"Bluff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... intimacy is like that. First one gives off his best picture, the bright and finished product mended with bluff and falsehood and humor. Then more details are required and one paints a second portrait, and a third—before long the best lines cancel out—and the secret is exposed at last; the planes of the pictures have intermingled and given us away, and though we paint and paint we can no longer sell ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... enough to hold the glance of old and young. Unlike the natives she was tall and fair; masses of golden hair encircled her oval face and clustered over her blue eyes. Who was she? Whence came she? None could answer. By degrees some of the boldest of the youths approached, but their bluff manners seemed to displease her; though unaccustomed to rebuffs they retired. One, however, among them fared differently. Jean Letocq, a member of the family to which the hero belonged who near this very spot discovered the sleeping troops of the Grand Sarrazin, was ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... it happened, from next morning's breakfast the Meadowcrofts sat next to us. Hilda was on one side of me; Lady Meadowcroft on the other; and beyond her again, bluff Yorkshire Sir Ivor, with his cold, hard, honest blue North Country eyes, and his dignified, pompous English, breaking down at times into a North Country colloquialism. They talked chiefly to each other. Acting on Hilda's ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... not upon the sea-beach to-day. I walked a mile or so along the sand, but did not find her. She had gone around the little bluff to our shark-line. This was a long rope, like a clothes-line, with a short chain at the end and a great hook, which was baited with a large piece of fish. It was thrown out every day, the land end tied to a stout stake driven into the sand, and the whole business given into the charge of "the ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... face flushed a dark red. Then he shouted in his old, bluff way: "Hello, Merriam. Glad to see you. Didn't expect to find you out here. Quinby, this is my old friend Merriam, ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... about three miles, sometimes winding through narrow gorges where the soil was covered with an efflorescence of salt, at other places clambering over loose rocks and entering narrow glens, we arrived in a plain at the foot of the bold and bluff range of the Carpas mountains. The path led to a village almost concealed amongst dwarf-cypress and pines, at a spot where the ascent commenced to a deep gorge forming a gap between the heights upon either ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... "It's all 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 go on ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... office." He is to be found, this victim of an intellectual ambition, in the salaried class, from which the aspiring millionaire is bidden to escape as quickly as possible by the customary methods of bluff and bounce. Why, then, if Mr Carnegie thinks so ill of colleges and universities does he inflict his millions upon them? He has known "few young men intended for business who were not injured by a collegiate education." And yet he has done his best to drive all the youth of Scotland ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... in at eight. At nine-thirty it left the wharf, and, a mile down the Channel, stopped at the little safety station to take on oil and gasoline. Tom Bluff, a half-breed, had the place in charge, and later that evening he put the finishing touch to the ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... beyond attending board meetings of the varied industries which his father's energy had called into being. He was a bluff, well-set-up man, who had married twice; both of his wives had brought him money. Each time Montague chose a mate, he had made some effort to follow the leanings of his heart; but money not lying in the same direction as love, an overmastering instinct of his blood had prevailed against ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... Porte that the naval and military authorities in this country had expressed the opinion that successful attack upon the Dardanelles was virtually impracticable, and that H.M. Government had endorsed this view. Tell the Turk that, and our trump card was gone. We could then no longer bluff the Ottoman Government in the event of war with feints of operations against the Straits—the very course which I believe would have been adopted in 1914-1915, had the Admiralty War Staff and the General Staff ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... endorsed the O.C., who was very full of the news, "all East Cheshire Details. Apparently the East Cheshires are holding an awkward position on a place called Fusilier Bluff, and being killed like stink by a well-placed whizz-bang gun. They've got about fifty men and half an officer left per company. They're screaming for reinforcements. Salt and ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... I came to breakfast this morning Rob was capering over another victory—Ball's Bluff. He would read me, "We pitched the Yankees over the bluff," and ask me in the next breath to go to the theater this evening. I turned on the poor fellow. "Don't tell me about your victories. You vowed by all your idols that the blockade would be raised by October 1, and I notice the ships are ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... Chinese when we discovered three pigs—a huge boar, a sow, and a shote—crossing an open hill. Crawling on my face, I reached a rock not seventy yards from the animals. At the first shot the boar pitched over the bluff into a tangle of thorns, squealing wildly. My second bullet broke the shoulder of the sow, and I had a mad chase through a patch of scrub, ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... 