"Blank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the way of furniture, considered so indispensable in these later days. He had no pens or ink, and only a Bible in the way of books. He had some blank paper and a single lead pencil, which were utilized to their fullest extent. For a slate or blackboard, he used the beach, as did Archimedes of the ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... proprietor of the house identified the picture of the lad as that of one who had been a frequent visitor in the room of the old man. Aside from this he knew nothing. And there, at the door of a grimy, old building in the slums of London, the searchers came to a blank wall—baffled. ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... economics and sociology never troubled him; he had small Latin and less Greek; he never traveled, and the history of the rocks was to him a blank. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... Debtor, that I often state my Accounts after the same manner with regard to Heaven and my own Soul. In this case, when I look upon the Debtor-side, I find such innumerable Articles, that I want Arithmetick to cast them up; but when I look upon the Creditor-side, I find little more than blank Paper. Now though I am very well satisfied that it is not in my power to ballance Accounts with my Maker, I am resolved however to turn all my future Endeavours that way. You must not therefore be surprized, my Friend, if you ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Nimrod is supposed to have founded the old Chaldaean dynasty. This seems to have lasted about 700 years, and was then overthrown by a conquering nation of which no record or even tradition remains, the next two and a half centuries being a complete blank till the rise of the great Assyrian Monarchy about 1290 B.C., which lasted till its destruction by Cyrus about 538 B.C. The Persian Monarchy then endured till the death of Alexander the Great, in 333 B.C., after which great confusion arose, the ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... to have been cut out of a Sunday paper: a tooth-pick, and a card-case, which it is confidently believed would have led to the identification of the unfortunate gentleman, but for the circumstance of there being none but blank cards in it. Mr. Watkins Tottle absented himself from his lodgings shortly before. A bill, which has not been taken up, was presented next morning; and a bill, which has not been taken down, was soon afterwards affixed ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... other ranks, to go And at a given hour report, With rifles, such-and-such a sort, So many rounds of S.A.A. Per man, and so much oats and hay Per horse (as specified and charged On War Establishments, enlarged, Revised and issued as amended); And here the said instruction ended, "Signed, Eustace Blank, G.S.O.3, For D.A.Q.A.M.A.G." The reason why the form was thus Truncated was—alas for us!— That Major Blank, a hasty man, Neglected his accustomed plan And failed, in short, to P.T.O., So never ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... couplet: this, however, though formally separated in MSS., is looked upon as one line, one verse; hence a word can be divided, the former part pertaining to the first and the latter to the second moiety of the distich. As the Arabs ignore blank verse, when we come upon a rhymeless couplet we know that it is an extract from a longer composition in monorhyme. The Kit'ah is a fragment, either an occasional piece or more frequently a portion of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... said her father, putting a flat, square parcel in her lap. Lloyd looked puzzled as she opened it. There was only a blank book inside, bound in Russia leather, with the word "Record" stamped on it ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of course. Impossible work, too, if the popular idea of the trenches were correct—that is, that they form one long, communicating ditch from the North Sea to Switzerland! They do not, of course. There are blank spaces here and there, fully controlled by the trenches on either side, and reenforced by further trenches behind. But with a knowledge of where these openings lie it is ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... composure of solitary and delightful labor, the silence of the studio, the resort to nature, and the frequenting of the springs of poetry. From the present, one is suddenly transferred to the past; from the near, to the remote. In place of the blank, black factory wall, there is the low wall of some Italian Campo Santo, its painted sides more precious than marbles or gold could have made them; in place of the dull and heavy stone of the Exchange, the glowing mosaics of some southern cathedral; in place of the factory bell and the rush into ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... barren land! O blank, bright sky! Methinks it were a noble duty To kindle in that vacant eye The light of spirit—beauty— To fill with airy shapes divine Thy lonely plains and mountains, The orange grove, the bower of vine, The silvery lakes and fountains; To wake the voiceless, silent ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... the Londoners; but this was only a ruse for the purpose of raising money.(726) Like Edward II, he borrowed money from anybody and everybody, and often resorted to unconstitutional measures to fill his purse. He made the nobles and his wealthier subjects sign blank cheques for him to fill up at his pleasure.(727) These cheques, or "charters" as they were called, were afterwards burnt by order of ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... them only at the price of abandoning the religion, the language, and the feelings of their race, until the country of Huss passed out of the sight of civilised Europe, and Bohemia represented no more than a blank, unnoticed mass of tillers of the soil. In Hungary, where the nation was not so completely crushed in the Thirty Years' War, and Protestanism survived, the wholesale executions in 1686, ordered by the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... uttered the last sentence with such an air of blank humility that we all had to cram our pocket handkerchiefs into our mouths to prevent a universal explosion. The master looked over his spectacles again at Doddle with an expression of unutterable amazement. We looked on with breathless interest, not unmingled with awe, for we expected some awful ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... Looks blank jus' now. Clever bit o' work; something new. But I've got news for you, though. Your man Mason is back here again. I thought I wouldn't say nothing t' you till I put my ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... went into thought. "That is, there's no passport here, but you must take a blank from the housekeeper. You understand, our usual prostitute's blank; and then they'll exchange it for you for a real book at the station house. Only you see, my dear, I will be but ill help to you in this business. They ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... don't think!" he observed in conclusion, as he pointed to Mr. Verdant Green, who was nervously settling his spectacles, and wishing himself safe back in his own rooms; "I would'nt give a blank for such a blank blank. I'm blank if he don't look as though he'd swaller'd a blank codfish, and had bust out into blank barnacles!" As the Bargee was apparently regarded by his party as a gentleman of infinite humour, his highly-flavoured blank remarks were received ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... between the forms of an exaggerated respect and the signature. It was quite easy to tear off the best part of the letter and convert it into a bill of exchange for any amount. The diabolical missive had been enclosed in an envelope, so that the other side of the sheet was blank. When it arrived, Victurnien was writhing in the lowest depths of despair. After two years of the most prosperous, sensual, thoughtless, and luxurious life, he found himself face to face with the most inexorable poverty; it was an absolute impossibility to procure ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... speck in the distance, passed directly under the open window, and, startled by that sob and by that drunken voice in answer, looked wonderingly up. Oh, heavens! she read that fearful secret in one blank, horrified glance. She read it in the despairing hopelessness of the little face turned toward hers—that look so terrible in a face so young. She read it still more clearly in that fiery, bloated, senseless visage looking down upon her with a dull stare, in the swaying form feebly holding ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... NAME" Cards (name concealed with hand holding flowers with mottoes) 20c. 7 pks. and this Ring for $1. Agents sample book and full outfit, 25c. Over 200 new Cards added this season. Blank ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... sentimental tragedy by his appearance, and he was without comic power of any kind. Parts of his Macbeth, Lear, Othello, and King John, were powerful and striking, but his want of musical ear made his delivery of Shakespeare's blank-verse defective, and painful to persons better endowed in that respect. It may have been his consciousness of his imperfect declamation of blank-verse that induced him to adopt what his admirers called the natural style ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... shuddered as the thought swiftly awoke of those dark secrets hidden beneath the ever-lasting green and white of the forest. Lorenzo Surprenant was right in what he had been saying; it was a pitiless ungentle land. The menace lurking just outside the door-the cold-the shrouding snows-the blank solitude-forced a sudden entrance and crowded about the stove, an evil swarm sneering presages of ill or hovering in a yet more dreadful silence:—"Do you remember, my sister, the men, brave and well-beloved, whom we have stain and hidden in the woods? Their souls have known how to ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... principal Eocene areas of North-western Europe, showing: Shaded dotted: Hypogene rocks and strata older than the Devonian. Shaded horizontal lines: Eocene formations. NB.— the space left blank is occupied by fossiliferous formations from the Devonian to ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... charge should take place, our men would have to ride down four abreast through ambush. And, if Mahmoud had merely intended placing a few men to trap our horsemen, he would never have troubled to cut down the forest. Plainly, he meant to destroy our mounted men at point-blank range, and then march a large force up the horse-track, so turning the tables on us. Considering the overwhelming numbers he had at his disposal, the game ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... of the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer into English Blank Verse, 4 vols. 8vo., half bound in morocco, uncut, top edges gilt, illustrated with a choice set of engravings by Fuseli, Stothard, Burley, and others, proofs before letters, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various
... The poor skinned the dead horses on battle-fields to make shoes. Horses cost five thousand dollars. Cloth was two hundred dollars a yard. Sorghum had taken the place of sugar. Salt was sold by the ounce. Quinine was one dollar a grain. Paper to write upon was torn from old blank books. The ten or twenty dollars which the soldiers received for their monthly pay, was about sufficient to buy a sheet, a pen, and a little ink to write home to their starving families that they too ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... strange blank in Indian history. Little can be said except that the power of the Kushans decayed and that northern India was probably invaded by Persians and Central Asian tribes. The same trouble did not affect southern India and it may be that religion and speculation flourished ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... a step, and eyed her mother in blank surprise. "Is it possible that you know him?" ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... a measure from the astonishment produced by this discovery I inquired whether other shamans had such books. "Yes," said Swimmer, "we all have them." Here then was a clew to follow up. A bargain was made by which he was to have another blank book into which to copy the formulas, after which the original was bought. It is now deposited in the library of the Bureau of Ethnology. The remainder of the time until the return was occupied in getting an understanding of the contents of ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... you could get near enough to the long-distance telephone, John, you could hear one rich old American guy shrieking the battle-cry to another captain of industry out in Indianapolis: 'To arms! The foe! The foe! He comes with nothing but his full dress suit and a blank marriage license! To arms! ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... astounded that he looked at Winter in blank amazement, the pressure of his fingers on the circuit key relaxed, and the American's voice trailed abruptly away into silence. He put matters right at once and heard the continuation of a new sentence, whereupon he broke ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... How blank the space seemed when she had gone—dull and unspeakably uninteresting. He became impatient with the slowness of the waiters, who had seemed to hurry unnecessarily the night before. But at last his meal ended, ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... "Considerable oration! What I can never understand is how you think up all these things to say. I couldn't do it if you paid me. The other night I had to propose the Visitors at the Old Alumni dinner of Oom University, and my mind seemed to go all blank. But you just stand up and the words come fluttering out of you like bees out of a barn. I simply cannot understand it. The ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... the water beside the stranded Tortoise, saw with blank amazement that Kinsella turned the boat's head and rowed back again ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... to grasp them—in those hours, doubtless, there must be continual frustration and amazement in his glance. And more horrible still, when the thick cloud parted for a moment, and, as he sprang forward with hope, rolled together again, and left him helpless as before; doubtless, there was then a blank confusion in his face, as of a ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... left a blank space for his honor's signature," continued Master Simon, when he had read the modest document. "What do you think ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... appeared to want to keep the site of her house a secret from all her friends. When they asked her, point-blank, where her house was, she always pretended not to hear the question and left them. Or she would begin to ask questions of her ...
— The Tale of Mrs. Ladybug • Arthur Scott Bailey
... court and an inner sanctuary, with its parakku or "mercy-seat," and its ark of stone or wood, in which an inscribed tablet of stone was kept. Like the temple of Jerusalem, the Babylonian temple looked from the outside much like a rectangular box, with its four walls rising up, blank and unadorned, to the sky. Within the open court was a "sea," supported at times on oxen of bronze, where the priests and servants of the temple performed their ablutions and the sacred ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... ridicule. Knowing that he was being laughed at, he became ashamed to collect his taxes. This had a bad effect on his character, which was already bad enough. People used to give him documents upside down to see him pretend to read them. He would make a show of doing so, and then, on the first blank space he found, would fill in some sprawling characters which, I may say, represented him very accurately. The natives continued to pay their taxes, but kept on ridiculing him. He fairly raved with anger and worked himself up to such a frame of mind that he respected ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... a Southern Congressman, just now is making a good deal of noise, but you will recall that Mr. Blank spoke just as bitterly against me before Mr. Roosevelt became President as he has since. I do not want to permit myself to be misled, but I repeat that I cannot see or feel that any great alienation has taken place between the two classes of ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... may receive such decoration as we have seen, because it is one of the most important features in the whole building; and the eye is always so attracted to it that it cannot be in rich architecture left altogether blank; the eye is stayed upon it by its position, but glides, and ought to glide, along the basic rolls to take measurement of their length: and even with all this added fitness, the ornament of the basic ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... of the French monarchy, which his clients were being subjected to. The whole investigation was in keeping with the spirit evinced by the bench. The witnesses seemed to come for the special purpose of swearing point-blank against the hapless men in the dock, no matter at what cost to truth, and to take a fiendish pleasure in assisting in securing their condemnation. One of the witnesses was sure "the whole lot of them wanted to murder everyone who had any property;" another assured ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... said he as he laid it down, "strange how I think of you to-night. Seeing your little one, I suppose. But somehow to-night more than ever I feel the blank you made in my life when you left. How you'd have loved the kiddie, Jim. Strange wee soul with a shadow already on her life—a big black shadow, Jim, ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... to hear Ishmael talking to her, arguing, explaining, but she made no answer to his words. Her mind was a blank, and all she knew was that they were riding on for hours. Her tired horse stumbled up a pass and down its further side. Then she heard dogs bark and saw lights. The horse stopped and she slid from it, and as she was too exhausted to walk, was supported or carried into a ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... itself was drawn on cheap, blue paper, on the same form as the blank bills to be had at the Paris stationers', where I had bought some. From Rothschilds' I went direct to the hotel where we had our rendezvous, and the acceptance was so simple and easy that Mac had it copied on another bill in ten minutes. The business ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... the Town Hall, and after berating the city officials listened to the speeches of welcome. As he and his wife were departing a Serbian student, named Prinzip, who was later arrested, rushed out from the crowd and fired point-blank at the couple with a revolver. Both were hit a number of times and died some hours later ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... rub them on their sleeves, look at them in an abstracted manner, and drop them again; and they would talk of some old lead they had worked on: "Hogan's party was here on one side of us, Macintosh was here on the other, Mac was getting good gold and so was Hogan, and now, why the blanky blank weren't we on gold?" And the mate would always agree that there was "gold in them ridges and gullies yet, if a man only had the money behind him to git at it." And then perhaps the guv'nor would show him a spot where he intended to put down a shaft some day—the old man was always thinking ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... last she suffered him to do so, but tried to look interestingly confused. Mr. Wilmot read what was written and then smiling passed it to his friend, who looked at it and saw that it was a piece of tolerably good blank verse. ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... his actions at New Orleans with both the President and the Secretary of War, he had received, as he says, "a chart blank," approving his "whole proceedings"; so he had nothing further to worry about on that score. The national army had been reorganized on a peace footing, in two divisions, each under command of a major general. The northern division fell to Jacob Brown of New York, the hero of Lundy's Lane; the ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... morning, and rather too cool. No fish of any kind showed on the surface. One of those inexplicably blank days that are inevitable ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... so they wend their ways Back to their beautiful yesterdays; The present is blank — so they wing their flight To future ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... crime which should be talked of daily for a century, and should have its separate, distinct record in stone when a thousand plots and passions of regicides and usurpers should be as clean forgotten as if their record had never stained blank paper. ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... fortune of the day, for Parma had already received the welcome intelligence that the Palisade—now Fort Victory—had been regained. He instantly ordered an outer breast-work of wool-sacks and sand-bags to be thrown up in front of Saint George, and planted a battery to play point-blank at the enemy's entrenchments. Here the final issue was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... simply laughs at the stories. If a fellow asks him point-blank if they are true he tells him not to let anybody string him. He seems to regard the whole business as a weak sort of joke that some fellow is trying ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... point-blank question which I hardly expected," said Yanski, gazing at her in astonishment. "Don't you ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... however, I found that another plan had been adopted. Gates and Tommy were busily unlacing the canvas cover from our brass cannon. While it was only used for signaling, it could make a stunning racket. Bilkins was holding a box of blank shells, each containing somewhere near twenty drams of black powder. As I approached, Tommy was excitedly arguing with Gates who, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... wearing it, or from the effect of the gold embroidery meandering over all, the effect was not distressing, but more like that of a gorgeous bird. The figure was tall, lithe, and active, the brown ruddy face had none of the blank stare of vacant idiocy, but was full of twinkling merriment, the black eyes laughed gaily, and perhaps only so clearsighted and shrewd an observer as Tibble would have detected a weakness of ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... can possibly disprove. Your only hope, sir is to present a plausible conjecture to the jury. Just set their fancies to work, and they have a taste most perfectly dramatic. What you leave undone, they will do. Where you exhibit a blank, they will supply the words wanting. Only set them on trail, and they'll tree the 'possum. They are noble hands at it, and, as I now live and talk to you, sir, not one of them who heard the plausible story which I would have ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... "snaking" chain. He was picked up unconscious and carried to the nearest cabin. For several days his stupor was unbroken, and the doctor hardly expected him to pull through. Then he recovered consciousness—but he was no longer MacPhairrson. His mind was a sort of amiable blank. He had to be fed and cared for like a very young child. The doctor decided at last that there was some pressure of bone on the brain, and that operations quite beyond his skill would be required. At his suggestion a purse was ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... be, Mr. Willits?" she rejoined in perfunctory tones, glancing at her own blank card hanging to her wrist: he was the last man in the world she wanted to ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... as he had said, the wind, and being able to go nearer it than the Spaniard, kept his place at easy point-blank range for his two-eighteen-pounder culverins, which Yeo and his ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... other, more to the east, bears the name of Colue; they appear to be the Albert and the Victoria Nyanza. This most curious information was rejected by the geographers of the nineteenth century, who left blank the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... setting out, he requested the monarch to show him his collection of charms, which were written on sheets of paper, glued or pasted together. Amongst them he discovered a small edition of Watts' Hymns on one of the blank leaves of which was written, Alexander Anderson, Royal Military Hospital, Gosport, 1804. From the Wowow chieftain, as well as from his good old brother, and their quondam Abba, Richard and his attendants ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... awake now, and both the shadow and the peaceful expression were gone from her face. It was a look of blank astonishment at first with which she regarded her father, but very soon indeed that changed into one of blank despair. He saw that she understood perfectly what he was there for, and that there was no need at all for him to trouble himself with ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... and then, suddenly realizing how he had echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair and stared at him in blank amazement. ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... may last, but never lives, Who much receives but nothing gives; Whom none can love, whom none can thank, Creation's blot, creation's blank. When Jesus Dwelt. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... of the room was the air of refreshing neglige with which sundry robes of bear and fox skins were tossed about upon the chairs and lounges and floor; while the blank spaces of the walls were broken by numerous pictures, some of them apparently family relics, and on little brackets were various souvenirs of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... changed as suddenly as do those of a ten-cent panorama, when a midnight storm at sea or a volcanic eruption is about to be rolled in view: I went down ad imis—'down to the bottom of the sea—the earth with her bars was around me forever.' Blank horror and anguish seized me. Hope fled to its impregnable corner of my heart, till the calamity was overpast. A hushed agony was upon me, as before I had known its boundless bliss. And thus variously I fared through all that second night of sleeplessness. They probably sent me up and down ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... old-fashioned organ. The treasurer of the Asylum Fund, in exact compliance with the explicit directions of the founder's charter, takes a half sheet of white paper and writes the words "One Hundred Pounds" on it, then five other blank half sheets, and wraps each tight round a little roller of wood tied with a narrow green ribbon. The knot of each is then firmly sealed with red sealing-wax, and all the rolls formally deposited in a large canister placed on a small table in the middle of the room. There is nothing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... these things will be specified in time, With strict regard to Aristotle's rules, The Vade Mecum of the true sublime, Which makes so many poets, and some fools: Prose poets like blank-verse, I 'm fond of rhyme, Good workmen never quarrel with their tools; I 've got new mythological machinery, And very handsome ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... This question usually had to be translated into Japanese, and the usual answer was, "The Tokaido, the Nakasendo, to Kiyoto, to Nikko," naming the beaten tracks of countless tourists. Do you know anything of Northern Japan and the Hokkaido? "No," with a blank wondering look. At this stage in every case Dr. Hepburn compassionately stepped in as interpreter, for their stock of English was exhausted. Three were regarded as promising. One was a sprightly youth who came in a well-made ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... have your epic spiced with the glamour of kings, the history of the river will not fail you; for in those days there were kings as well as giants in the land. Though it was not called such, all the blank space of the map of the Missouri River country and even to the Pacific, was one vast empire—the empire of the American Fur Company; and J.J. Astor in New York spoke the words that filled the wilderness ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... I could have wished for; she must be a veritable witch at sailing, if she can beat us before the wind. But we will set our port studdingsails only, to start with, if you please; for if, as I expect, we have the heels of her, I will haul up a point or two and endeavour to close with her to point-blank range." ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... charging Godoy with a design to seize the throne, and mentioning his mother's shame in covert terms; a memorial from Escoiquiz asking from the Emperor the hand of a French princess; and an order under the seal of Ferdinand VII, with blank date, to the Duke del Infantado, appointing him to the command of New Castile on the King's death. Two days later Godoy's connection with the seizure was proved; for, ill as he feigned to be, he was observed entering the Escorial after nightfall. Next ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... is included with indications of subdivisions and blank spaces in which the student is to write the more important sub-topics and other brief notes to complete ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... smooth from the tracks of cattle. He doubted not that he had come across one of the roads used by border raiders. He headed into it, and had scarcely traveled a mile when, turning a curve, he came point-blank upon a single horseman riding toward him. Both riders wheeled their mounts sharply and were ready to run and shoot back. Not more than a hundred paces separated them. They stood then for a moment ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... with the old was inevitable he did not know. Till then Hilda was part of the old, and if he went back to it she naturally took her old place in it. If he did not—well, there he invariably came to the end of thought. Curiously enough, it was when faced with a mental blank that Julie's image began to rise in his mind. If he admitted her, he found himself abandoning himself to her. He felt sometimes that if he could but take her in his arms he could let the world go by, and God with it. Her kisses were at least a reality. There ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... in a large hall, empty as a vault and almost as desolate. Blank doors met my eyes in all directions, with here and there an open passageway. I felt myself in a maze. I had no idea which was the door I sought, and it is not pleasant to turn unaccustomed knobs in a shut-up house at midnight, with the rain pouring in torrents and the wind making ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... and pay heavy fines for them in lump sums, and that if unable to produce the money they were evicted, and their farms were given to others who were able to pay. It is alleged that his agent got leases in blank, ready to be filled up when the cash was forthcoming, and that all the cash did not reach the landlord's hands. At any rate, attempts have been made to break some of the leases. There has been long ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... be deposited in a public library—is entirely in Major Frye's large and legible hand; at some later time it was evidently revised by himself, but many names which I have endeavoured to complete were left in blank or only indicated by initials. There are three folio volumes, bound in paper boards. In this edition it has been thought advisable to leave out a certain number of pages devoted to theatricals, of which Major Frye was a great votary, and also some lengthy descriptions of ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... pay-day," he directed, thrusting the money into the executive officer's hand. "They are dependable men, and will come to no harm. Up to eleven o'clock I shall be found at the Blank Hotel if wanted. At eleven I shall leave to come aboard, so you may send in a launch for ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... all that was in her power, she sat beside the poor tossing creature, controlling and calming her as best she could, while Mrs. Levi poured into her shrinking ear the story of the woman's illness and of Dr. Blank's conduct of it. Marcella's feeling, as she listened, was made up of that old agony of rage and pity! The sufferings of the poor, because they were poor—these things often, still, darkened earth and heaven for her. That ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... an inward necessity. "Paradise Lost," conceived in Milton's brain, could not utter itself in any other mode than the unrhymed harmonies that have given to our language a new music. It could not have been written in the Spenserian stanza. What would the "Fairy Queen" be in blank verse? For his theme and mood Dante felt the need of the delicate bond of rhyme, which enlivens musical cadence with sweet reiteration. Rhyme was then a new element in verse, a modern aesthetic creation; and it is a help ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... we mean by our horror and the wave of moral indignation that has swept over the earth. Jesse Pomeroy used to pull canary birds apart, and tortured children to death. But the boy was deficient in the nerve of humanity. He simply stared with blank eyes when the judge and the jury condemned him. He was incapable of knowing what the excitement over the dead body was about. On the side of compassion and humanity the German is, as it were, colour blind, is without musical sense, and the nerves of kindness ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis
... gone on for some time without effect, the old gentleman's patience became exhausted. He laid down his gavel, arose to his feet, glared at the irrepressible member, and, shaking his finger savagely, shouted: "Sit down, you blankety-blank ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... recorded of some tribes of American Indians. Thus we are told that "the name of an American Indian is a sacred thing, not to be divulged by the owner himself without due consideration. One may ask a warrior of any tribe to give his name, and the question will be met with either a point-blank refusal or the more diplomatic evasion that he cannot understand what is wanted of him. The moment a friend approaches, the warrior first interrogated will whisper what is wanted, and the friend can ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... that all wild animals multiplied enormously and wrought great damage to crops. Thereupon the Bakufu issued a further notice to the effect that in case wild animals committed ravages, they might be driven away by noise, or even by firing blank cartridges, provided that an oath were made not to kill them. Should these means prove defective, instructions must be sought from the judicial department. Moreover, if any animal's life was taken under proper sanction, the carcass must be buried ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... Ezekiel,[25] who would probably have known the poem had it existed in his day, obviously never heard of it; for this prophet, broaching the question, apparently for the first time among his countrymen, as to the justice of human suffering, denies point blank that any man endures unmerited pain,[26] and affirms in emphatic terms that to each one shall be meted out reward or punishment according to his works.[27] And this he could hardly have done had he been aware of the fact that the contradictory proposition was vouched for by no less ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... illegitimacy, no compromise, no grant from the king to the people. In all such grants there is an Article 14. By the side of the hand which gives there is the claw which snatches back. I refuse your charter point-blank. A charter is a mask; the lie lurks beneath it. A people which accepts a charter abdicates. The law is only the law when ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... face became strangely set and blank; his eyes looking vacant. 'Miss Limmer is very kind to us. She loves us and we love her dearly. Ask Batsy,' he said in a monotonous voice, as if he were repeating a lesson. 'Batsy, come here,' he said in the same voice. 'Is Miss Limmer ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... could not speak to him in his own language. The Paupau then levelled his musket and shot the fallen soldier, who groaned and died. The war-yells, or rather growls, of the Paupaus and Yarrabas now became awfully thrilling, as they helped themselves to cartridges: most of them were fortunately blank, or without ball. Never was a premeditated mutiny so wild and ill planned. Their chief, Daaga, and Ogston seemed to have had little command of the subordinates, and the whole acted more like a set of wild beasts who had broken their cages than ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... He sat a little forward, a hand on either knee, his mouth ungracefully open, an expression of blank and utter bewilderment in his face. For the first time he began to have vague doubts concerning this young lady. Everything about her had been so strange: her quiet entrance into the carriage, her unusual manner ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Matilda's brother Baldwin, Count of Flanders, the answer he received was a query, how much land in England he would allot as a recompense. He sent, in return, a piece of blank parchment; but others say, that instead of being an absolute blank, it contained his signature, and was filled up by Baldwin, with the promise of a pension of ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... laugh at the blank dismay that fell upon the exultation of Sylvia's face, and for a moment she was both piqued and petulant. Hot, tired, disappointed, and, hardest of all, laughed at, it was one of those times that try girls' souls. But she was too old to cry, too proud to complain, too well-bred to ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... failure in August to elect then-President MERI's successor; on the second ballot of voting, RUUTEL received 186 votes to Parliament Speaker Toomas SAVI's 155; the remaining 26 ballots were either left blank or invalid ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... (After a pause.) It's rather frightening to think what a face can hide.... I sometimes catch sight of one looking at me. Careful lips, and blank eyes.... And then I find I'm staring at myself in the glass ... and I realise how successfully I'm hiding the thoughts I know so well ... and then I know we're all ... strangers. Windows, with blinds, and behind them ... secrets. ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn
... it, contained the last of the cherry-stones. The note was superscribed in the captain's well-known hand, but it was the writing evidently of one who wrote feebly. There was an unusual solemnity also in the manner of him who delivered it. The seal was broken, and there was the cherry-stone in a blank envelope. ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... other varieties of stone-throwing machinery; "the war-wolf" was long the chief of projectile machines, as the ram was of manual forces. The power of a battering-ram of the largest size, worked by a thousand men, has been proven to be equal to a point-blank shot from a thirty-six pounder. There were moveable towers of all sizes and of many names: "the sow" was a variety which continued in use in England and Ireland till the middle of the seventeenth century. The divisions of the cavalry were: first, the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... rhymed ends of blank verses (Bouts-Rimes) where to each one puts what construction ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... see to it that all the rents belonging to us [in (?)—blank space in Alguns documentos] whatever manner, in said lands and islands that are discovered by said fleet, [whether (?)—blank space in Alguns documentos] in trade or in any other way; also the rents of the salt marshes ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... seat and accepted one of the American's cigars. If Treherne had been attending to the matter he might have noted, with his sardonic superstition, a curious fact—that, while all three men were tacitly condemning themselves to stay out all night if necessary, all, by one blank omission or oblivion, assumed that it was impossible to follow their host into the wood just in front of them. But Treherne, though still in the garden, had wandered away from the garden table, and was pacing along the single line of trees against the dark sea. They had in their regular ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... blank amazement, the young man mechanically put out his hand to greet the beautiful woman who approached ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... total vote; a run-off election to select a president from the two leading candidates was held 19 June 1994; results - Ernesto SAMPER Pizano (Liberal Party) 50.4%, Andres PASTRANA Arango (Conservative Party) 48.6%, blank votes 1%; Humberto de la CALLE Lombana elected vice president for a four-year term by popular vote in a new procedure that replaces the traditional designation of vice presidents by newly elected ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... two Fleets were join'd, and making the best of their Way for Barcelona. It will easily be imagin'd the Express was to be well paid; and being made sensible that he ran little or no Hazard in carrying a Piece of blank Paper, he undertook it, and as fortunately arriv'd with it to the Earl, at a Moment when Chagrin and Despair might have hurry'd him to some Resolution that might have prov'd fatal. The Messenger himself, however, knew nothing ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... felt, nor did he look at the title. But Ephie, who was accompanying him to the door, made a face of laughing stupefaction behind her sister's back, and went out on the landing with him, to whisper: "What HAVE you been doing to Joan?"—at which remark, and at Maurice's blank face, she laughed so immoderately that she was forced to go down the stairs with him, for fear Joan should hear her; and, in the house-door, she stood, a white-clad little figure, and waved her hand to him until he turned ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... he has been bringing forth a Litter of Mr. Congreeves Epithetes, as he calls them original reads Epithetes, [blank] ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... shows any emotion that may be stirring his heart. I am sure, however, that if one could have had a look at the face of Tall Bear when he made the discovery that neither the brother nor sister was in the cabin he would have seen a picture of as blank amazement as ever held ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
... the strength of her fine pyromaniac rage For a season or two she appeared on the stage; Her dancing was crude and her voice was a blank, But she carried it off by superlative swank, And married a swarthy and elderly milli- Onaire who was killed in an earthquake in Chile. A militant during the Suffrage campaign, In the War she adopted the cause of Sinn Fein, And, according to credible witness, was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... following her half-hypnotic gaze, in time to see Colonel Von Ritz bending over her hand. With recognition, Benton started up, then his jaw dropped and, doubting his own sanity, he fell back into his chair and sat gazing with blank eyes. ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... had come the blank, lifeless expression of the obstinate savage. Kingozi recognized it, and knew that further interrogation was a matter of much time and patience. His eyes ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... being appointed, he should hardly have to ask the proprietor a single question. The book should either be type written, or written in a hand as clear as type, should of course be paged, and have a well drawn up table of contents, and a blank page opposite every written page, for the insertion of notes and observations. The book should give, firstly, a history of the estate, then a list of the various fields, the dates on which they were planted, a description ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... dulled her glance and given her eyes the limpidity of spring water. Absolute renunciation, slow physical and moral death, had little by little converted this crazy amorosa into a grave matron. When, as often happened, a blank stare came into her eyes, and she gazed before her without seeing anything, one could detect utter, internal void through those ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... months before enjoying full life and abundant hope. The "Daily Telegraph's" proprietor cabled over to Bennett: "Will you join us in sending Stanley over to complete Livingstone's explorations?" Bennett received the telegram in New York, read it, pondered a moment, snatched a blank and wrote: "Yes. Bennett." That was my commission, and I set out to Africa intending to complete Livingstone's explorations, also to settle the Nile problem, as to where the head-waters of the Nile were, as to whether Lake Victoria consisted of one lake, one body of water, or a ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... "Esther won't tell me a thing. She's shielding him. But I went through her letters and found a note from him. It's signed 'J. C.' I accused him point-blank to her and she just put her head down on her arms and sobbed. ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... the value of the grammar-school teaching is echoed in Darwin's own words when describing his school days at precisely the same age at Shrewsbury Grammar School, where, he says, "the school as a means of education to me was simply a blank." It is therefore interesting to notice, side by side, as it were, the occupation which each boy found for himself out of school hours, and which in both instances proved of immense value in their respective careers in ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... my interest in the subject. I was told, too, that God was good, and that He knew what was best for me, and best for everybody. This was less satisfactory than the first statement; because it came, point blank, against all my{70} notions of goodness. It was not good to let old master cut the flesh off Esther, and make her cry so. Besides, how did people know that God made black people to be slaves? Did they go up in the sky and learn it? or, did He come down and tell them so? All was dark ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... wishes are untouched, and are as strong enemies to our peace of mind as ever. Hepburn's baulked hope was the Mordecai sitting in Haman's gate; all his success in his errand to London, his well-doing in worldly affairs, was tasteless, and gave him no pleasure, because of this blank and void of all ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... protest against Mrs. Portheris's regulations, and impossible to contravene them, so I have nothing to report of that guide but his card, which bore the name "Antonio Plicco," and his memory, which is a blank. ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Lord Saxondale," cried Dorothy, clutching his arm and drawing him apart from the pale-faced group. Eagerly she whispered in his ear, stamping her foot in reply to his blank objections. In the end she grasped both his shoulders and looked up into his astonished eyes determinedly, holding him firmly until he nodded his head gravely. Then she ran across the room to the two ladies and the bewildered ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... they go in that direction? Why will they not come within range? I will give everything I have on earth for one good point-blank shot!" ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... book has afforded him much pleasure in his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This edition is interleaved with blank sheets for the reader's notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the care of the publishers, will meet with consideration in ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... were on March 23 rejected by the States-General. Wiser counsels however prevented this point-blank refusal being sent to Paris, and it was hoped that a policy of delay might secure better terms. The negotiations went on slowly through March and April; and, as Blauw and Meyer had no powers as accredited plenipotentiaries, the Committee determined to send Rewbell ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... convicted by the former were taken into the garden and shot, while those found guilty by the latter were dragged away to the Lobau barracks, where a platoon of soldiers that was kept there in constant attendance for the purpose mowed them down, almost at point-blank range. The scenes of slaughter there were most horrible: there were men and women who had been condemned to death on the flimsiest evidence: because they had a stain of powder on their hands, because their feet were shod with army shoes; there were innocent persons, the victims of private ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... arches, the piers from which they spring being placed directly above those of the main arcade. Each of the side bays is divided into four compartments by small columns, above which the tympanum of the enclosing arch is occupied by a blank wall. The sequence is, of course, interrupted by the oriel window in the central bay on the south; and the narrower openings in the apse only admit of a twofold division. There are said to have been originally windows at the back of the triforium-gallery, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... Dinky-Dunk asked me point-blank to-day if I'd consider the sale of Casa Grande, provided he got the right price for the ranch. I felt, for a moment, as though the bottom had been knocked out of my world. But it showed me the direction in which my husband's thoughts have ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... each other in blank awe, at the various parts, so innocent looking in the heaps on the table, now safely separated, but together ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... can only say that my mind is a perfect blank, but if you will stop talking I will try to think the matter over. There's Miss Heda in the garden cutting flowers. I will go to help her, which will ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... other again. Mr. Guppy makes a hurried remark to the effect that they may be doing the deceased a service, that he hopes so. There is an oppressive blank until Mr. Weevle, by stirring the fire suddenly, makes Mr. Guppy start as if his heart had ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... things;'—and yet when we turn to the treatment which these men mete out to their slaves, and show that they are in the habitual practice of striking, kicking, knocking down and shooting them as well as each other—the look of blank incredulity that comes over northern dough-faces, is a study for a painter: and then the sentimental outcry, with eyes and hands uplifted, 'Oh, indeed, I can't believe the slaveholders are so cruel ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... dead, having died of a broken heart at the time of his failure. From that time his widow and her daughters had been in very straitened circumstances; but unknown to all but herself, and Him from whom nothing is hid, Mrs Malcolm from time to time had sent them, in a blank letter, an occasional note to the young ladies to buy a gown. After her death, a bank-bill for a sum of money, her own savings, was found in her scrutoire, with a note of her own writing pinned to the same, stating, that the amount being more than she had needed for herself, belonged ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... body which he had pressed tightly in his arms and explored with his fingers, a woman of whom he might one day come into absolute possession if he succeeded in making himself indispensable to her. There she was, often tired, her face left blank for the nonce by that eager, feverish preoccupation with the unknown things which made Swann suffer; she would push back her hair with both hands; her forehead, her whole face would seem to grow larger; then, suddenly, some ordinary human thought, some worthy sentiment ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... thus point-blank to retract, effectually destroyed whatever hopes of mediation or reconciliation had been entertained by the milder and more moderate adherents of the Church who still wished for reform. Nor was any union possible ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... and a half ago, that is to say soon after eleven o'clock, it was discovered that the document in question was missing, and in its place had been substituted a number of sheets of blank paper." ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... Dave could support a fambly as big as that. He figgered it would be jest as easy to take keer of eight as seven, so he perlitely attached hisself to Dave's kitchen an' started in to eat hisself to death. Dave was goin' to have his wife apply fer another divorce an' leave the name blank, so's he could put in either husband ef it came to a pinch, but I coaxed him out of it. He finally got rid of the feller by askin' him one day to sweep out the office. He could eat all right, but ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... reduce local and other deleterious action by starting with perfectly homogeneous plates. They are formed from sheet lead blanks by suitable machines, which gradually raise the surface into a series of ribs and grooves. The sides and middle of the blank are left untouched and amply suffice to distribute the current over the surface of the plate. The grooves are very fine, and when the active material is formed in them by electro-chemical action, they hold it very ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... attentions that are so often neglected. One day, seeing him employed in cutting something from a newspaper, I asked him what he was about. 'Oh,' said he, 'here is a little paragraph speaking kindly of our poor old friend Blank; you know he seldom gets a word of praise, poor fellow, nowadays; and thinking he might not chance to see this paper, I am snipping out the paragraph to mail to him this afternoon. I know that even these few lines of recognition will make him happy for hours, and I could not bear to think ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... amazed spectator of the scene, till Eliza had disappeared up the bank, when he turned a blank, inquiring look on ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... like asking a Mason to reveal the mysteries of his order, a priest to tell the secrets of the confessional. The colonel commanded the presence of Lieutenant Blank. With alarm I awaited his coming. Did a military prison yawn, and was he to act as my escort? I had been too bold. I should have asked to see only the ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... nevertheless, was an animal of considerable strength and sinew. It was the squire who blew the trumpet, through the bars of his helmet; the knight's visor was completely down. A small prince's coronet of gold, from which rose three pink ostrich-feathers, marked the warrior's rank: his blank shield bore no cognizance. As gracefully poising his lance he rode into the green space where the Rowski's tents were pitched, the hearts of all present beat with anxiety, and the poor Prince of Cleves, especially, had considerable doubts ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... approved soldier, and ready for the crisis. As the tempest of fire approached its height, he walked along the line, and renewed his orders to the men to reserve their fire. The Rebels—three lines deep—came steadily up. They were in point-blank range. ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... front-rank man and the corresponding man of the rear rank. The front-rank man is the file leader. A file which has no rear-rank man is a blank file. The term file applies also to a single man in ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... banished, still communicated with his friends in the capital. What more likely then, than that the attempt on Conde's life was made by Masarins? And if so, who more likely to lead it than the penniless youth who had refused point-blank to join any of the other parties? Mazarin, it would be asserted, must have left me in Paris ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... But, putting this aside, what majestic Pandemoniums of terrific Imagination he has the power to call up! The opening Books are as sublime as the book of Job, and more arresting than Aeschylus. The basic secrets of his blank verse can never be revealed, but one is struck dumb with wonder in the presence of this Eagle of Poetry as we attempt to follow him, flight beyond flight, hovering beyond hovering, as he gets nearer ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... days she had walked each afternoon far down the river road, by which he would be sure to come; down the meadows, and by the cross-cut, out to the highway; at each step straining her tearful eyes into the distance,—the cruel, blank, silent distance. She had come back after dark, whiter and more wan than she went out. As she sat at the supper-table, silent, making no feint of eating, only drinking glass after glass of milk, in thirsty haste, even Margarita pitied her. But the Senora did not. She thought the ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... conduct. Almost from the first it is evident that Adam, the village judge, is himself the culprit in the case at trial in his court, and the comic efforts of the arch-rascal to squirm out of the inevitable discovery only serve to make his guilt the surer. In this comedy the blank verse adapts itself to all the turns of familiar humorous dialogue, and the effect of the Dutch genre-paintings of Teniers or Jan Steen is admirably reproduced in dramatic form. The slowly moving action, constantly reverting to past incidents, makes a successful performance difficult; ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... much alone in Italian towns; but he condescended to accept me as a fare. However, to show his disapproval maybe, he rattled me through streets old and beautiful, ugly and modern (why should most modern things be ugly, even in Italy?) at a tremendous pace. At last he stopped before a high, blank wall, in a most dismal region, apparently the outskirts of the town. I would hardly believe that he had brought me to the right place, but he reassured me. In the distance another cab was approaching, probably on the same errand. I rang a bell, and a gate was opened by a nice-looking woman, ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... examined. Sir Philip explained that he had only said he knew of no other than a fantastic plot, but, as a contemporary letter puts it, "Oates had got ready four shrewd coffee-drinkers, then present, who swore the matter point blank." So the perjurer won again, and Sir Philip was suspended during the king's pleasure as the outcome of ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... verse before: Jami tells of what everybody knows, under cover of a not very skilful Allegory. I have undoubtedly improved the whole by boiling it down to about a Quarter of its original size; and there are many pretty things in it, though the blank Verse is too Miltonic ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... until he was fully ready. It required all his self-mastery to avoid betraying himself by look or tone, but he was so natural that Myrtle was thrown wholly off her guard. He meant to make her pleased with herself at the outset, and that not by point-blank flattery, of which she had had more than enough of late, but rather by suggestion and inference, so that she should find herself feeling happy without knowing how. It would be easy to glide from that to the impression she had produced upon him, and get ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of that before and every one looked blank. Finally, however, Jim said Bella's middle name was Constantia, and we decided to call her that. But it turned out afterward that nobody could remember it in a hurry, and generally when we wanted to attract her attention, we ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... And Sub-Lieutenant Blank, that martial man, Shows his pyjamas to a startled world, And shivers in the foremost of our van The while our H.E. shells are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various
... I have a faint recollection of her blue eyes and sweet smile as she took me in her arms, or looked down upon me as I played at her feet. Still, it is only now and then like the vision in a dream that her countenance rises to my memory. After that there comes a blank, and I found myself on board a ship—brought there by my black nurse, accompanied by the tall gentleman. I remember him clearly in the cabin, talking to a lady who then took charge of me, my nurse, I conclude, returning on shore, for she disappears from my recollection. ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... anger arose from some, and of delight from others, all looking on while the discomfited Boer sprang up with a cry of rage, cocked his rifle, and, taking quick aim, would have fired point-blank at the prisoner had not his act been anticipated by the Boer who had before spoken. Quick as thought he sprang upon his companion, striking the presented rifle upwards with a blow from his own, and then grasping the infuriated ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... then slept heavily; and out of one dull slumber she awakened to the certainty that something strange had happened. The storm had lulled at last. Through her window, set high in the wall, she could see the dead light of a blank gray dawn. She had seen other eyeless mornings on her windowpane; but this was different, the air in her room was different. Something unknown had been taken from or added to it. As she lay there wondering, but not yet willing to discover, the ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... must confess that, if there had been an Athenaeum, and if the people had been readers, years ago, some leaves of dedication in your library, of praise of patrons which was very cheaply bought, very dearly sold, and very marketably haggled for by the groat, would be blank leaves, and posterity might probably have lacked the information that certain monsters of virtue ever had existence. But it is upon a much better and wider scale, let me say it once again—it is in the effect of such institutions ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... lists in Oxford, they certainly have procured for the parties occasionally a very high "provincial celebrity." I know that when we beat our retreat from summer quarters at Glyndewi in 18—, the sighs of our late partners were positively heart-rending, and the blank faces of the deserted billiard-marker and solitary livery-stable 'groom' haunt ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... on a strong arm, and little feared Abandonment to help if heaved or sank Her heart at intervals while Love looked blank, Life rosier were she ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... companion for the work-basket, would do well to obtain the daintily bound Ladies' Almanac for 1863, issued by GEORGE COOLIDGE, 17 Washington street, Boston, and sold by HENRY DEXTER, New York. It is an almanac; contains a blank memorandum for every day in the year, recipes, music, and light reading—and is altogether an excellent subject for a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," and full of plates. I had never heard of the book, and did not know what the title meant. I first looked at all the plates, and then I turned to the opening of the book. On the blank leaf at the commencement, in very neat and lawyer-like handwriting, was "Anna James, on her marriage, from her dear friend Mary Farquhar, Tynemouth, June the 19th, 1738." By this I discovered, as I thought, the married but not the maiden name of old Nanny; and very probably, also, that Tynemouth ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... for a man to love a woman as I do,' he went on—'I did not seek to love her, it came upon me before I was aware—before I had ever thought about it at all, I loved her better than all the world beside. All my life, before I knew her, seems a dull blank. I neither know nor care for what I did before then. And now there are just two lives before me. Either I have her, or I have not. That is all: but that is everything. And what can I do to make her have me? Tell me, aunt,' and he caught at Madame Babette's arm, and gave it so sharp a shake, ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... fenced citywards behind a blank brewhouse-wall (as though its Founder's first precaution had been to protect learning from siege), and its precincts opening rearwards upon green playing-fields and river-meads—is like few schools in England, and none in ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... paper instead of one. The second sheet was a spare copy of his marvelous contract for the acquisition of desert lands, which through some accident had become mixed, with the printed side up, among some loose sheets of blank legal-size typewriter paper which the unconventional Robert had purchased in the pursuit of his correspondence with Donna. His choice of letter paper was characteristic of Bob. He was a man who required room in ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... that a blank shield is devoid of merit because among the people of Athens the true recognition confirmed by ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... sold, Which few pence had made too dear On its blank to have enscrolled Beatrice, ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... the creation. He sighed as he gazed at the piteous fragments that represented six months' labour; fragments that wept blood; the torn and mutilated limbs of living thoughts; with here and there huge torsos of blank verse, lopped and hewn in the omnipotent fury of a god at war with his world; mixed up with undeveloped and ethereal shapes, the embryos ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair |
