"Bluff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... His was a bluff purple face, denoting the bon vivant. Indeed, it was with uncommon celerity, that his previous reputation of being the best maker of rum punch in the serjeants' mess, had changed into his present one of being the first concoctor ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... and there interspersed with a rack for drying copra, or a tumble-down hut for storing it. Every here and there the stroller had a glimpse of the Casco tossing in the narrow anchorage below; and beyond he had ever before him the dark amphitheatre of the Atuona mountains and the cliffy bluff that closes it to seaward. The trade-wind moving in the fans made a ceaseless noise of summer rain; and from time to time, with the sound of a sudden and distant drum-beat, the surf ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... crime to keep a good-lookin', intelligent boy like you in prison, so we're going to get you out on parole and make an honest, upright citizen of you. We're going to get you a nice job',—and so on and so forth. Well, before he knows it, he's out and has to put up a bluff of workin' for a livin'. Course, he just has to go to stealin' again. It makes him sore when he thinks of the good, honest life he was leadin' up there in the pen, with nothin' to worry about, satisfactory ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... left, extending from a small bluff near Scott's Dam on the Rappahannock, and covering the roads on the river, along a crest between Mine and Mineral Spring Runs towards and within a ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... 27th they passed the present site of Omaha; and on the 30th encamped at a point twelve or fifteen miles to the north. It was this camp, pitched where the village of Calhoun, Neb., now stands, that received the name of Council Bluff, which was later appropriated by an Iowa town. Here, on August 2d, appeared a small band of Otoes and Missouris, with a Frenchman who resided among them. Presents were exchanged, and the officers requested a council upon ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... There was limitless prairie straight on in front of me. I walked for days, and slept at night wherever I could find a bluff. I could hear the little grasses whispering when I lay half-awake, and it was comforting to know that there were leagues and leagues of them between me and the city. I drove a team for a farmer most ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... school at Suva, amid great lamentations on the part of the women of Ratu Lala's household. Two months before my visit Ratu Lala had lost his eldest daughter (by his Tongan wife). She was twelve years old, and a favourite of his, and her grave was on a bluff below the house, under a kind of tent, hung round with fluttering pieces of "tapa" cloth. Spread over it was a kind of gravel of bright green Stones which he had had brought from a long distance. Little Moe and Tersi were always very ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... and curved off toward woods in the distance. Scarcely had our line reached this point, when the enemy "came down like the wolf on the fold." Judging from the promptness and vigor with which they assailed us, they evidently counted on making our enterprise another Ball's Bluff affair. ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... proudly handed in by us to History, as we bid her go with us from grave to grave to see how the faith of a people watched them against the great American Body Snatcher, and kept them inviolate to be her memorials. We feel our hearts reinforced by the precious blood which trickled from Ball's Bluff into the Potomac, and was carried thence into the great sea of our conscience, tumultuous with pride, anger, and resolve. The drops feed the country's future, wherever they are caught first by our free convictions ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... a challenge, I'll take it!" Then he added; and his face went hot as her own: "As to the freebooters of the Western Wilderness ripping the bowels out of public property out here, I'll accept that challenge, too! We'll put up a bluff ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... time they reached the summit, Bet and Kit were almost hysterical from laughing. Bet put the gun down gingerly. "I wonder what I would have done, if they had called my bluff!" she exclaimed. ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... of August, 1854, what seemed to be the entire population of Wynyard's Bar was collected upon a little bluff which overlooked the rude wagon road that was the only approach to the settlement. In general appearance the men differed but little from ordinary miners, although the foreign element, shown in certain Spanish peculiarities of dress and color, predominated, and ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... had wings, If wishes horses were, If, rather more substantial things, My Castles in the air; If balances but grew on Banks, If Brokers hated "bluff;" If Editors refrained from thanks And printed all ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various
... along the foot-path which wound its way through the pine bluff, in the midst of which the old fur fort lay hidden inside its mouldering stockade. He flung the pelts into the storeroom, and passed on to the house, wondering if Buck had returned from the camp, whither he knew he had ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... with beautiful dreams," the bluff trustee continued. "Drop 'em! You're too late for the New England pioneers who come West. They've had their day and passed on. The thing for you to do is to commercialize yourself right away. Go to buyin' and sellin' dirt. ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... as has been intimated, the mariners on the shore who watched her movements shook their heads in distrust as they communed among themselves, in very indifferent Italian, concerning her destination and object. This observation, with its accompanying discourse, occurred on the rocky bluff above the town of Porto Ferrajo, in the Island of Elba, a spot that has since become so renowned as the capital of the mimic dominion of Napoleon. Indeed, the very dwelling which was subsequently used by the fallen emperor as a palace stood within a hundred yards ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... standardized type who escapes the shafts of ridicule. It was kindly fun, which, while viewing him as a white swan in a flock of black ones, recognized him as a swan, and this was as much as he could expect. To pass in the crowd was all he asked for, even when he only passed on bluff. If he couldn't wholly hide the bluff he could keep it from being flagrantly obtrusive; and toward that end an ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... yellow sand Lay shining northward far as eye could reach, Southward a rocky bluff rose high Broken in wild, fantastic shapes. Near by, one jagged rock towered high, And o'er the waters leaned, like giant grim, Striving to peer into the mysteries The ocean whispers of continually, And covers with her soft, treacherous ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... your handkerchief over your eyes, and make believe you are playing blind man's bluff. Then you can't look until it's ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... of prowling coyotes, and saw, by the flickering lights, the smoky lodges of the warriors. The men crept up to within a few hundred yards of the slumbering camp, when they again crossed the creek down which they had been marching, and ascended its eastern bluff. Here they encountered a large herd of ponies, some of whom neighed anxiously as the strange apparition filed past them, ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... Zip, an' to 'range so he gits a chance to put 'em through. Now, I seen enough of him—an' others," with a swift, withering glance in Sunny's direction, "to know he's right up again a proposition that ain't no one man affair. Combination is the only bluff to fix them kids of his right. We've most of us got ideas, but like as not they ain't all we guess 'em to be. In some cases ther' ain't a doubt of it. Without sayin' nothin' of anybody, I sure wouldn't ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... was almost under water when the heavy squalls swooped down on her from the cliffs. The rest of the squadron was keeping some distance out, presenting a fine sight as the ships lay over, sending the spray flying high into the air from their bluff bows, and plunging ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... consoled by the thought that every day which passed brought him nearer to the time when he could claim his prize without concealment or fear. He went about as happy and as light-hearted a man as any in all London. His mother was delighted at his high spirits, but his bluff old father was not so well satisfied. "Confound the lad!" he said to himself. "He is settling down to a life of idleness. It suits him too well. We must get him to choose one ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... when the Birkenholts had come to London, but the approaching tournament at Westminster on the Whitsun holiday was the great excitement to the whole population, for, with all its faults, the Court of bluff King Hal was thoroughly genial, and every one, gentle and simple, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... complied with. Then taking with me such men as I knew I could depend on, among whom was the brave lieutenant Jossilin, I set out from the Long Bluff, towards Sandhills. The reader will please to take notice, that in our hurry we had not forgot to take with us a constable with a ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... but from the front and between these rivers the ground ascends, so that its houses are from 2 to even 100 feet above the sea; however, the center of population, the public square, is only about 20 feet above sea level. Versalles is on a bluff of the harbor, and its houses are situated, for the most part, from 15 to 40 feet above the sea. The district of Matanzas has ill constructed and useless sewers in only two streets, and no houses connected therewith. So much of this district and ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... the river Schofield rode to the fort that had been built the year before on the high bluff which formed the north bank. From this elevated position he had a good view of a large part of the battle-field and the heavy guns in the fort were engaged in firing on the nearest flank of the enemy; but he was not only well beyond the range of ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger
... wages, and after making an unsuccessful application for an increase, rushed in desperation to Edison, and said "Eef I not get more money I go to take ze cyanide potassia." Edison gave him one quick, searching glance and, detecting a bluff, replied in an offhand manner: "There's a five-pound bottle in No. 3," and turned to his work again. The foreigner did not go to get the cyanide, but gave up ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... rails, build a fire and dry off, I was so drenched it took me nearly all day to get thoroughly dry. I felt much happier upon this old cotton plantation, for it was about as pleasant a place as I had seen in Louisiana. We were situated on a high bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, which spread out before us like a broad lake. The banks were lined with live-oak, and back of us were dense forests. Hardly had we arrived when I was detailed to go on guard duty. Pretty rough on a fellow who hadn't slept any for about forty-eight hours, but ...
— The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion • George P. Bissell
... fleet was commanded by Sir William Phips, a bluff, short-tempered sailor. He sailed up the St. Lawrence and ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... this morning that those very savages rode out on the plains in a roundabout way, so as to get in advance of the Cheyennes, and then had hidden themselves on the top of a bluff overlooking the trail they knew the Cheyennes to be following, and had fired upon them as they passed below, killing two and wounding a number of others. You can see how treacherous these Indians are, and how very far from noble is their method of warfare! They are so disappointing, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... off they went on the pleasant ride through the city and out Broadway. As there was plenty of time, they drove through Shawnee Park and along the bluff overlooking the Ohio River creeping sluggishly past. Then they turned, and went a short mile to the entrance to ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt
... door interrupted his employment. Crossing the floor, he opened to Sir Francis Drake, who stood alone upon the threshold, his escort trampling down the stone stairs to the hall beneath. Nevil uttered an exclamation, which the other met with his bluff, short laugh. ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... the guard- house with the red and white posts of the Grand Duchy, and two sentries with muskets walking up and down—a sharp reminder of difficulties ahead. Beyond the frontier the road curved about a great bluff of rock and skirted the edge of an abyss. I could see dimly a far-stretching blue plain with rivers and white villages showing faintly upon it; my heart leaped at the thought that there below me, within a day's travel, was the land that held Aurelia and Redemption; but even in that same moment ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... dear," said the artist, commenting as the work proceeded, "this is his head, with a turn-up—there—like that, for his nose. A little too bluff, no doubt, but no matter. Then comes the ears, two of 'em, somewhat longish—so, not exactly fore an' aft, as I've made 'em, but ath'ort ships, so to speak, only I never could understand how painters manage to make one thing look as if it was behind another. I can't ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... reliance. He appears to have salved his conscience in this relapse by devoting part of his income to the reclamation of a great marsh on his estate. He operated two plantations, the one at his home, "Silver Bluff," the other, "Cathwood," near by. The field force on the former comprised in 1850 sixteen plow hands, thirty-four full hoe hands, six three-quarter hands, two half hands and a water boy, the whole rated at fifty-five full hands. At Cathwood the force, similarly grouped, was rated at seventy-one ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... hate had not left Chitta's face when he ran his canoe ashore at the foot of the high bluff upon which Admiral Ribault had erected the stone pillar engraved with the French coat of arms. Securing his canoe, and carefully concealing it from those who might pass on the river, Chitta made his way, by means of a narrow path through ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... through it, awarding apparent good and ill? I know: it is a story of To-Day. The Old Year is on us yet. Poor old Knowles will tell you it is a dark day; bewildered at the inexplicable failure of the cause for which his old blood ran like water that dull morning at Ball's Bluff. He doubts everything in the bitterness of wasted effort; doubts sometimes, even, if the very flag he fights for, be not the symbol of a gigantic selfishness: if the Wrong he calls his enemy, have not caught a certain truth to give it strength. A dark ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... which he uses at home, and said: "My good woman, you must not get in the habit of jabbing your husband's friends with this crooked cutlery, though to be killed by so handsome a woman would indeed be a sweet death," but the bluff did not go, and the woman disappeared behind the curtain, and dad had the frantic husband to ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... to the ways of the Avenue and all that kind of thing, where would I be now, trying to run in the right kind of bluff with the trade?" ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... eager and desperate determination to make the most of them. To give effect to their operations, they secured an immediate and ample interval for exasperating popular feeling against Ministers and their abominable proposition! But it was all in vain. There was a bluff English frankness about the Minister that mightily pleased the country, exciting a sympathy in every right-thinking Englishman. Here was no humbug of any sort, no obtaining of money under false pretences. At first hearing of it, honest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... this interesting juncture that the door opened and a footman stood in the August afternoon sunshine, touching his cap and staring fixedly down the platform. On a station lamp was 'Whinnerley Bluff'. ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... those days, from a bluff, self-confident and brave soldier to a shrunken craven, trembling at shadows. If he had known where the danger lay, or what it was, he would have met it valiantly enough; but he knew scarcely more than did his humblest soldier. He knew that the ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... December, 1868, it was destroyed by fire, and the Government is now rebuilding it upon a more formidable scale. The Staten Island shore is lined with guns. At the water's edge is a powerful casemated battery, known as Fort Tompkins, mounting forty heavy guns. The bluff above is crowned with a large and formidable looking work, also of granite, known as Fort Richmond, mounting one hundred and forty guns. To the right and left of the fort, are Batteries Hudson, Morton, North Cliff, and South Cliff; mounting about eighty guns of heavy calibre. It is ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... earnestness, and political economy, the nation was for a time in a mood for change, and Palmerston convinced it that he was the man for its mood. He had his full share of shrewd common sense, yet was capable of infinite recklessness. He was good-tempered and a man of bluff cheerful humour. But to lose the game was intolerable, and it was noticed that with him the next best thing to success was quick retaliation on a victorious adversary—a trait of which he was before long to give the ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... greatly persuade me. By this time I was fairly conversant with the cowboy's sense of humour. Nothing would have tickled them more than to bluff me out of a harmless excursion by means of scareful tales. Shortly Windy Bill turned off to examine a distant bunch of cattle; and ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... if you will pardon the expression, was a piece of bluff. You love Miss Parmenter perhaps as much as, though not possibly more than, I do, and therefore you would certainly not destroy the world as long as she was alive in it. You would be more or less than man if you did, and I don't believe you are either, and therefore I think you ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... third girl from Berta was trying to explain her own ignorance and failing brilliantly. Now the second was stammering through a transparent bluff. Berta had settled back, coolly resigned to fate. How she must suffer, after having stooped to ask for aid! Poor Robbie Belle! Poor, lonely, disappointed Robbie Belle! For strange to say she flunked too and the question journeyed on triumphantly to the ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... boys!" shouted Strong, thrusting his head in at the tent; and we all cheered and waved our caps like mad. You see, Big Bethel and Bull Run and Ball's Bluff (the Bloody B's, as we used to call them,) hadn't taught us any ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... just before my departure for the interior: 'Since you are going to study Japanese life, perhaps you will be able to find out something for me. I can't understand the Japanese smile. Let me tell you one experience out of many. One day, as I was driving down from the Bluff, I saw an empty kuruma coming up on the wrong side of the curve. I could not have pulled up in time if I had tried; but I didn't try, because I didn't think there was any particular danger. I only yelled ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... main part of the lake. To reach it the boys had to row around a point, which extended for quite a distance out into the water. On this point was a boathouse, which was part of the property on which stood an old and what at one time had been a handsome residence. This was on a bluff, overlooking the lake, and was known as ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... western lark even in the bottoms and meadows of the broad valley east of the Missouri River, while, one spring morning, I did hear one of these birds fluting in the top of a cottonwood tree in my yard on the high western bluff of that stream. ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... ruins on that bluff," he exclaimed; "those steep sides must have been washed by a great river in the prehistoric times. That was the fortress. Farther down lay the city. There are the dismantled ramparts; why, there's the very coping of a portico still intact! Don't you see three broken pillars lying beside their ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... bed of the river is so broad that the channel meanders from side to side within the bed, just as the bed itself meanders from bluff to bluff; and, as by erosions and deposits, the river, in long periods of time, traverses the valley, so the channel traverses the bed from bank to bank, justifying the remark often heard, that 'not a square rod of the bed could ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... prosperous-looking man of forty-odd, a typical product of country politics. His manner was carefully bluff and hearty and characterized by a sort of bonhommie that was useful in impressing voters with the fact that he was a pretty good fellow, his close-set eyes sparkled with intelligence that his low brow defined as cunning rather than wisdom, and there were puffy semicircles ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... madame's gift of utterance I had not hitherto heard or imagined)—we achieved little progress. She rang, ere long, for aid; which arrived in the shape of a "maitresse," who had been partly educated in an Irish convent, and was esteemed a perfect adept in the English language. A bluff little personage this maitresse was—Labasse-courienne from top to toe: and how she did slaughter the speech of Albion! However, I told her a plain tale, which she translated. I told her how I had left my own country, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Also, he could bluff and swagger, or he could speak in the polite accents of the distinguished gentleman; he could gulp a quart of champagne without taking the silver tankard from his lips; in younger years he used to eat from four to eleven eggs at a meal, besides ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... had listened so intently to her mother's glowing descriptions of the beauty and elegance of her old home "Elm Bluff," that she soon began to identify the land-marks along the road, alter passing the cemetery, where so many generations of Darringtons slept in one corner, enclosed by a lofty iron railing; exclusive in death as in life; jealously guarded and locked from ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Wars, there was, about forty miles southward, or higher up the River than Philipsburg, a military line or chain of posts; going from Stollhofen, a boggy hamlet on the Rhine, with cunning indentations, and learned concatenation of bog and bluff, up into the inaccessibilities,—LINES OF STOLLHOFEN, the name of it,—which well-devised barrier did good service for certain years. It was not till, I think, the fourth year of their existence, year 1707, that Villars, the same Villars who is now in Italy, 'stormed the Lines of Stollhofen;' ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... came in and found them together. He felt at once the antagonism in the atmosphere, something radical and insuperable, and he bit his lip. But he affected a bluff manner. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... lighting up the interior with a weird, bloody reflection. I crept painfully up to the port-hole and looked out. The strangest sight that man has ever looked upon met my eyes. The side of the wall had blown out into a gigantic cavern, and with it the rest of the cars had rolled down the bluff a tangled, twisted mass of steel. My car had almost passed by, and now it still stuck in the tube, even though the last port-hole through which I peered seemed to be suspended in air. But it was not the wrecked cars from which rose such wails of despair and agony that held my ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen
... Poor Man's Friend." You will next worship this god. He is at the bottom of a stone cistern in the temple of Dalbhyeswar, under the shade of a noble peepul tree on the bluff overlooking the Ganges, so you must go back to the river. The Poor Man's Friend is the god of material prosperity in general, and the god of the rain in particular. You will secure material prosperity, or both, by worshiping him. He ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... smallest particulars, for the interests and feelings of others, both public and private." When at his own request, Lady Elgin chose a spot for his grave in the little cemetery which stands on the bluff above the house where he died, "he gently expressed pleasure when told of the quiet and beautiful aspect of the place chosen, with the glorious view of the snowy range towering above, and the wide prospect of hill and plain below." During this ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... from Philadelphia, I found in the same car with our party Dr. William Hunt, of Philadelphia, who had most kindly and faithfully attended the Captain, then the Lieutenant, after a wound received at Ball's Bluff, which came very near being mortal. He was going upon an errand of mercy to the wounded, and found he had in his memorandum-book the name of our lady-companion's husband, who had been commended ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... the water, cutting the waves with her sharp bow and leaving scarcely a ripple behind her, so fine and clean was her run. Very different was this smooth, gliding motion from the quick plunge and shock of the bluff-bowed fishing boat to which he was accustomed. The sails had been scrubbed until there was not a speck upon them. The masts were lofty and tapering, the rigging neat and trim, and every ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... in the prime of life. His close-shaven crown, surrounded by a circle of stiff curled black hair, had something the appearance of a parish pinfold begirt by its high hedge. The features expressed nothing of monastic austerity, or of ascetic privations; on the contrary, it was a bold bluff countenance, with broad black eyebrows, a well-turned forehead, and cheeks as round and vermilion as those of a trumpeter, from which descended a long and curly black beard. Such a visage, joined to the brawny form ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... leased from the services. At the time of Secretary Wilson's order this category of schools included three with 75-year leases, those at Fort Meade, Maryland, and Fort Bliss and Biggs Air Force Base, Texas, and one with a 25-year lease at Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas.[19-80] The Air Force's general counsel believed the lease could be broken in light of the Wilson order, but the possibility developed that some extensions might be granted to these schools because of the lease complication.[19-81] The Secretary of the Army went right to ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... to the course he had adopted, the party and their adventurous leader on the 3rd of August, at 11 o'clock a.m., rounded a high bluff cape, which they called after the lady of Sir John Henry Pelly, Bart., Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. It is situated in latitude 67 deg. 28' 00" north; longitude, by account, 87 deg. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... bluff Lady Portarles, "your sitting in a convent won't make your husband safe, and you have your children to consider: they are too young to be dosed with anxiety ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... Midian, and equal to those of all the towns we have seen put together, begin with the palm-orchard on the left bank. The Jebel el-Safra shows the foundations of what may have been the arx. It is a double quoin, the taller to the south, the lower to the north, and both bluff in the latter direction. The dip is about 45 degrees; the upper parts of the dorsa are scatters of white on brown-yellow stone; and below it, where the surface has given way, appear mauve-coloured strata, as if stained by manganese. Viewed in profile ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... trident, and a long two-edged sword with a hemispherical knob on the hilt, which dangles from his belt, while an antelope or goat wearing a pointed tiara prances beside him. This deity is identical with bluff, impetuous Thor of northern Europe, Indra of the Himalayas, Tarku of Phrygia, and Teshup or Teshub of Armenia and northern Mesopotamia, Sandan, the Hercules of Cilicia, Adad or Hadad of Amurru and Assyria, and Ramman, who at an early period penetrated Akkad and Sumer in various forms. ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... "reasonable" was only in comparison with the stormy interview of the day before, when the Superintendent attacked me most fiercely. When I began the second interview by saying I wished to resign, he changed front altogether. It had been purely a game of bluff on his part. ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... be from the cabin of some negro, he blew a merry blast on his bugle. Before the clear notes had faded from the morning air, a venerable darkey with whitened head and slightly bent, though walking without the assistance of a cane, appeared on the bluff overlooking the river. He raised his eyes to the eastern horizon, as though to determine the weather probabilities, and then he scanned the river up and down. He failed to see Boyton at first, and another blast ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... all of my passengers got into that coach. I told my driver to go up to the top of the hill and stop the mules there, but to keep in sight of me. I had my coach driven up the road about 100 yards, and on looking up the creek I saw one Indian in war paint and feathers looking around the bluff at me. That was the only one of their band I could see, so I got up on top of my coach and motioned for him ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... mile, when I came to higher banks and a series of knolls jutting down to the stream, which, with frequent sharp curves and crooks, wound its way among them. On turning one of these sharp points, my eyes suddenly encountered a sight that made my heart jump. On a high, open, and almost bare bluff, directly before me, and not fifteen rods distant, stood two tremendous moose, as unconcernedly as a pair of oxen chewing their cuds, or dozing in a pasture. The last was unusually large, the biggest a monster, appearing, to ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... on the staircase, and a little later Fletcher came in and turned to close the door carefully behind him. He had recovered for a moment his air of bluff good-humour, and his face crinkled into a ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... his usual bluff nod of the head, and entered the library. A few minutes afterward, Trudaine and ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... "As a matter of fact, that was rather a bluff. His mother is so afraid of his starting in some business where they'll get him to put some money in, that she has agreed to allow him a couple of thousand a year until he comes in for his property, on condition that he clears out of ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... many years ago, in White River, to save the lives of other men. He said to the captain that if the fire would give him time to reach a sand bar, some distance away, all could be saved, but that to land against the bluff bank of the river would be to insure the loss of many lives. He reached the bar and grounded the boat in shallow water; but by that time the flames had closed around him, and in escaping through them he was fatally burned. He had been ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... as he swung his body hastily about, and gazed intently in the direction indicated. Land! of course it was land; land already so close at hand, his eyes could trace its conformation—the narrow strip of sand beach, the sharp bluff beyond, the fringe of trees crowning the summit. He rubbed his eyes, scarcely able to credit his sight, half believing it a mirage. Yet the view remained unchanged; it was land, a bit of the west shore, a short promontory running out into the lake ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... men might attend. The president soon went to Europe and the work passed into the capable hands of Mrs. Hutton. One of the most valuable helpers was Rabbi L. Witt, who always attended and helped out many a program. Leagues were formed in Hot Springs and Pine Bluff and these were the only three prior to 1913 when a State association ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... brought the boat to Bluff Point; and the shore was so elevated here, that the skipper stood farther out into the lake so that he might not lose the wind. The Goldwing behaved so well, that Dory was beginning to have a great deal of confidence ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... be!" growled Tom. "Look here, do you really suppose he's trying to find out who we were, or was that just a bluff to scare ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Even when it was more economical to do a thing well, he insisted from force of habit on having it scamped. Then he was almost happy, because he felt that he was doing someone down. If there were an architect superintending the work, Misery would square him or bluff him. If it were not possible to do either, at least he had a try; and in the intervals of watching, driving and bullying the hands, his vulture eye was ever on the look out for fresh jobs. His long red nose was thrust into every estate ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... that was a big bluff I put up!" sighed Earl Usher to Cupid, as he slid his watch into the little boy's hand. "If Tobias had taken me, I'd 'a' bin up a tree! Sure you can ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... present moment. Your bluff is perfect, yet there are moments when it cannot aid you, depend upon it. She told me one night long ago, in my own room, when she had disobeyed, defied, and annoyed me, that she would never rest until Sir ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... while after leading the sheep back to their stalls, the lad, taking his breakfast along with him, had gone down, together with a comrade, to bathe. He had hardly set foot in the water, when he had fallen and was drowned. At the cries of his comrade, some one from the house overhead on the bluff had hurried down, and wading in up to the knees, had dragged him from the water half dead; they had turned him upside down to make him throw up the water, they had shaken him, but to no purpose. To indicate just how far the poor ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... change came over the face of Silent, and then Hardy went hot with terror and anger. The long rider had known nothing. The gun play had been a mere bluff, but he had played into the hands of Silent, and now his life was truly ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... "you must assume that he has no intention of building, that he is only making an elaborate bluff. How do you know but that he wants to get this right of way and charter so that he can blackmail you and your concerns, not merely once, but year after year? You'd gladly pay him several hundred thousand a year not to use his charter and right ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... America is, par excellence, the country of bluff, of quackery in patent medicines, and of the booming of unworthy persons," the ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... and pitch one's tent upon. Eastward the plain stretched to the horizon, as level as the sea; indeed, in a landscape so monotonous that one was fain to decorate it with fancies, it stood for the sea, and touched the rocky base of our island as the sea washes many a mile of bluff coast. Winter was setting in, and all day long wreaths of mist and banks of rain came blowing from the eastward (the seaward, as we called it), and shrouded the brown rock. The signallers on the height used to wrap themselves ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... room, but the boy was there no longer. He had come home from college one day and had entered it a boy, and then he came out of it and down to his mother, dressed in his new uniform—a man. Now he entered it no more, for he stayed at the camp over on the high bluff of the Wisconsin River. He was wholly taken up with his new duties there, and his room had been set in order and closed ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... is the voice on the bluff March gale; We severed have been too long, But now we are done with a worn-out tale— The tale of an ancient wrong— And our friendship shall last long as love doth last and be stronger ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... put it across old Rumbold?" Laughter and sheer admiration of her audacity were mingled in his voice. With a baby it was a good bluff; without one, the girl's ingenuity seemed to him to ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... chance any better, I knew I couldn't very well make it worse; but there was mighty little comfort in that reflection. And what a bluff I had put up! Carry her off and marry her? Lord knows I wanted to, badly ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... this document may be found by you at the depot made by this party on the Bluff at the entrance of the Harbour, but I hope that Taylor himself ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... which had threatened since morning, began to fall. There was a mad rush then, accompanied by outcries and laughter, to climb up the bluff and take refuge ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... gillie?" It was a shaggy-browed, bluff Scotchman, who evidently took me in my tartan disguise for a Highland lad. Whether he meant, "How are you," or "Who are you," I was not certain. Afraid my tongue might betray me, I muttered back an indistinct response. The Scot was either suspicious, or offended ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... he said—"as far as facts are concerned.... They treated me rather badly.... I faced their firing-squads half-a-dozen times. After that bluff wouldn't work they interned me as an English civilian at Holzminden.... They hid me when, at last, an inspection took place. No chance for me to communicate with our Ambassador or with any ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... was bluffing; still it was possible he wasnt. In such a delicate situation there was nothing I could do but bluff in turn. If you are a good salesman, I always say, you must have psychology at your fingertips. "Very well, Mr Gootes; perhaps I shall ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... they leave the Souris valley the hills are blue with distance and seem to promise wooded slopes, and maybe leaping streams, but a half-day's journey dispels the illusion, for when the traveller comes near enough to see the elevation as it is, it is only a rugged bluff, bald and bare, and blotched with clumps of mangy grass, with a fringe of stunted poplar at ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... came to an arroyo which was running full of water. My idea was to get that between me and the scene of my trouble, so I took off my boots to wade it. When about one third way across, I either stepped off a bluff bank or into a well, for I went under and dropped the boots. When I came to the surface I made a few strokes swimming and landed in a clump of mesquite brush, to which I clung, got on my feet, and waded out to the opposite bank more scared than ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... confess a crime you haven't come to me about," said Loeb, adding with peculiar emphasis: "Of course, if we KNEW you were still married to the Mrs. Feuerstein of seven years ago we couldn't take the present case. As it is—the best way is to bluff the old brewer. He doesn't want publicity; neither do you. But you know he doesn't, and he doesn't know that you ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... his new life was the friendship of the bluff, cantankerous, but kind-hearted contractor, his sunny daughter, the manly foreman, and the talkative Murphy. Of Tressa he had so many glowing things to write in his letters to his wife that Helen threatened to rush north in self-defence. Thereupon he crammed one letter from start ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... "Pawnee," the heaviest of the fleet, being a sloop of less than thirteen hundred tons, with a battery of fifteen guns, none of long range. Clearly such an armada as this could be of but little avail against the earthworks which the Virginians were busily erecting on every commanding bluff. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... fully expected, when he left Canton, that he would meet French raiders, though he was astonished when he saw five sail under the tricolour bearing up towards him. But he had thought out what he intended to do if attacked; and, partly by courage, partly by a superb piece of "bluff," he succeeded completely. ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... be morose and absent-minded in a party of which Cora Grimsby and Jennie Stone were the moving spirits. It was a gay crowd that crossed the harbor in the Stazy to land at a roughly built dock under the high bluff ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... officers as were able for duty, the command became separated and scattered into several squads, traveling in different directions, and it was not until near daylight that the last of the command had crossed the river. The bridge was burned, and we proceeded on and passed Cedar Bluff just after daylight. It now became evident that the horses and mules could not reach Rome without halting to rest and feed. Large numbers of the mules were continually giving out. In fact, I do not ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... swart and bandy-legged, with rat-eyes and a much-broken hooked nose. His defiant air was obviously a pretense, a weapon of protection borrowed from that world of snarl and snap, of physical bluff and physical menace, in which he had always lived. His ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... simply too charming. No doubt you'll be modern enough (Though the speed of the world is alarming) To win with a delicate bluff, ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... induced me to join them was a mere lieutenant, yet he never consulted anyone about taking me in. Was I not an American? Each day some officer was told off to arrange matters with the station masters. They moved their trains without bluff or bluster. Sometimes the Soviets hindered them in order to get what guns and supplies they could. But not till weeks after they started did any Soviet have the temerity to try to stop or disarm the men. The ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... Easter they go out toget'er. Colina Gaviller ride on the sledge and Michel he break trail ahead. Come to the bench, leave the dogs in a shelter Michel build in a poplar bluff. Michel go to see his traps, and Colina walk away on her ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... lay a great, rolling plain, covered with buffalo grass and sage; and dropping down the arc of the sky was the setting sun, ruddy-countenanced, whose almost level rays played full upon the face of the bluff up which the ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... slightly and wearily. "And I can't say I care a damn. I feel like those fellows over in Russia, the revolutionist chaps I met, who didn't know if they'd croak in a month and didn't care one way or the other. But as a matter of fact," he added, "I think this time it's mainly bluff. They wanted to get us away from the crowd and keep us away while they broke the strike. Now that it's over you'll probably find they'll let us all off with light sentences. Of course the murder charge can't hold.... By the way," ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... spirit of fun in the contest, even to Slivers, who strove, however, to see it through in a bluff, rough-hearted way. ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... Russia, through their mobilizations and other measures originating from a mixture of bluff and fear, managed to get each other into an utterly unreasoning state of nerves, is entirely comprehensible. They did not trust each other, and above all, they did not trust themselves, their ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn
... for men or animals, larger than cats or squirrels." Here the Wade carriage stopped. The congressional carriage drove up beside it. The two blocked a narrow way where as in the case of Horatius at the bridge, "a thousand might well be stopped by three." And then "bluff Ben Wade" showed the mettle that was in him. The "old Senator, his hat well back on his head," sprang out of his carriage, his rifle in his hand, and called to the others, "Boys, we'll stop this damned runaway." And they ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... A bluff projection, bearing South 65 degrees East seven miles, bounded our view to the southward, and a range of sugarloaf hills, the highest being 350 feet, rose about eight miles in ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... morning in June, 1769, the figure of a stalwart, broad shouldered man could have been seen standing on the wild and rugged promontory which rears its rocky bluff high above the Ohio river, at a point near the mouth of Wheeling Creek. He was alone save for the companionship of a deerhound that crouched at his feet. As he leaned on a long rifle, contemplating the glorious scene that stretched before him, a smile flashed across his ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... pay. The walls were covered with engravings of British sea-fights and favourite admirals, from the days of Elizabeth; patriotic in the highest degree, and most intolerable specimens of the arts; the floor, too, had its covering, but it was of nearly a dozen children of all sizes, from the bluff companion of his father down to the crier in the cradle; yet all fine bold specimens of the brood of sea and fresh air, British bull-dogs, that were yet to pin down the game all round the world; or rather cubs of the British lion, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... a bluff, too. Just as if we didn't know that as soon as the rest of us innocents are quiet and dreaming of blueberries, your window will fly open and off you'll ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... hain't never been back. I don't s'pose folks will lay it up agin you—bein' a girl—but they couldn't no son of Ed Wetherford come back here and settle, not for a minute. Why, yore ma has had to bluff the whole county a'most—not that I lay anything up agin her. I tell folks she was that bewitched with Ed she couldn't see things any way but his way. She fought to save his ranch and stawk and—but hell! she couldn't do nothin'—and then to have him go back on her the way he ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... with a Sir Dixie Hickson, a stiff, bluff, beef-eating sort of man, who was under some obligation to me, or I to him, I don't know which. Well, I forgot name, residence all but the day—came home in a hurry, looked into the Court Guide, found ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... the Master of the House. Far from it. He, with the family, was pleased when the Master of the House returned from a long cruise and proceeded immediately to make himself very much at home. For the Master of the House was a captain in the navy, and as hearty, bluff, and good-natured ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... midshipman in the British navy, he was for some time on the coast of the North American colonies, then in a state of revolution, and passed the winter of 1782 in the city of New York. He is still borne in lively recollection by many of the elder inhabitants of that city, as a fine bluff boy of sixteen: frank, cheery, and affable; and there are anecdotes still told of his frolicsome pranks on shipboard. Among these, is the story of a rough, though favourite, nautical joke, which he played off upon a sailor boy, in cutting down ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... his duty Gen. Meade was inflexible, and would not stand any bluff or bluster from the Fenian leaders. On the contrary, he became very aggressive in compelling them to respect the laws and authority of the United States, and largely through his firmness and stern efforts the whole Fenian ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... mouth after a quick lope of an hour, they discovered the ghastly remains of twelve mutilated bodies. These were gathered up and buried in one grave, on the top of the bluff overlooking the narrow gorge. ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... I." The constable was beginning to enjoy himself. "If I was you I should drop the bluff and own I was fair caught. If you was to ask me, I should say you didn't look like a married man at all. We'll see what the Sergeant ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... Zephyr's request for the keys to the safe. There was a clatter as Firmstone dropped them into his open hand. Hartwell straightened up with flushed cheeks. Pierre's words again came to him. The whole thing might be a bluff, after all. The safe might be empty. Here was a possible avenue of escape. With the same blind energy with which he had entered other paths, he entered this. He leaned back in his chair with ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... time to play, Ben, my boy," said the bluff old fellow. "Sometimes not too much to eat either, except fish and biscuit, and not much room to sleep in when you turn in to your hard wooden bunk and pull a rough blanket over you ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... a sudden the sun, And against him the cattle stood black every one, To stare through the mist at us galloping past, And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff river headland ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... thinking of a painful clash in the parish. It came on this wise. Our rector was one day called to attend the funeral of a little child but a few weeks old, the daughter of neighbors of ours. The father was a big-bodied, big-hearted, big-voiced, successful man of business, well liked for his bluff cordiality and generosity, who went to church because his wife went. The mother was a sweet, kindly, delicate woman, the daughter of a clergyman, and ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... you to believe all those," said a bluff, clean-shaven man, who had been listening without speaking much. "You see when a sailor gets ashore he's expected to have something to tell, and his friends would be rather disappointed if ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs |