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 to ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... The bluff doctor insisted that the whole party come ashore and lunch with him. He had arranged for Polly's tuition at the Denton Academy, had bought her text-books, and when the party left for home that day he thrust into Polly Jolly's hand a silver ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... have not heard of them have heard of Wolsey. The pursy old cardinal furnishes the surviving one of the two main props of Hampton's glory. An oddly-assorted pair, indeed—the delicate Italian painter, without a thought outside of his art, and the bluff English placeman, avid of nothing but honors and wealth. And the association of either of them with the spot is comparatively so slight. Wolsey held the ground for a few years, only by lease, built a mere fraction of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... that. For the first two miles it winds and twists its sandy way over bare hills, with cranberry swamps and marshy ponds in the hollows between. Then it enters upon a three-mile stretch bordered with scrubby pines and bayberry thickets, climbing at last a final hill to emerge upon the bluff with the ocean at its foot. And, fringing that bluff and clustering thickest in the lowlands just beyond, is the village of East Wellmouth, which must on no account be confused with South Wellmouth, or North Wellmouth, or West ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... David T. Littler, passed away. If I visited Springfield during the heat of Summer, when every one else was gone, I was always sure that Dave Littler would be there to greet me. Littler was a unique character. His manners and speech were bluff and frank; he never was afraid of any one, and never was afraid to speak just exactly what he thought. Senator Littler, Colonel Bluford Wilson, a particularly devoted friend, and I travelled through Europe together, and ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... we were brought to bay, tired out. Half an hour's rest and some refreshing wild strawberries prepared us for such another stage. Then an hour more of this terrible strain made us drop again for rest. Another hour, and before noon, hot and jaded, we came out upon a low bluff overhanging the river, and stopped for lunch. The guide, apparently fresh and unwearied, cut a sheet of birch bark for tinder, lit a fire as defence against mosquitos, and in sixty seconds was snoring. We were not slow ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... that he had been overtaken and killed by hostile Indians. Day after day the woods were scoured in the hope of finding the missing companion, but it seemed vain. A fort was erected for the protection of the party on a high bluff, and named for the lost hunter, Prudhomme. At last they met some Chickasaw Indians, and messages of amity were exchanged through them with the people of their village, not far distant. Soon afterwards Prudhomme was discovered, half-dead ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... learned that the Brigade would shortly take over the extreme left sector at Fusilier Bluff. After a reconnaissance of the position by Colonel Morrison and the Adjutant, a party of eight officers and sixteen N.C.O.'s went forward on August 6th to spend a night in the new firing line. On the way up, as they were passing along the westmost ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... monument association, we discovered a blue bird's nest containing four eggs. This gun was at one time a part of the armament of a British vessel. The vessel becoming disabled, the gun was then mounted on wheels and placed on a bluff at Ticonderoga, where it was captured by the Americans. Right glad we were that the place knows no harsher sound than the soft, melodious warble of the bluebird and cherry carol of the robin. We thought how glorious the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... his hands, close to his mouth. Evidently the pitcher intended to use the spit ball. Nevertheless, something warned Bart that Dale had turned the ball over and grasped the dry side. His pretense of trying a spit ball was all a bluff. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... a past master, Mr. Parker," he said, "in the accomplishment that, I believe, in your country goes by the name of bluff; but there are limits, you know. I shall have to ask you and your daughter and Mr. Walmsley here to accompany me at once to Bow Street. And," he added, suddenly leaning across the table, "move your right hand, please! Don't make a disturbance—for Luigi's sake! ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... at Patras showed us a beautiful view of what is here called Parnassus (Parnasso), the tall bluff mountain up the Gulf, whose snows at sunset glowed like a balass ruby. We left the Morea at 2 A.M. (December 2), and covered the fifty-two miles to Zante before breakfast. There is, and ever has been, something peculiarly sympathetic to ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... on a bluff overlooking the Hudson, about a mile and one-half north of Fishkill Landing. It is one-story and one-half high, of stone, plastered. The gambrel roof is shingled, descends low and has dormer windows. ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... efforts. He turned back into the interior, into the country of the Chickasaws, marched diagonally over the present State of Mississippi to its northwest corner, and crossed the Mississippi River near the lowest Chickasaw Bluff. From this point the general direction of the Spanish progress was southwest, through what is now Arkansas, past the site of Little Rock, till at last a river which seems to have been the Washita was reached. Down this stream de Soto and his decimated force floated—two hundred and fifty ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... most characteristic qualities of the address is the appreciation of the magnanimity of General Taylor, as exemplified in his treatment of Colonel Worth. This I regard as one of the best things in the address, because it was an example of what was best in that bluff and sensible and generous old soldier, Zachary Taylor, and because it was so nobly characteristic also of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln emphasized that quality in Taylor, because he unconsciously sought out in him what was most truly like to his ...
— The Life and Public Service of General Zachary Taylor: An Address • Abraham Lincoln
... shower, 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
... head and saying that Sir John must not go to Kafoonistan, and Sir John says she must not go to Balla Walla. He protests that he wants to work and she claims that she wants to try to think clearly. But it is all a bluff. They are not going. Neither of them. And everybody knows it. ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... a path through the flower-dappled tall grass toward the edge of the hill, and down past the gray outcropping of limestone that formed a miniature bluff twenty feet high and a hundred in length. Under an overhanging ledge, they found two cushions, a red-and-gray blanket, and some odds and ends of old garments that looked as though they had once been used for polishing rags. There was a broken kitchen spoon, and a ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... came blazing in her eyes, and her hand twitched nervously back to her hip where the dark holster hung. She said in a voice that shook with anger: "Don't try your bluff on me. I ain't ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... marched out into the muddy street this morning in a cold rain, and stood there for hours, while the officers were making up their minds when to start for the boat to convey them to Drewry's Bluff, whence they are to march to Chaffin's Farm, provided the officers ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... Winding among the inlets, which break into numerous islands the low flat seaboard, their canoe at last shot into the broad stream of the Savannah; and bending their course upward they soon reached a bold, pine-crowned bluff, at the foot of which they landed to inspect ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... him just once, but I suppose you won't tell me where he is. I don't dare let on to you how grateful I really feel to you, because I might lose my nerve and I've just got to hang on to that. It's my only asset in trade. We have to use lots of bluff. Besides, someway you make me feel contrary. Maybe I am the ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... wife talking about?" said a bluff and friendly voice. Doris looked up to see a handsome man with grizzled ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... station. He preached a sermon telling of this. It was published. I was in jail next door to the room in which the mayor, Parker, and the police gathered to discuss a suit for slander against Dr. McFarland, but it was only a bluff. Before this all night long there was loud talking and swearing in the room under mine as if around a card table. After Dr. McFarland's sermon I heard no more of it. There were several of these poor degraded girls in jail. I knew of actions and words that were ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... BLUFF. But? Look you here, boy, here's your antidote, here's your Jesuits' powder for a shaking fit. But who hast thou got with thee? is he of mettle? [Laying ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... an extra bed in your room roughing it, Parkins?' said a bluff person opposite. 'Look here, I shall come down and occupy it for a bit; it'll be company ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... it intending no offence, but in a bluff, hearty way, which he meant to be genial. After a second or two, Eli not answering, he turned and saw to his amazement that the man was trembling from ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... simmering in disquiet At Munich down behind us, Isar-fringed, And torn between his fair wife's hate of France And his own itch to gird at Austrian bluff For riding roughshod through his territory, Wavers from this to that. The while Time hastes The eastward streaming of Napoleon's host, As ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... term applied to Lessard was one to make a man's ears burn; it was the range-riders' gauntlet thrown squarely in an enemy's face. "You lie when you say that, and you know you lie. I don't know your object, but I call your bluff—you—you ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... perpendicular sides were rent here and there with deep fissures, and in the centre there yawned an immense cavern, the interior of which displayed every conceivable shade of the most lovely green, from the transparent tint of the emerald to the opaque colour of the malachite, a projecting bluff near at hand casting a strangely- contrasting shadow of the deepest, purest ultramarine. The ruined pinnacles on the summit of the berg gleamed with every tint of the rainbow, from palest yellow, through orange and crimson, to a blue varying from the most delicate cobalt to a ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... 