grey, and she had begun to oppose it with all ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... cut corners on two wheels, and on one wheel, and, I was prepared to swear, on no wheels. A couple of times, with the wings retracted, we actually jetted into the air and jumped over vehicles in front of us, landing again with bone-shaking jolts. Then we made an abrupt turn and shot in under a concrete arch, and a big door banged shut behind us, and we stopped, in the middle of a wide patio, the front of the car a few inches short of a fountain. Four or five people, in diplomatic striped trousers, local ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... usually called a 'cottage-residence'—situated in a remote hamlet, and that it was not more than a hundred years old, if so much, I was led to think in my progress through the hollow rooms, with their cracked walls and sloping floors, what an exceptional number of abrupt family incidents had taken place therein—to reckon only those which had come to my own knowledge. And no doubt there were many more of which ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... relieved that she took this view of his abrupt utterances. He thought the incident was ended. He was mistaken; Elsie was able to recall each word subsequently. At the moment she was recording impressions with uncomprehending accuracy, but her mind was quite incapable of analyzing them; that ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... England, but going out for their meals. The girl was but indirectly communicative; though seemingly less from any plan of secrecy than from the habit of associating with people whom she didn't honour with her confidence. She was fragmentary and abrupt, as well as not in the least shy, subdued to dread of Madame Carre as she had been for the time. She gave Sherringham a reason for this fear, and he thought her reason innocently pretentious. "She admired ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... Osborne wanted was his formal sanction to present at the bank, as without this the transaction would not have the necessary official character. Li agreed readily enough when the matter was presented in this light; what he had objected to was Lay's abrupt demand to pay so many thousand taels out of his own ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... lackeys also had stopped their horses, which stood pawing and snorting at a respectful distance. It was an awkward moment for me. I could not stand there trying to persuade a perfectly serene man to fight. So with an abrupt pull of the rein I started my horse, mechanically applied the spur, and galloped off. A few minutes later I was out of sight of this singularly self-controlled gentleman, who resented my description of the Duke of Guise. I was annoyed for some ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... of the type so freely copied and adapted by Domenico Campagnola, we find the jagged, naked peaks of the Dolomites aspiring to the heavens. In the majority of instances, however, the middle distance and foreground to these is not the scenery of the higher Alps, with its abrupt contrasts, its monotonous vesture of fir or pine forests clothing the mountain sides, and its relatively harsh and cold colouring, but the richer vegetation of the Friulan mountains in their lower slopes, or of the beautiful hills bordering upon the overflowing richness of the Venetian ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... our deductions are not as inevitable as they are logical, which suggests that they are not "logic." An arbitrary assumption is never fair to all any of the time, or to anyone all the time. Many will resent the abrupt separation that a theory of duality in music suggests and say that these general subdivisions are too closely inter-related to be labeled decisively—"this or that." There is justice in this criticism, but our answer is that it is better to be short on the ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... plastic. As a limitation we ought to note that this almost plastic material cannot be suddenly and violently dealt with—that is to say, with the exception of some sorts of arches, you cannot form any abrupt or startling feature in brickwork, and you are especially limited ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... were choked off by a sudden swirl of the craft. She seemed about to turn completely over, and then, twisted to an uncomfortable angle, so that those within her slid to the side walls of the cabin, the M. N. 1 came to an abrupt stop. At the same time she seemed to vibrate and tremble as if in terror ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... no questions, and I will tell you no lies," the Chevalier replied on his part. Strong thought of the words Mr. Altamont had used, and his abrupt departure from the Baronet's dining-table and house as soon as he recognised Major Pendennis, or Captain Beak, as he called the Major. But Strong resolved to seek an explanation of these words otherwise ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... abrupt, so nearly impatient, that Mrs. Grail made an end of her remarks. In a little while ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... the papers a statement of the disastrous winding up of the season at Covent Garden, or rather its still more disastrous abrupt termination. After our all protesting and remonstrating with all our might against my father's again being involved in that Heaven-forsaken concern, and receiving the most positive and solemn assurances from those who advised him into it for the sake ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... but although, when viewed at a glance, it had thus a regular sloping appearance, a more careful observation showed that it was broken up into a multitude of very small vales—or, rather, dells and glens—intermingled with little rugged spots and small but abrupt precipices here and there, with rivulets tumbling over their edges and wandering down the slopes in little white streams, sometimes glistening among the broad leaves of the bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees, ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... turned the corner, the girls joined them, and added their sympathy. But Chuck was in no mood to answer their questions, so with an abrupt "s'long" he turned at the next ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... assistants cried out at his abrupt entrance. Mrs. Herrington, forward beside the speech, turned ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... wish you would cure yourself of putting these abrupt questions. . . . Your Cousin Oliver is now the head of the family, remember. He has received us with uncommon cordiality, and put ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... for miles, Ruby singing at the top of her voice and the gentleman friend joining in at the chorus. Pearl's head was bent over, wobbly fashion. She was either asleep, or lost in deep thought. I have also a dim recollection of the vehicle coming to an abrupt halt, and a head thrust in at the window, saying pointedly that if we did not make less noise he would run the whole blanketty-blank gang in. This made me mad, and I wanted to fight the stranger then and there; but my warlike purpose was frustrated by the Jewels and their friend, who ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... to the summit of the cliff was made with caution, though the left flank of the adventurers was well protected by the abrupt descent they had already made from the terrace above. This left little more than the right flank and the front to be watched, the falling away of the land forming, also, a species of cover for the rear. It is not surprising, then, that the verge of the ravine ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... give him an attitude of his own. While the others follow passively in a close file, he, the captain, tosses himself about and with an abrupt movement flings the front of his body hither and thither. As he marches ahead he seems to be seeking his way. Does he in point of fact explore the country? Does he choose the most practicable places? Or are his hesitations merely the result of the absence of a guiding ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... her. I haven't been in Philadelphia since I was seven—and that's ages ago. I have no mother, and father is off in South America on business. So, you see, little sister has to tag after big sister. Oh!" She interrupted the recital with an abrupt change of manner. "I'm so sorry you've finished your coffee. Now you'll have to go. ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... of Attaf" occupies pp. 10-50, and the end is abrupt. The treatment of the "Novel" contrasts curiously with that of the Chavis MS. which forms my text, and whose directness and simplicity give it a European and even classical character. It is an excellent study of the liberties allowed to themselves by Eastern editors and scribes. In the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... be some more—" she said. Percival threw the tongs into the fender, and the dialogue came to an abrupt termination. "She" who gave a little jump was Miss Lisle, of course. But there would be some more—What? The young man revolved the matter gloomily in his mind as he paced to and fro within the narrow limits of his room. A natural impulse had caused him to interrupt Lydia's triumphant speech, which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... formed a band of several hundred warriors; and that they were now marching back towards the valley of the Huerfano—to take revenge for the death of Red-Hand, and the defeat which his party had sustained! This unexpected news brought the scalp-dance to an abrupt termination; and changed the whole aspect of the scene. The women, with loud cries, rushed towards their horses— with the intention of betaking themselves to a place of security; while the warriors looked to their arms—determined ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... for a moment or two, and then with an abrupt swing of his whole figure, eloquent of defiant resolution, he stared the Major in the face, and said in a quiet, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Boomplatz in 1848, established what went by the name of the Orange River Sovereignty, and in a year or two secured such good and peaceful government within its borders as to attract considerable numbers of English and Scotch colonists. The malcontents retired across the Vaal. Then came an abrupt change of policy in the Home Government, a sudden desire actuated mainly by fear of more native wars, to cancel all that was possible of our commitments in South Africa. The Transvaal, by the Sand River Convention, was declared independent in 1852, ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... building, ending with the chapel. In front of the chateau was an old square bastion forming a terrace, whose mossy walls were bathed by the waters of a large stagnant marsh. The west front which was plainer, was separated by only a few feet of level ground from the abrupt, wooded hill by which Tournebut was sheltered. A wall with several doors opening on the woods enclosed the chateau, the farm and the lower part of the park, and a wide morass, stretching from the foot of the terrace to the Seine, rendered access ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... assertion, as we entirely deny the accuracy or propriety, of the metaphysical analogies, in accordance with which his work has unhappily been arranged. Though these had been as carefully, as they are crudely, considered, it had still been no light error of judgment to thrust them with dogmatism so abrupt into the forefront of a work whose purpose is assuredly as much to win to the truth as to demonstrate it. The writer has apparently forgotten that of the men to whom he must primarily look for the working out of his anticipations, the most part are of limited knowledge and inveterate ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... long-necked, tall horses lifted their heads to watch her. For some seconds they seemed only mildly interested, but then a breeze moved across the lake, crinkling the surface of the water, and as it touched the opposite shore, abrupt panic exploded among the grazers. They wheeled, went flashing away in effortless twenty-foot strides, and were gone among ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... whom inversion is already developed, and who is seeking the gratification of the abnormal instinct. This appears to be a not uncommon incident in the early history of sexual inverts. That such seduction—sometimes an abrupt and inconsiderate act of mere sexual gratification—could by itself produce a taste for homosexuality is highly improbable; in individuals not already predisposed it is far more likely to produce disgust, as it did in the case of the youthful Rousseau. "He only ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... By an abrupt transition we pass from their consideration to the Hebrew classical drama modelled after the pattern of Moses Chayyim Luzzatto's. Greatest attention was bestowed upon historical dramas, notably those on the trials and fortunes of Marranos, the favorite ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... villages had an appearance of respectable age not perceptible in the settlements along the Amoor. Ten or twelve miles from our wooding place we met ice coming out of the Chorney river, but it gave us no inconvenience. The valley became wider and the hills less abrupt, while the villages had an air of irregularity more pleasing than the military precision on the Amoor. I saw many dwellings on which decay's effacing fingers were busy. The telegraph posts were fixed above Gorbitza, but the wires ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... Library, Domitian A. viij. A bilingual Chronicle, Latin and Saxon, which, by internal evidence, is assigned to Christ Church, Canterbury. The abrupt ending at 1058 is no indication of the book's date: it was written late ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... incarnate in him. It is the ice of winter penetrated by the spear of the sun; that is, Glooskap. Thus, in another tale, a frozen river tries, as a man, to destroy the hero, but is melted by him. The conception of the hour when all wishes are granted, and the abrupt termination of the whole in a grand transformation scene, are both very striking. There is something like the former in Rabelais, in his narrative of the golden hatchet; as regards the latter, it is like the ending of a Christmas pantomime. Indeed, ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... to listen, as it were to the deepening dumbness of all existing things,—and to conquer the strange sensations that were overcoming him, he proceeded at a more rapid pace,—but in two or three minutes came again to an abrupt halt. For there in front of him, right across his path, lay the fallen pillar which, according to Heliobas, marked the boundary to the field he sought! Another glance at his map decided the position ... he had reached his journey's end at last! What was the time? He looked—it was just ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Nunez Vela, the first Viceroy appointed by Spain, arrived in Peru, where he found de Castro in charge of the Government. Nunez Vela's methods proved themselves arbitrary in the extreme. Scarcely had he landed when he sent an abrupt command to de Castro to resign his post, and to place himself forthwith in attendance on the new Viceroy. This action roused the anger of the Pizarro faction. Its adherents revolted and established ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... Melton customers are to forswear pigskin and severe simplicity—not to say utility and comfort. If poetic diction be different in species from plain English, then let us have it as poetical as possible, and as unlike English; as ungrammatical, abrupt, involved, transposed, as the clumsiness, carelessness, or caprice of man can make it. If it be correct to express human thought by writing whole pages of vague and bald abstract metaphysic, and then trying to explain them by concrete concetti, which bear an entirely accidental and mystical ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... admitted continuity of man's progress from the brute does not admit of the introduction of new causes, and that we have no evidence of the sudden change of nature which such introduction would bring about. The fallacy as to new causes involving any breach of continuity, or any sudden or abrupt change, in the effects, has already been shown; but we will further point out that there are at least three stages in the development of the organic world when some new cause or power must necessarily ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the exact moment of an abrupt change in nature. Yesterday, however, I watched a wonderful thing—the oncoming of ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... of their united years and opened the high gate to us and delivered us over to a mild boy. He bestowed on us, for a consideration, a bunch of wild violets, and then, as if to keep us from the too abrupt sight of the repairs and changes going on near the casino, led us first to the fish-pond, in the untouched seclusion of a wooded hill, and silently showed us the magnificent view which the top commanded, if commanded is not too proud a word for ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... to such an abrupt standstill stared at each other. Edna saw a poor, ragged, dirty, pale-faced child with wild locks; and the little girl saw Edna with the tears still coursing down her cheeks, her pretty coat and frock stained with mud, and her hat knocked very ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... checked by an impatience to learn the cause of Lieutenant Raymond's abrupt appearance, and the officers approached the principal group. The former had now reached the shore, and, shuffling up the bank as fast as his own corpulency and the abruptness of the ascent would permit, hastened to the General, who stood at some little ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... last when she thought they ought to get married, and when he saw her blush deeply, even to her neck, he regretted that he had been too abrupt. There was no hurry; she must decide that herself; no need to answer now, not ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... advice had been set aside, and Parliament had been summoned for July 25th. But peace had already been secured, and immediate supply was no longer necessary. The King prorogued Parliament on July 29th, but not before the House had passed a resolution against a standing army. This abrupt dismissal of Parliament, when its presence was no longer called for, inflamed the anger against Clarendon. Those who had hoped to find an opportunity of pressing home their attack upon him in Parliament were indignant at the loss of this opportunity. Even the moderate men desired an explanation, ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... the love affairs of others is, indeed, impersonal; he is filled with concern for my Lady Castlemaine, whom he only knows by sight, shares in her very jealousies, joys with her in her successes; and it is not untrue, however strange it seems in his abrupt presentment, that he loved his maid Jane because she was in ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with a smile, which was instantly explained by an abrupt plunge from the top of a long hill down into a cutting between lichen-scaled rocks, tracing with our "pneus" as we went a series of giddy zig-zags. We had hardly twisted one way when lo! the time had come to twist in the opposite direction, and nowhere had we a radius of more than twenty ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... short a time as it now takes him to read an auction bill?" Suddenly a happy thought struck me: it was to write a novel, in which only the actual spirit of the narration should be retained, rejecting all expletives, flourishes, and ornamental figures of speech; to be terse and abrupt in style—use monosyllables always in preference to polysyllables—and to eschew all heroes and heroines whose names contain more than four letters. Full of this idea, on my returning home in the evening, I sat to my desk, and before I retired to rest, had written a novel ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... I leave the service?" he asked slowly. "I don't know;" and Durrance seized the opportunity to rise from the table and cross to the window, where he stood with his back to his companions. Feversham took the abrupt movement for a reproach, and spoke to Durrance's back, not ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... lake, broad spread; a glimpse Of clear-rimmed bay, encroaching lusk Upon a lapse of rocky vale; Beyond, a brunt-browed mountain, set Abrupt against a weary waste Of level, sparse-grown forest plain. Vanguard of Order's birth on Earth's Primeval stage, sphynx-like, the mount From chaos burst upon a world Of sea in space. It kept its head To the sun; it pierced the dense of the mists; It gathered forces, one by one, Until the land by ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... sac. His beech ridges always led to other beech ridges; his hardwood never petered out into the terrible black swamps. Sometimes Thorpe became sensible that they had commenced a long detour; but it was never an abrupt ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... indifference, with the brief appearance of the soberly-garbed young student upon the scene and his abrupt and silent departure, all the zest seemed to have gone out of Lady ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... certainly rather an abrupt and unconnected mode of commencing conversation. It might indeed be supposed to refer to the course of Gluck's thoughts, which had first produced the dwarf's observations out of the pot; but whatever it referred to, Gluck had no ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... the city wall. The place was very solitary. It was divided from the streets and mansions above by thick groves and extensive gardens, which stretched along the undulating descent of the hill. A short distance to the westward lay the Pincian Gate, but an abrupt turn in the wall and some olive trees which grew near it, shut out all view of objects in that direction. On the other side, towards the eastward, the ramparts were discernible, running in a straight line of some length, until they suddenly turned inwards at ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... charm were with her, all the strength with him. He was an abrupt and dictatorial lover, but she was a born sweetheart. At the moment when her arms were twined about him she most perfectly expressed herself. He drank in her kisses thirstily; then grasped her wrists firmly and removed them from his neck, as if he ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... ever, and having been changed, and modified constantly are to be subject to no farther development or decay, I laugh, and let the man speak. But I would have toleration for these, as I would ask it for my own opinions; and if they are to die, I would rather they had a decent and natural than an abrupt and violent death." ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the table and went into the kitchen. Glen and Reynolds looked at each other without a word. They were both surprised at Weston's words and the abrupt manner in which he left them. Moved by the same impulse, they, too, rose from the table and went out of doors. It was a beautiful evening, and the sky beyond the mountain peaks was aglow with the lingering light of departing day. ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... up the lake in person: They were about to go on board, as I Left Flueelen; but still the gathering storm, That drove me here to land so suddenly, Perchance has hindered their abrupt departure. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... corps failed to reckon with the consequences of the war that broke out suddenly in Korea in June. Two factors connected with that conflict caused an abrupt change in Marine race policy. The first was the great influx of Negroes into the corps. Although the commandant insisted that race was not considered in recruitment, and in fact recruitment instructions since 1948 contained no reference ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... as strange as she could consent, afterwards, to think it; it had been, essentially, what had made the abrupt bend in her life: he had come back, had followed her from the other house, VISIBLY uncertain—this was written in the face he for the first minute showed her. It had been written only for those seconds, and it had appeared to go, quickly, after they began to talk; but ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... particularly dingy appearance, as the gas-lights necessitated by the premature gloom of the hour gleamed dimly through a blearing window-pane here and there. The house still retained the narrow street-door, hall-way, and abrupt immediate stairway of its earlier days; and had, too, the old-style goodly single brown stone for a "stoop," along the front fall of which, in faded white block letters, as though originally done with a stencil-plate, appeared the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... changed for lichens and mosses. Through this rocky meadow now roamed, now rushed, now tumbled one of those Alpine streams the very thought of whose ice-born plenitude makes me happy yet. Its banks were not abrupt, but rounded gently in, and grassy down to the water's brink. The larger torrents of Winter wore the channel wide, and the sinking of the water in Summer let the grass grow within it. But peaceful as the place was, and ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... down the street, and twirled his rattan, as he went. The coal-digger was abrupt and distant in his greeting, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... Well, to get back to Miles Chandon. . . . He was young—a second son, you'll remember, and poor at that; a second lieutenant in the Navy, with no more than his pay and a trifling allowance. The boy had good instincts," said Miss Sally with a short, abrupt laugh. "I may as well say at once that he wanted to marry me, but had been forced ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... fearful state that it took us ten days to cover as many miles. At length we trekked over a stony nek about five hundred yards in width. To the right of us was a stony eminence and to our left, its sheer brown cliffs of rock rising like the walls of some cyclopean fortress, the strange, abrupt mount of Isandhlwana, which reminded me of a huge lion crouching above the hill-encircled plain beyond. At the foot of this isolated mount, whereof the aspect somehow filled me with alarm, we camped on the night ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... How could you!" she cried and reined Diogenes to abrupt standstill. "Go and pick it ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... Brahmanism and Mahayanist Buddhism nourished, but as in Java and Champa without mutual hostility. This period extends certainly from the sixth to the thirteenth centuries and perhaps its limits should be stretched to 400-1400 A.D. In any case it passed without abrupt transition into the second period in which, under Siamese influence, Hinayanist Buddhism supplanted the older faiths, although the ceremonies of the Cambojan court still preserve a good ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... (de la Meuse): "Anecdotes relatives a la Revolution." "He was dressed like a tough cab-driver. He had a disturbed look and an eye always in motion; he acted in an abrupt, quick and jerky way. A constant restlessness gave a convulsive contraction to his muscles and features which likewise affected his manner of walking so that he didn't walk ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... times in steam-vessels, and having seen with what care the captains endeavoured to maintain a wide offing, I could not conceive the reason of our being now so near the dangerous region. The wind was blowing hard towards the shore, if that can be called a shore which consists of steep abrupt precipices, on which the surf was breaking with the noise of thunder, tossing up clouds of spray and foam to the height of a cathedral. We coasted slowly along, rounding several tall forelands, some of them piled up by the hand of nature in the ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... complaint "nervousness;" when idleness and ennui preyed upon a languid frame, he had a startling habit of rousing the patient by a mental cautery. The poor idolized him, but the ladies pronounced him coarse, abrupt; and when ladies decide against a doctor, fate frowns ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... clauses of the treaty of Washington, in pursuance of the joint resolution of March 3, 1883, must have resulted in the abrupt cessation on the 1st of July of this year, in the midst of their ventures, of the operations of citizens of the United States engaged in fishing in British American waters but for a diplomatic understanding reached with Her ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... one that does not show an abrupt change from the story told by the teacher. It should not be merely a short outline of the important facts in history, written separately and then pieced together in chronological order, but should be written in a readable form by one who is able to distinguish the important and necessary ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History • Ontario Ministry of Education
... and copy; and before many months were passed in their new position, it would have been difficult to suppose that Mrs Austin had not been born in the sphere in which she then moved. Austin was brusque and abrupt in his manners as before; but still there was always a reserve about him, which he naturally felt, and which assisted to remove the impression of vulgarity. People who are distant are seldom considered ungentlemanlike, although they may be considered unpleasant in their manners. It is those ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... 1: We are pleading.—Ver. 5. The skill of the Poet is perceptible in the abrupt commencement of the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... card-catalogue?" he asked in a pleasant abrupt voice; and the oddness of the question caused her to drop ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... key strongly. "Cadenza," the Italian form of the same word, is used of a free flourish in a vocal or instrumental composition, introduced immediately before the close of a movement or at the end of the piece. The object is to display the performer's technique, or to prevent too abrupt a contrast between two movements. Cadenzas are usually left to the improvisation of the performer, but are sometimes written in full by the composer, or by some famous executant, as in the cadenza in Brahms's Violin Concerto, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... unsuccessfully, entered the room. The sight of this old and dear friend gave great joy. He came to engage them to dine with him the next day, having already ineffectually endeavoured to obtain them for permanent guests. They sat chatting so long with him, that they were obliged at last to bid him an abrupt adieu, and hasten and make their toilettes ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... not get along, for Milagros was a bit haughty and a climber, considering herself a social superior fallen upon evil days, while Leandro, on the other hand, was abrupt and irascible. ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... hide and seek all over the delightful big dusty old barn; until Patricia, trying to reach goal by a short cut down from the loft, came to an abrupt halt in her descent, caught on ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... was drawling, and quite gentle; but at the sound of it, Higli's laugh stopped short, and the muscles of his face contracted. If there was one man of whom he had a wholesome fear—why, he could not tell—it was this round-faced, abrupt, imperturbable American, Claridge Pasha's right-hand man. Legends of resourcefulness and bravery had gathered round his name. "Who's been stroking your chin with a feather, pasha?" he continued, his eye piercing the other ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... order to throw a few gleams of light on her past.—He leads her into the palace of our kings, and moralizes thereon; and, entering the Royal Gardens, shows the uncertainty of human events, and the insecurity of British laws, by the abrupt seizure and constrained deportation of an innocent and ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... He had the innocent expression of a fox-terrier, and rather resembled one. He was neatly and inoffensively dressed in blue serge, and although he did not look exactly like a gentleman, he would have passed for one in a crowd. When Chaldea made her abrupt entrance he was talking volubly to Pine, and the millionaire addressed him—when he answered—as Silver. Chaldea, remembering the conversation she had overheard between Pine and Miss Greeby, speedily reached the conclusion that the neat little man was the ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... brush appeared on each side of the road. Gradually Carley's strain relaxed, and also the muscular contraction by which she had braced herself in the seat. The horses began to trot again. The wheels rattled. The road wound around abrupt corners, and soon the green and red wall of the opposite side of the canyon loomed close. Low roar of running water rose to Carley's ears. When at length she looked out instead of down she could see nothing but a mass of green foliage crossed by tree trunks ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... the mountains in this country, east of the Mississippi, partake, more or less, of the same character; forming rounded ridges, seldom broken into those abrupt, ragged peaks, common in other parts of ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... wrote, sealed, and directed a note to Laura. In it she recounted what Pryor had told her of Corliss; begged Laura and her parents not to think her heartless in not preparing them for this abrupt marriage. She was in such a state of nervousness, she wrote, that explanations would have caused a breakdown. The marriage was a sensible one; she had long contemplated it as a possibility; and, after thinking it over thoroughly, she had decided it was the only thing to do. She ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... attract the production of needed supplies of essential commodities and to stimulate the consumption of those commodities that are flooding American markets. Transition to modernized parity must be accomplished gradually. In no case should there be an abrupt downward change in the dollar level or in the percentage level ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... first named had been intently watching the officers as, after the dismissal of their companies at the barracks, they severally joined the post commander, who had been standing on the barren level of the parade, well out toward the flagstaff, his adjutant beside him. To her the abrupt announcement caused no surprise. She had seen that Mr. Blakely was not with his troop. The jeweled hands slightly twitched, but her voice had the requisite and conventional drawl as she turned to Miss Wren: "Chasing ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... to liberate the intellect. The modern world was brought into close contact with the free virility of the ancient world, and emancipated from the thralldom of unproved traditions. The force to judge and the desire to create were generated. The immediate result in the sixteenth century was an abrupt secession of the learned, not merely from monasticism, but also from the true spirit of Christianity. The minds of the Italians assimilated Paganism. In their hatred of mediaeval ignorance, in their loathing of cowled and cloistered fools, they flew to an extreme, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... certainly not long in catching somewhat of the spirit of the Emperor; and I doubt much if the impertinence of the waiting-room was not more dreaded and detested than the abrupt speech and searching look ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... the edge of the rich, flowery fields on which I trod to the midway sides of the snowy Olympus, the ground could only here and there show an abrupt crag, or a high straggling ridge that up-shouldered itself from out of the wilderness of myrtles, and of the thousand bright-leaved shrubs that twined their arms together in lovesome tangles. The air that came to my lips was warm and fragrant ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... she's good-looking enough: but she's not exactly to my taste. A little too showy, too abrupt for me. Personally I like a softer, quieter woman; but as a rule the women that I really admire haven't ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... forty years between Washington's first inauguration and Jackson's the total number of removals from office was 74, and out of this number 5 were defaulters. During the first year of Jackson's administration the number of changes made in the civil service was about 2,000. [34] Such was the abrupt inauguration upon a national scale of the so-called "spoils system." The phrase originated with W. L. Marcy, of New York, who in a speech in the senate in 1831 declared that "to the victors belong the spoils." The man who said this of ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... His abrupt, incredible recovery had been the first open manifestation of the way it worked. Not that she had tried it on him first. Before she dared do that once she had proved it on herself twenty times. She had proved it up ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... plumy profusion. . . . Dan Burnett leads on, and presently we emerge on the largest and most beautiful of the little prairies through which we have passed. This stretch of open ground lies at the foot of the highest peak, the abrupt sides of which rise in conical shape before us. It is here, Mr. Burnett tells us, that the mountaineers who were searching for Professor Mitchell found the first trace of the way ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... greatest statesmen and orators of his time, but even his devotion to Charles James Fox had never beguiled him into any of Fox's careless, free-and-easy ways. He was sorely tried, as all {121} contemporary accounts tell us, by the abrupt and overbearing manners of his son-in-law, Lord Durham, but he always contrived, in public at least, to bear Durham's eccentricities with unruffled temper and undisturbed dignity. Such a statesman must have had a hard time of it with King William of Yvetot; but let it be ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... emergency we could traverse every apartment without access to the known doors. Trap-doors on a similar construction, communicated with the cellar:—the table, which you saw us sitting around, stood on one of those, which, on your abrupt appearance, as soon as the candles were extinguished, was with its contents, precipitated below, and we made our escape by those secret doors, judging, that although you had seen us, if we could get off, you would be ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... scenery of Bourg d'Oisans is not, as its eulogists allege, equal to that of Switzerland, it will at least stand a comparison with that of Savoy. Its mountains are more precipitous and abrupt, its peaks more jagged, and its aspect more savage and wild. The scenery of Mont Pelvoux, which is best approached from Bourg d'Oisans, is especially grand and sublime, though of a wild and desolate character. The road from Bourg d'Oisans to Briancon also presents some magnificent scenery; ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... portent. porvenir m. future. pos adv. prep.: en —— behind, after. positivamente adv. positively, certainly. postrado, -a prostrate, kneeling. postrero, -a last. precipitado, -a precipitate, headlong, rash, abrupt. precipitar(se) precipitate, hasten, rush headlong, hurry. precursor, -a m. f. precursor, herald, harbinger. preguntar ask, inquire, question. premtica f. pragmatic (a law). prender catch, take, bind, fasten; —— fuego ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... error, 'tis, like the devil, not to be cast out but with great difficulty. Whatsoever he lays hold on, like a drowning man, he never loses, though it do but help to sink him the sooner. His ignorance is abrupt and inaccessible, impregnable both by art and nature, and will hold out to the last though it has nothing but rubbish to defend. It is as dark as pitch, and sticks as fast to anything it lays hold on. His skull is so thick that it is ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... is ridiculous!" cried Murray, angrily. "Ladies, forgive me for being so abrupt, but people from the old country resent coercion in every form. I'll be as polite to your rajah as a gentleman should be, but I am not going to have my plans upset by a savage. Ned, my lad, we'll see if they ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... remark, "lodged" at Mallow. With the help of Penelope and Ralph Fenton, the afternoon was whiled away until a low-toned gong, reverberating through the house was a warning that it was time to dress for dinner, brought the impromptu concert to an abrupt end. ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... institute over which, when completed, they were to possess no influence whatever, in the management of which they were to be absolutely without voice; and the negotiation was accordingly brought to an abrupt conclusion. (We may note here that, curiously enough, the Royal Commission of 1863 proposed, in some degree, a reversion to this abortive project, and recommended the introduction of a lay element into the governing body of the ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... to supply fuel. Gilbert, whose suspicions of Pomaunkee were increased by the opposition he had offered to the selection of the place, suggested that some stout stakes should be cut, and fixed on the side of the hill where the slope, being less abrupt than in other places, ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... abrupt muscular stride through the grounds of the house. He looked like resolution on the march. Mrs. Doria, as usual with her out of her brother's hearing, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... approached him. Sometimes he feigned that he could not hear you, and then he would make you repeat in a very loud tone what he had heard perfectly well before. However, he was really deaf in a slight degree. At other times he would overwhelm you with such rapid and abrupt interrogatories, that you had not time to understand him, and were compelled to give your answers in confusion. He used then to laugh at your embarrassment; and when he had driven you out of your presence of mind and confidence, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... either early architecture or utter dilapidation, so loose and rough it seemed. A wind-in-the-orchard style that tumbled down here and there an appreciable fruit with uncouth bluster, sentences without commencements running to abrupt endings and smoke, like waves against a sea-wall, learned dictionary words giving a hand to street slang, and accents falling on them haphazard, like slant rays from driving clouds; all the pages in a breeze, the whole book producing a kind of electrical ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... terrestrial, have their moments of impatience and anger; and the zygaena, yielding to these passions, common to both piscine and human nature, at length determined to break through the rules of the game, and bring the play to an abrupt termination. ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... the abrupt edge of a little hill in a Southern Japanese city. There, in a great tree hanging out over the edge, had hung the bell that called together the faithful retainers of the lord of the province, when they were needed. There, nearly thirty years ago, a little ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... had escaped him before. The pull, the brace of the trestle poles just there did not seem unsound, yet instinct warned him that something was amiss in the sag of adjacent supports. His orders to Conrad, accordingly, were hurried and abrupt. ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... eastern side of the valley were abrupt, and frequently obtruded themselves in rocky prominences into its bosom, lessening the width to half the usual dimensions. One of these projections was but a short distance in the rear of the squadron of dragoons, and Dunwoodie directed Captain Lawton to withdraw, with two troops, behind its cover. ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... the pathos with which he dilated on some tale of human misery less captivating; it runs through all his poetry, and in hearing or relating a story of human wrongs or suffering, we have often seen him affected to tears, which he vainly strove to conceal by an abrupt transition to some ludicrous incident in his own personal history. As an example, which has not yet found its way to the public, we may relate the following, which he told one evening in our little domestic circle where he was a frequent ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... do not proceed with this abrupt logic: they love to bargain with necessity. M. Dupin (session of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, June 10, 1843) expresses the opinion that, "though competition may be useful within the nation, it must be prevented ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... hospital or convalescent camp to a place as Spartan as this. Instead of having a bed to sleep on, the unfortunate "detail" found himself condemned to the floor boards of a bell tent, with a very meagre allowance of well-worn blankets. In cold weather the change was abrupt and trying, but of course it had to be made sooner or later, and I suppose the men had no reasonable ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... of the Brehon Law Tracts point out that early laws are handed down "in a rhythmical form; always in language condensed and antiquated they assume the character of abrupt and sententious proverbs. Collections of such sayings are found scattered throughout the Brehon Law Tracts."[128] The sagas contain many verses which partake of the character of legal formulae, and in Beowulf there seems to be ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... followed was so abrupt, exclamatory, interjectional, and occasionally ungrammatical, as well as absurd, that it could not be reduced to writing. We therefore leave it to your imagination. After a time, the uncle and nephew subsided, and ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... the terrible story in an ecstasy of alternating joy and fury, according to the nature of the episode related. It was like living again the glorious days of the moonlighters and the rackrenters in dear old Ireland. The tale came to an abrupt end. ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... next morning we set out for the peak. All previous climbers, as we were aware, had attacked it from the west. That seemed the obvious thing to do, because the westward slopes of the mountain, while very steep, are less abrupt than those which face the rising sun. In fact, the eastern side of the Grand Teton appears to be absolutely unclimbable. But both Hall and I had had experience with rock climbing in the Alps and the Dolomites, and we knew that what looked like the hardest ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... eye. He had a German face with all the Irish expressions. A wound received in a duel had shortened one leg and gave him a singular gait, something between a jerk and a roll. His voice was deep and guttural, and his utterance rapid, decided, abrupt, like that of a man who meant all that he said, and knew that it would produce an effect. No one could look him in the eye and fail to perceive that he was every inch a man—a strong, brave, manly nature looked out in every lineament of his face. Captain Wickliffe attached his company to the regiment ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... the table, I am inclined to hold that the stigmaria may have borne the appearance rather of underground stems than of proper roots. This specimen suddenly terminates, at a thickness of two and a half inches, in a rounded point, abrupt as that of one of the massier cacti; and every part of the blunt sudden termination is thickly fretted over with the characteristic areolae. The slim tubular rootlets must have stuck out on every side from the obtuse rounded termination ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller |
