"Blandly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... considerable number of honest and well-meaning dupes by a dexterous appeal to conservative prejudice and conservative passion, so that hundreds serve their ends who would feel contaminated by their companionship. Never before has Respectability so blandly consented to become the mere instrument and tool of Rascality. The rogues trust to inaugurate treason and anarchy under the pretence of being the special champions of the Constitution and the Laws. Their real adherents are culled ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... kneel, candle in hand, on the wet flags of this foetid and malodorous cave, gazing in rapture upon the blandly beaming idol, their sensibilities tickled by resplendent priests reciting full-mouthed Latin phrases, while the organ overhead plays wheezy extracts from "La Forza del Destino" or the Waltz out of Boito's "Mefistofele"... for sure, it must be a foretaste of Heaven! And likely enough, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... all, not at all," Callan interrupted, blandly. "I've known you and you've known me for a ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... pacify the outraged Maori feeling, but without avail. On the other hand, it appeared that Miss Cityswell was inwardly somewhat frightened at the turn things had taken, and at the excitement every one was in. She would not move from her silly standpoint, however; but when Dandy Jack blandly, and with many elaborate compliments, proceeded to lay our proposal for compromise before her, she eagerly grasped at it as an escape from the awkwardness ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... highball," he said blandly. "I guess Mrs. Curtis could do with one also. In fact, five highballs would ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... or sauntered into the cafe where my comrades used to assemble. What will Mademoiselle Josephine say, thought I, as I ask for my "petit verre," caressing my mustache thus! Not a doubt of it, what a fan is to a woman, a beard is to a soldier! a something to fill up the pauses in conversation, by blandly smoothing with the finger, or fiercely curling at ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Imbrie blandly evaded the trap. "I sent a letter out privately to be passed along by the Indians—what they ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... hypocritical doctor blandly suggested. "I have given notice already. Ask some one in the house to go with you. The two women will look after the ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... promptly undeceived. Her mind was set on one object, and her eyes did not travel beyond it. She no more suspected that an artist was lurking in the shade of the cedars than she did that the man in the moon was gazing blandly at her above their close-packed foliage. She came on with rapid, graceful strides, stood for a moment by the side of the Venus, and then, while Trenholme literally gasped for breath, shed coat, skirt and shoes, revealing a slim form clad ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... straight for the furnished bungalow which the Flying U boys had taken possession of, with Rosemary Green to give the home atmosphere which saved the place from becoming a mere bunk-house de luxe. If he could possibly manage it, Luck would reach headquarters in time for dinner—the Happy Family blandly called it supper, of course—and would proceed to forget the day's irritations while he ate what he ambiguously ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... Lena blandly. She took a few grains of the popcorn we pressed upon her, eating them discreetly and taking care not to ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... become pleasantly flushed and expansive. "A most unique, comprehensive and uplifting view of our spiritual environment," she remarked to Miss Philura when the two ladies found themselves on their homeward way. Her best society smile still lingered blandly about the curves and creases of her stolid, high-colored visage; the dying violets on her massive satin bosom gave ...
— The Transfiguration of Miss Philura • Florence Morse Kingsley
... head drooped. She, who had blandly been his manager all day, felt managed when his "Will you?" pierced her, made ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... would render the awning and screens ineffectual in preserving her from a chance ray of the sun. Two young subalterns were tumbling over one another in the anxious endeavour to be the first to bring a footstool; a couple of their seniors were standing by, rubbing their hands and smiling blandly, to keep their minds in a fit state for the perpetration of a compliment on the first possible occasion; while even the grim old major was trying very hard to unbend: not that it was a part of his principles to be particularly gallant to the ladies, but as he was going ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... Hull blandly. "But we have his statement that he is an American, and we are obliged to take his declaration to that effect." And the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... the expedition, to the very deliberate exclusion of Mr. Tubbs. But he might as well have made up his mind to recognize the triumvirate. Enthroned on a camp-chair sat Aunt Jane, like a little goddess of the Dollar Sign, and on one hand Mr. Tubbs smiled blandly, and on the other Violet gloomed. You saw that in secret council Mr. Shaw's announcement had been foreseen ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... brim, with their muskets, that gallant force of revenue men steadily scoured the neighborhood; and the further they went, the worse they fared. There was not a horse standing down by a pool, with his stiff legs shut up into biped form, nor a cow staring blandly across an old rail, nor a sheep with a pectoral cough behind a hedge, nor a rabbit making rustle at the eyebrow of his hole, nor even a moot, that might either be a man or hold a man inside it, whom or which those active fellows ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... some of them yet trembling upon the brink of the grave from pestilence, inhaled while nobly performing duties for which they were scarcely better paid than the commonest soldier—these were the men whom our city fathers were so blandly and pleasantly removing from their field of duty. Was it wonderful, then, that the whole affair seemed quite like pastime to those engaged in it; or that they made themselves jocosely eloquent upon the subject, ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... has made it tractable to every aesthetic whim. Ringlets, indeed, are unknown, and curling irons. But what wonderful and beautiful shapes the hair of the girl is made to assume: volutes, jets, whirls, eddyings, foliations, each passing into the other blandly as a linking of brush- strokes in the writing of a Chinese master! Far beyond the skill of the Parisian coiffeuse is the art of the kamiyui. From the mythical era [3] of the race, Japanese ingenuity has exhausted itself in the invention and the improvement ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... knew nothing. Even at Research Installation 83 very, very few persons had the least idea what had taken place. The sun shone blandly upon manicured lawns, and the officers' children played vociferously, and washing-machines laundered diapers with beautiful efficiency, and vacuum cleaners and Mahon-modified jeeps performed their functions with an air of enthusiastic contentment. ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... audience, and the astonishment Mendelssohn caused by appearing in such a connection was shown by Robert Schumann in his own ungainly fashion at its close. Approaching the musician in the orchestra, he blandly, and with a genial smile, expressed his admiration of the 'brilliant orchestral piece' ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... he did not wish to meddle with the household government of his brethren, he thought that the children who were guilty of such outrages ought to be taken home, soundly whipped, and put to bed—when Rev. Dr. A——, moved by just indignation, did this, the lecturer smiled, and blandly said: Oh, no; he wasn't annoyed in the least (at the same time receiving a pea on his left cheek). He would trust to the generosity of his young friends not to fire their peas too hard; and he hoped that the reverend ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... that, alighting once at a shop belonging to some Venetian merchants, he saw there among other trinkets a purse and a girdle, which he forthwith recognised as having once been his own. Concealing his surprise, he blandly asked whose they were, and if they were for sale. He was answered by Ambrogiuolo da Piacenza, who had come thither with much merchandise aboard a Venetian ship, and hearing that the captain of the guard was asking about the ownership ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... was much darker than that of any man he had ever seen, and the atmosphere around him was hot and suffocating. He perceived immediately that he was a being of another world. The stranger, seeing his trepidation, asked him blandly, yet majestically, to mount beside him. He had no power to refuse, and before he was well aware that he had moved, he found himself in the chariot. Onwards they went, with the rapidity of the wind, the stranger speaking no word, until they ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... on blandly, "he says to me that when he was settin' there on the bank try in' to pull in a few buffalo fish for his dinner, along came a tremendous wave. He vowed that it nigh washed him away, and called it a cloudburst or something like that; but now I ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... rubbed his face tentatively with his bandaged hand; then smiled blandly at his mother. ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... ourselves to any promise, Mr. Elmendorf," said he, most blandly, "you will pardon me if I refer to what seems a trifle weak link in your chain of evidence. You say the young lady was in the habit of visiting Mr. Forrest's lodgings. How often ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... the journey money," observed Sir Stephen blandly, "we've never paid so much, if my recollection serves me. And of course we have to remember that we're dealing with ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... the Bourse, whether as a gambler in the public funds or other companies, he sagely perceives that it is time to turn to some other profession, and, providing himself with a black gown, proposes blandly to Bertrand to set up—a new religion. "Mon ami," says the repentant sinner, "le temps de la commandite va passer, MAIS LES BADAUDS NE PASSERONT PAS." (O rare sentence! it should be written in letters of gold!) ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... flew out at Alyosha under the lamp-post this evening and shouted to him, 'You learnt it from him! How do you know that he visits me?' you were thinking of me then. So for one brief moment you did believe that I really exist," the gentleman laughed blandly. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... them in public to beyond the law," father grumbled in great pleasure, after he had packed her and her bundles in Hampton's car. Father always calls Mother Spurlock "Elsie," and once or twice I have seen a faint blush creep to her cheeks and a glint flash from her eyes, but he blandly goes on ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... back to the library, and smoked for an hour or so and continued their political chat; and at last Markrute said to his new nephew-in-law blandly, ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... sure, I was somewhat irritated by a trifle just before I met you, but your politeness has conquered me," he answered blandly, "and I beg you, should you come near my humble abode, to believe that I shall be happy to receive you. We poor, oppressed Catholics have little to offer our guests, but to such as I possess you will be welcome. Our business ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... blushes, my child," he retorted blandly. "The Mysterious S. will turn out to be a commercial traveler with a wife and seven children. But, ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... barbarous Ts'in had swallowed unmanly worn-out China, and for half a century had been digesting the feast. Then—to mix my metaphors a little—China flopped up to the surface again, pale, but smiling blandly. In the sunlight she gathered strength and cohesion, and proceeded presently to swallow Ts'in and everything else in sight; and emerged soon young, strong, vigorous, and glowing-hearted to the conquest of many worlds in the unknown. What was Ts'in, now is Shensi Province, the ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... mustering-out officer, a thorough soldier, found to his horror that I had used the widest discretion both in imposing heavy sentences which I had no power to impose on men who shirked their duties, and, where men atoned for misconduct by marked gallantry, in blandly remitting sentences approved by my chief of division. However, I had done substantial, even though somewhat rude and irregular, justice—and no harm could result, as we were just about to be ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... H. Jas. Burden consists of 998 barrels of flour and 290 boxes of herrings, and is consigned to Charles B. Blandly, Esq., at Funchal, Madeira. The shipper, H.J. Burden, makes the following affidavit before the British consul in New York, to wit: "That all and singular the goods specified in the annexed bill of lading, were ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... not wish to be no trouble to no person," he said blandly. "I was at a little house on de ozer side of de river, but I was told dere was no room for me, and I come to an ozer place and dey told me to come to dis place. I will not trouble no person — I only want a place to put my head while my feet are ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... Him an' me was like brothers. He was the curisest creetur I ever seen, an' I hope he takes no 'fense in hearin' me say so. Ye've seen his tackle, Mr. Balfour, an' that split bamboo o' his, but the jedge hasn't seen it. I wish I'd brung it along. Fond of fishin', sir?" And Jim turned blandly and patronizingly to ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... the use?" asked Weary blandly. "I got an option out of Oleson for the ranch and outfit, and all his sheep, at a mighty good figure—for the Flying U. The Old Man can do what he likes about it; but ten to one he'll buy him out. That is, Oleson's share, which was two-thirds. ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... interrupted Lord Luxmore, blandly. "My dear sir, may I request so useful a vote and so powerful an interest as yours, for our friend, ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... makes his point clear," I babbled on, most blandly; "almost as clear, as comprehensive and as penetrating as should be to you the point of this." And with a swift movement I swung half-round in my saddle, and sank my dagger to the hilt in his side even as he was in the act of ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... give every aid in his power. His counsel and the comfort of his presence were boons to Uncle Dick. The veteran had learned from his bride concerning the disfavor in which Zeke was held, and the reason for it. It seemed to him the part of wisdom, in this crisis, to feign ignorance, and he blandly suggested, on the return of the two from the fallen poplar, that they should ride to Joines' store in the evening, there, over the telephone, to dispatch a telegram to Zeke in New York. It was the psychological ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... in two little inaccuracies," said Mr Wentworth, blandly, as he peeled his orange. "The Rector of Carlingford is not my rector, and I don't preach the Tracts for the Times. Let us always be particular, my dear aunt, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... the figure of a woman in Grecian robes holding aloft a shield. Critical citizens objected to it for various reasons, but its real fault was that its symbolism was faulty. The sculptor should have represented New York as a conjuror in evening dress, smiling blandly as he changed a rabbit into a bowl of goldfish. For that, above all else, is New York's ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... the most diplomatic to pretend that he had not heard, and all looked from the intruder to the host. Never at a loss, Mr. Lincoln rose from the sofa, and blandly said as to ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... 17—a portrait; first effort of a young female artist." Connoisseurs, who had committed themselves by extravagant praise, sneered at the announcement of the catalogue, and, after a few inquiries, blandly asserted that no tyro could have produced it; that the master had wrought out its perfection, and generously allowed the pupil to monopolize the encomiums. In vain Mr. Clifton disclaimed the merit, and asserted that he had never touched the canvas; that she had jealously ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... shambles, wolf-belapt, To when, in pardonably grand excess Of pity, through our people's will was bought Free indolence for Isles of Western slaves: And now, when thousands blandly would deny The proven murderer his rope, the thief Due chastisement; and when a General May blunder troops to death, yea, and receive His Senate's vote of thanks and all made smooth; And when, as much from universal trust In other states' goodwill as from the pinch Of blinking parsimony, we ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... are all made out," replied Miss Judith blandly. "You'll all find out in a few moments where you're to be." She sat calmly amid the buzz of ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... blandly asked her For the knowledge we did lack, "Ah! that I can not tell you, But the name is ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... bootiful business!" said Ibrahim, blandly. "My lord he has been away so long he will be glad to ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... through my old friend, Blandly, who has proved himself throughout the most surprising trump. The admirable fellow literally slaved in my interest, and so, I may say, did everyone in Bristol, as soon as they got wind of the port we ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said blandly, as her pupil stood hesitating near the door. "I want to have a little talk with you. I've been looking over your reports for the last few weeks, and I find that you've done well—so well, that I ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... the stable yard that brought the constable and Maguffin to join the party, the quondam American citizen waxed jubilant, and beheld endless possibilities of amusement. "Good evenin', consterble," said Mr. Pawkins, blandly. ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... you will be wrong," said the lawyer, blandly. "He was eccentric, my dear sir, very eccentric; but eccentricity is not insanity, and you will find that ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... even though it should contrive To keep its pinions on the flap, And by a tour de force survive This devastating handicap, Yet are there perils in the skies Whereon we blandly shut our eyes, But which are bound to be incurred, And, notably, ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... This gentleman, after briefly questioning her and Larcher, and taking a few illegible notes, and setting a subordinate to looking through the latest entries in a large record, dismissed the subject by saying that whatever was proper to be done would be done. He had a blandly incredulous way with him, as if he doubted, not only that Murray Davenport was missing, but that any such person as Murray Davenport existed to be missing; as if he merely indulged his visitors in their delusion out of politeness; as if in any case the matter was of no earthly consequence. ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... said Rigou, smiling blandly, "but there are such a lot of ninnies in there that I forgot there was ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... it as a citation," blandly replied Fitzpiers. "Well, then, why not give me a very little bit of your ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... about the cheerless kitchen, and could not think of anything to say; so she smiled blandly and shook her head in answer to the invitation. "We'll just set a few minutes with you, to pass the time o' day, an' then we must go in an' have a word with the Miss Brays, bein' old acquaintance. It ain't been so we could git to call on 'em before. I don't know's you're acquainted with ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... pursued by him with many a whoop and shout, in a wild circling chase among the trees. At length, finding he was not to be caught, Crayshaw returned a good deal heated, and Johnnie followed smiling blandly, and flung himself on the ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... play it when it would sweep the board; and he was willing to live in any way until the proper time came. Not so easy was Fletcher. Several times he attempted to pay the claim, so that he could once more hold his head erect as a free man. But Sandford smiled blandly; "he was in no hurry," he said; "Mr. Fletcher evidently had money, and was good for the amount." Poor Fletcher!—walking about with a rope around his neck,—a long rope now, and slack,—but held by a man who ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... him up here," I said blandly, rising from the table. "I suppose, though, it's my place as ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... Lohengrin gives her, to a very pretty tune, an answer that can merely be called sublimely fatuous. Drawing her to the window, he bids her breathe in the odours from the flowers in the moonlit garden beneath. "But," he blandly adds, "don't ask whence their sweet scent comes, or you will its wondrous charm destroy." The song is, I say, a pretty one; indeed, it is so pretty that but for the enchantment of each successive phrase no one could stand the monotony of so long a series ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... amuse a friendly visitor, he would question Malachi blandly and innocently on his brothers' ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... stocks of wine, we may well be disposed to smile. When I was there, at any rate, they were using them up very fast; and with no apparent fears about the supply. But if the Ku-Klux Klan had started suddenly shooting everybody they didn't like in broad daylight, and had blandly explained that they were only using up the stocks of their ammunition, left over from the Civil War, it seems probable that there would at least have been a little curiosity about how much they had left. There might at least ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... introduced Mr. Kearney. "Kearney will do—Kearney's good enough for me," commented the soi-disant Kearney half-aloud, to my own horror and Sylvester's evident mystification, and then he blandly excused himself for a moment that he might personally supervise the care of his own beast. When he was out of ear-shot I ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... said the Marshal, blandly, 'that you are exposing me to a risk of a quinsy. Do you not think, since there is a difference of opinion upon this point, that it would be an excellent idea to consult the lady herself? We would neither of us, I am sure, wish to override her ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and resting." She frowned slightly. Such a question was a distinct liberty and she had never either taken or permitted liberties. But she banished the frown and met her tormentor's eyes blandly. She had no intention of losing her poise for ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... being indeed heard without, inquiring of nobody in a blandly conversational tone as she advances: 'Eh? Indeed! Are you quite sure you saw my mother-of-pearl button-holder on the work-table in my room?' is at once solicited for walking leave, and graciously accords it. And soon ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... on the contrary, was humanly glad (for the moment, at least) of her daughter's respite from her grave duties, and sat blandly smiling while the young people talked animatedly on a wide ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... have something durable at least, Madame, a trousseau that will stand the test of time and washing," replied the good mother smiling blandly, touched ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... turned into the village street from the beach road they met Jimmie, who had been having his after-dinner pipe with Grandfather Amos, with whom he had become a prime favorite. With him was Albertina, toeing out more than ever and conversing more than blandly. ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... met Psmith's blandly inquiring gaze. He looked at Psmith carefully for a moment. No. The boy he had chased last night had not been Psmith. That exquisite's figure and general appearance were unmistakable, even ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... great disorder. Sentiment appeared to be divided, but the radicals were very circumspect in their remarks, for earlier experience had taught them that, under an autocratic government like that of Czar Nicholas, silence was golden. The blandly smiling host, Basilivitch, went from group to group, threw in a word here and a suggestion there, smiled at this man's eloquence and ridiculed that man's caution, all the while making a mental inventory of the facts he would lay before the ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... at me a moment, as if to ascertain whether I were laughing at him. And then, after a pause, "Perhaps you don't know that I disbelieve in a future life," he remarked, blandly. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... two letters into the hand of his man, with special directions to carry them himself in person, to the post office in the neighboring village, early next morning. These little matters completed, Sir Wynston stirred his fire, leaned back in his easy chair, and smiled blandly over the sunny ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... undertake the expedition unaided. Sailors were pressed from the merchant-shipping. Trained bands, as the militia of that day was called, drilled in the streets, and on the common. Subscription papers were being circulated; and vessel owners were blandly given the choice between voluntarily loaning their vessels to the colony, or having them peremptorily seized. In this way a fleet of thirty-two vessels had been collected; the largest of which was a ship called ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... suit themselves. Their creed 450:3 teaches belief in a mysterious, supernatural God, and in a natural, all-powerful devil. An- other class, still more unfortunate, are so depraved that 450:6 they appear to be innocent. They utter a falsehood, while looking you blandly in the face, and they never fail to stab their benefactor in the back. A third class 450:9 of thinkers build with solid masonry. They are sincere, generous, noble, and are therefore open to the approach and recognition of Truth. To teach Christian Science 450:12 to such ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... the first of the quiet men blandly, "that your game is up. You uttered at least twenty of those notes on the course to-day, and we were bound to have you. My name is Inspector Pilling, of Scotland Yard, and these gentlemen are my colleagues. We are five to one, so I suggest ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... me," said Holmes blandly, "but I could not help overhearing the questions which you put to the salesman just now. I think that I could be of ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... this, and looked at her, wondering, more than she had wondered about the furniture. Thinking, "how many girls there were in the world! All sorts—everywhere! What did they all do, and find to care for?" These were not the "other" girls of whom her mother had blandly said that she could show kindnesses by taking them to drive. Those were such as Aggie Townsend, the navy captain's widow's daughter,—nice, but poor; girls whom everybody noticed, of course, but who hadn't ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... turned, and then sharply struck the communicator switch with the heel of his hand. The image on the television screen died. The voice cut off. He said blandly: "Well?" ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... and this is the first sign of hope the artist at least can discover in the meaningless importance which has been invested in the term ART. It shows best of all that art is to betake itself on its own way blandly, despite the wish of its so ardent supporters and suppressors. I am greatly relieved as artist, to find there is at least one tenet I can hold to in my experience as a useful or a useless human being. I have always said ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... groan as he heard the proposal made, but Overton was blandly oblivious of the appealing expression of his friend; the thing he was interested in was to bring Black Bow to a communicative mood, for not a sign could he discover of a white woman in the camp, though he was convinced there was or ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... their hands in their pockets and watch you dragging your burden up the slope, and say: 'You can't do it!' And when you reach the top, some of them say: 'Yes, but that is not the way to climb up.' While the others go on blandly saying: 'You couldn't do it!...' You're lucky if they don't send great stones rolling down on ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... his palms blandly. "I not blame her," he said. "I not care not'ing only maybe you get drown in ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... KEEGAN [blandly]. That is not quite what occurred. [He collects himself for a serious utterance: they attend involuntarily]. I heard that a black man was dying, and that the people were afraid to go near him. When I went to the place I found an elderly Hindoo, who told me one of those tales of unmerited misfortune, ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... the last person Sir Asher, with his hovering lackeys, would have recalled to the sculptor, who, in so far as the patriarchs ever crossed his mind, conceived them as resembling Rembrandt's Rabbis. But he replied blandly: 'Our patriarchs were polygamists.' ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... said Juke blandly. 'Jane is imperilling her immortal soul. She is yoking together with an unbeliever; she is forming an unholy alliance with mammon. We must ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... maddened many, But the poet more than any, Venus, for a hymn of love, Warbled in her votive grove,[2] ('Twas, in sooth a gentle lay,) Gave me to the bard away. See me now his faithful minion,— Thus with softly-gliding pinion, To his lovely girl I bear Songs of passion through the air. Oft he blandly whispers me, "Soon, my bird, I'll set you free." But in vain he'll bid me fly, I shall serve him till I die. Never could my plumes sustain Ruffling winds and chilling rain, O'er the plains, or in the dell, On the mountain's ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... recover the object I have lost," he continued blandly. "The loss of it is a new, thrilling, humanising experience. It will make a man of me—and, let us hope, a better man. Besides, in a sense, I lost it long ago—'when first my smitten eyes beat full on her,' one evening at the Francais, three, four years ago. But it's essential to ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... the keepers warned him, but he laughed, and after he had teased the animal to his heart's content, walked away. After a time he was strolling by the spot again, intensely satisfied with himself, his glass stuck in his eye, and smiling blandly in the face of a young lady, who was evidently offended at his impudence, when the elephant, who was rocking backwards and forwards, suddenly threw out his trunk and seized our friend by the coat tails; the cloth gave way, and the whole back of the coat was torn out, leaving nothing but the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... the steps and climbed down, wondering how the doctor expected a man with Peter's salary to act upon his advice. "You do that!" said the doctor, and left Peter to discover, if he could, how it was to be done without money; in other words, had blandly required Peter ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... admitted he was surprised that my plans worked so easily. Before that he had been my escort on every occasion, and the town accepted it blandly. Now I had a regular series of attendants, and Dan was relegated to a few spare moments under the lilacs now and then. He couldn't see how I got hold of the fellows. He said they were perfect miffs to be nosed around like that. Why didn't they show some manhood? Boneless, ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... light of morning, through a pictured window's gloom, Blandly strayed the zephyr's winglet 'mid rich plants of Eastern bloom, Shedding a strong spicy fragrance round that gorgeous room, Lightly on her couch of purple slumbered Pedro's new-made bride, In her young unshadowed beauty, with no other thought beside ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... think of it, my man!" said Achilles blandly. "Evidently you are not old enough to be trusted with ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... Wiles, smiling blandly on his dexter side, and enjoying the whole scene malevolently with his sinister eye. "YOUR papers are all genuine, and I won't say are not all right, but unfortunately I had in the same bag some memoranda of my own for the use of my client, that, you ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... they phrased it; they had made ropes with a hangman's noose at the end and tried to lasso him in dark corners. And now he was adrift among them, under notorious circumstances of superlative villainy, at last dragged to light; and yet he blandly smiled, politely offered his cigar-holder to a perfect stranger, and laughed and chatted to right and left, as if springy, buoyant, and elastic, with an angelic conscience, and sure of kind friends wherever he went, both in this life and the life ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... be wise, but the thing which he most needed to know, he knew not. I gave him leave to ask me what should help him, and enlightened him by my word." And after again being nervously shown the door: "Here I sit by the fireside," speaks blandly Wanderer, suiting the action to the word, "and I set my head as stake in a match of wits. My head is yours, you have won it, if you do not, by questioning me, succeed in learning what shall profit you; if I do not, by my instructions, redeem ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... they had chatted comfortably through to the coffee that the auditor said, blandly: "What are you down ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... that the ruined steak was further enhanced by mushrooms," I explained in response to Von Gerhard's bewildered look. We marched into the house, trying not to appear like sneak thieves. Max, pipe in mouth, surveyed us blandly. ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... therefore, blandly asked Great Britain to accept the Declaration as its code of maritime warfare, he was asking that country to accept a document which Great Britain, in peace time, had repudiated and which would, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... conducting a first case before Vice-Chancellor Bacon, and on rising to make his opening remarks began in a faint voice: "My lord, I must apologise—er—I must apologise, my lord"—"Go on, sir," said his lordship blandly; "so far the Court is with you." The other comes from an Australian Court. Counsel was addressing Chief Justice Holroyd when a portion of the plaster of the Court ceiling fell, and he stopping his speech for the ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... she then observed blandly. "But I shall not marry unless you assure me that you approve of such a step. ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... sat again, his smile a shade uneasy. Which Mayenne perceived with quiet enjoyment, as he went on blandly: "Nothing that I could ask of you, M. de St. Quentin, could equal, could halve, what I give. Still, that the knightliness may not be, to your mortification, all on one side, I have thought of something for you ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... eyes of the American representative. This surmise proved to be well founded. The Germans did not want Mr. Whitlock in Brussels, and nothing would have pleased them better than to have had him depart and leave them to their own devices, but, so long as he blandly ignored their hints that his room was preferable to his company and persisted in sitting tight, they submitted to his surveillance with the best grace possible and behaved themselves as punctiliously as a dog that has been permitted to come into a parlour. After the civil administration ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... I'm in business for," he blandly acknowledged. "I can let you have the property for two hundred ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... interrupting your rhapsody, Ernest,' Herbert put in blandly, 'but will you have your own trousers tonight, Oswald, or will you wear mine back to your lodgings now, and I'll send one of the servants round with yours ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... side-show in the wake of a horse-opera, and the same sojourned at Colusa. Enters unto the side show a powerful young man of the Colusa sort, and would see his money's worth. Blandly and with conscious pride the Professor directs the young man's attention to his fine collection of living snakes. Lithely the blacksnake uncoils in his sight. Voluminously the bloated boa convolves ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... gentlemen present, a Professor in the University, who demurred to some of his statements about Hungary; and in a short time Gurowski was foaming with rage, and formally challenged the Professor to settle the dispute with swords or pistols. This ingenious mode of deciding an historical controversy being blandly declined, Gurowski, apparently dumfounded at the idea of any gentleman's refusing so reasonable a proposition, abruptly retreated, asking me to go with him, as he said he wished to consult me; to which request I assented very willingly, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... to account for my white military helmet, and various and interesting are the passing remarks heard in consequence. The most general impression seems to be that I am direct from the Soudan, some youthful Conservatives blandly intimating The Starley Memorial, Coventry, that I am the advance-guard of a general scuttle of the army out of Egypt, and that presently whole regiments of white-helmeted wheelmen will come whirling along the roads ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... to say blandly in Spanish: "Well, how did you get through, sweet child? Who was that man—? But stay: ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... realizes the imminent peril dishonored women incur by trusting themselves to the mercy of those sordid butchers. The author of her wrong usually makes the arrangement, under cover. The wily practitioner talks blandly and soothingly. If the operation succeeds, all is well; if not, the poor victim's body is secretly disposed of. She is chronicled among the mysterious disappearances, because every precaution had been taken that her friends ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... Dale blandly; "but when a man's a born ass it takes him some time to cultivate sense! I've been wanting to see you for a long time, Simon—and to-night I just couldn't resist it. You don't want to ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... imagination; Mr. Keats, and this young Mr. Tennyson of Cambridge, the chiefs of modern poetic literature? What were these new dicta which Mr. Warrington delivered with a puff of tobacco smoke, to which Mr. Honeyman blandly assented, and Clive listened with pleasure?... With Newcome, the admiration for the literature of the last century was an article of belief, and the incredulity of the young men seemed rank blasphemy. 'You will be sneering at Shakespeare next,' he said, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... said Leontine very blandly to Camusot, who stood downcast in the presence of the wife of one of the most ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac |