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 in her, so that he did not hesitate ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... to Kansas 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. It's all a man can do for Kansas now. Just boom ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... lank trees reared its tousled snow-crowned head above the white heart of a wide valley. It was where the gorge of the Bell River opened out upon low banks. It was where the only trail of the region headed westwards. The bowels of the bluff were defended by a meagre undergrowth, which served little better purpose than to partially conceal them. About this bluff a ring of savages had formed. Low-type savages of smallish stature, and of little better intelligence than the predatory creatures ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... presently turned his horse toward the river and stopped on a low bluff overlooking it. His face showed a tinge of disappointment, as if his eyes failed to find objects for which they sought. Again he gazed long and patiently into the south, but ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... circumstances, a bluff and hearty stoicism as remote as possible from Mrs. Peyton's deprecating evasion of facts. It was a bad business; he was sorry Kate should have been mixed up with it; but she would be married soon now, and then she would ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... one knew why he stayed away. It could not be that he was afraid, for he had shown the utmost fearlessness in bringing to justice and transportation the four ringleaders in the attack on the mill. He had now returned, and one day as he rode over Rushedge Moore from Stilbro' market with a bluff neighbour, he unbosomed himself of the reason why he had remained ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... 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 ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen
... that all the country he had seen in coming up the river, was, by prior discovery, the rightful possession of the French monarch. Though no Frenchman had perhaps seen it, yet with his facile tongue he worked persuasion in the mind of the bluff Englishman, who at this point, turned about and put out to sea—hence its name, English Turn. We found here relics of very early times in the form of an old earthwork, and an angle of a brick wall, built, when, and whether by French ...
— Reminiscences of two years with the colored troops • Joshua M. Addeman
... the steep sides of the bluff set the blood to coursing smartly through my veins, and a new and more cheerful stream of thought ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... He enters: a bluff stern warrior, in his undress, that is, without his panoply of armour and arms, in the long flowing robe affected by his Norman kindred at the festal board. She, with the comely robe which had superseded the gunna or gown, and ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... not without some slight imitation of his guest's bluff manliness. Admiring, as he did, above all things, that which savoured of heroism, he was strongly impressed by Venantius, whose like, among natives of Rome, he had not yet beheld, who shone before him, indeed, in a nobler ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... extensively and knew much of the world. His stock of experiences and anecdote seemed inexhaustible, and he was never at a loss for some tale of adventure when called upon to tell one. His bluff, hearty manner gained him friends wherever he went, and it was with feelings of the keenest anticipation that the three comrades looked forward to his coming. It was only Wednesday when Bert received the letter announcing his coming, so they had several ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... Chief; "I bet that was Marbran's idea. Look at Jeekes's face and tell me if you see in it any feature indicating the bold, ingenious will to try a bluff like that. I never knew this fellow here. But I know Marbran, a resolute, undaunted type. You can take it from me, Marbran directed—Jeekes merely carried out instructions. What ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... partners up in the hills," said the former, knowing that one bluff was as good as another. Skookum growled and sniffed at the enemy's legs. The prisoner made a quick move with ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... about the whole business," said he. "Once or twice I asked Bill or Gabe about it, but I never could get any satisfaction. I sometimes think carrying that message was only a bluff, and that the Germans were merely trying to test out Bill and Gabe, to see if they could not get them to do ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... heard the shooting up in front I thought it was up to me to help the train boys, and I went out with the best intentions. The holdups were backing off, burning a lot of powder but doing no harm, and I guessed that their horses were in a bluff about five hundred yards from the track. Of course, once they got in the saddle they would make a get-away, so far as we were concerned, and I thought if I could beat them to the horses and turn the animals loose we would practically have them rounded up. That's what I tried to do. But as I was ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... bluff on the north side of York River. Here came Smith and his captors, around them the winter woods, before them the broad blue river. Again the gathered Indians, men and women, again the staring, the handling, the more or less uncomplimentary remarks; then into ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... over Agatha's engagement card. The look was not quite in keeping with his bluff and open manners. Moreover, a man who is, so to speak, not in keeping with himself is one who ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... great varieties of boats—as regards shape, size, material, and use—so that it is not easy to decide on which we shall first fix our attention. There are large and small, long and short boats; flat, round, sharp, and bluff ones,—some clumsy, others elegant. Certain boats are built for carrying cargo, others for purposes of war. Some are meant for sailing, some for rowing; and while many kinds are devoted to business, others are intended solely for pleasure. ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... the sea-mist the power of the sun would have been enough to dazzle all beholders. Already this vapour was beginning to clear off, coiling up in fleecy wisps above the glistening water, but clinging still to any bluff or cliff ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... which is many miles wide. Then they bend to the south-west, and, abutting upon the lower Tapajos, merge into the bluffs which form the terrace margin of that river valley. The next high land on the north side is Obidos, a bluff, 56 ft. above the river, backed by low hills. From Serpa, nearly opposite the river Madeira, to near the mouth of the Rio Negro, the banks are low, until approaching Manaos, they are rolling hills; but from the Negro, for 600 m. as far up as the village of Canaria, at the great bend of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Vicksburg, to the south. With the aid of the fleet, which ran the batteries successfully, he moved his army down the west bank until he reached a point beyond the possibility of attack, while a diversion by Sherman at Haines' Bluff, above Vicksburg, kept Pemberton in his fortifications. On April 26, Grant began to move his men over the river and landed them at Bruinsburg. "When this was effected," he writes, "I felt a degree of relief ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... white bear, and on the belt of Orion as a company of Greenlanders placed there because they could not find the way to their own country. Black Bird, the redoubtable chief of the O Ma Haws, when dying, said to his people, "Bury me on yonder lofty bluff on the banks of the Missouri, where I can see the men and boats passing by on the river." 43 Accordingly, as soon ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... this, hastened to prune the branches of the kamani tree (Calophyllum inophyllum), so that the bluff should grow upward. And the bluff rose, and Kana grew. Thus they strove, the bluff rising higher and Kana growing taller, until he became as the stalk of a banana leaf, and gradually spun himself out till he was no thicker than a strand of a spider's web, and at last he ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... human shape, and Manabozho was pressing him hard. At a distance he saw a very high bluff of rocks jutting out into a lake, and he ran for the foot of the precipice which was abrupt and elevated. As he came near, to his surprise and great relief, the Manito of the rock opened his door and told Grasshopper to come in. The door was no ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... patriotism in two wars, and at the sound of the signal gun of the rebellion its sons—"brave sons of noble sires"—young men, and middle-aged, and boys, sprang to arms. Its regiments were among the first to answer the call of the country and to offer themselves for its defense. Let Ball's Bluff and the Wilderness, the Chickahominy, and the deadly swamps and bayous of the Southwest, tell to the listening world the story of their bravery, their endurance and ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... year, and some guid mair, Syn Dutch Mynheer made courtship till her, A merchant bluff and fu' o' care, Wi' chuffy cheeks, and bags o' siller; So Dutch Mynheer was wooing at her, Courting her, but cudna get her; Bonny Lizzy Liberty has ow'r mony wooing ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... moan of the sea's dirge, Its plangor and surge; The awful biting sough Of drifted snows along some arctic bluff, That veer ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... well, too, for I'd got half way through the soup before I notices anything the matter with it. My guess was that it tasted scorchy. I glances around at Vee, and finds she's just makin' a bluff at eatin' hers. Doris and Westy ain't even doin' that, and when I drops my spoon Doris signals to take it away. Which Cyril does, movin' as solemn and dignified as if he was usherin' at a funeral. Then there's a stage wait for three ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... foolishly turned off the island,—brought us to the spot. We passed occasional water-holes, that reminded us also of the West, and a few cattle. Two or three lonely farm-houses loomed up in the distance, like ships at sea. We halted our rattle-trap on a bluff covered with thick green turf. On the edge of this bluff, forty feet above the beach, is Siasconset, looking southward over the ocean,—no land between it and Porto Rico. It is only a fishing village; but if there were many like it, the conventional ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... he pushed his way through the willows which fringed Piah Creek and came out into the clearing which held his ranch buildings. Nestling against the foot of a high bluff with the clear waters of the creek sparkling a scant fifty yards from the door, the log ranch house remained hidden until one was almost upon it. To the left, at the foot of a long slope, the corrals and out-buildings were situated, while beyond them a range ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... much mischief if he can; but he one foreign coward, drunk most time an' when sober weak like my aunt's tea. He say don't let remittance man make bluff. No matter how many come, if you ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... replied O'Brien. ''Tis them over on the bluff to the left as is doing the damage. I'm thinking they've got ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... stoutest heart quake. Scarcely more than a cable's length from the ship appeared a ledge of rocks over which the waves were washing with sullen roars, while the log hove overboard showed me that there was a strong current setting towards a high rocky bluff land dead to leeward of us. Towards it the ship was surely though slowly dragging her anchor. One thing only could save us. We must without delay get sail on her. We tried to weigh the anchor, but soon abandoned the attempt as hopeless. I ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... shows more conspicuously than in his manner of getting through a crowd. The beauty of it is, or, perhaps, I might say, the utility of it is, that courtesy in such a case is very much more effective than "bluff," for the majority in an orderly crowd are inclined to be obliging, and quickly respond to a good-humored request; whereas, if one aggressive elbow begins to push, a hundred other elbows are set rigidly akimbo, and the solid mass becomes ten-fold ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... eat anything. They hang about behind the great buffalo herds, and eat them as drops; where there are such tens of thousands there is always some as is old or injured and can't keep up; besides, sometimes they get scared, and then they will run over a bluff and get piled up there dead by hundreds. The coyotes pick the bones of every beast as dies in the plains. The badgers helps them a bit; there are lots of those ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... 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 snowshoes wit' ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... up at me, and—I knew she liked me. She caught her breath before she answered. 'What right have you got to ask me questions?' said she, making a bluff ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... cheek, a man ought to get on in the world, I think, for after all it is self-confidence and "bluffing" that seems to succeed most. However down in the world you are, however bad your "hand," you only have to "bluff" a little to make it all right. There are many foolish people in the world ready to be your dupes, and luckily they never think of asking to "see" you. Even the best of us try it on a little; we strive to hide our skeletons under the cloak of cheerfulness, and entirely ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... a prettier place than this as we beheld it by the morrow's light. The house stands on a high bluff, worthy the name of hill, which slopes steeply but greenly down to the South Prong of Black Creek, better deserving the name of river than many a stream which boasts the designation. We crossed it upon a boom, pausing midway in sudden astonishment at the lovely view. A long ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... the bluff merchant, with a laugh; "why, boy, dost think that thine old father has lost all his youthful vigour? I trow not.—You see, Signor Bacri, we have had information of what was impending for some days past, and although we could do nothing to avert ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... was solid, square, bronzed, bluff, and resolute, as all sea-captains are—or ought to be—whether ancient or modern. He owned, as well as commanded, one of those curious vessels with one mast and a mighty square-sail, fifty oars or so, double-banked, a dragon's ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... on the rock until the great herd had thundered by and was out of sight around a bend in the bluff. Then Grannie said, "Come, let us go back to the fire and gather plenty of fuel, so we can cook the meat when it comes, and have ...
— The Cave Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Castlereagh stood up and adjusted his waistcoat, there was a thrill in the House of Commons, and his followers bellowed their exultation and delight. In a more recent day, Lord Althorpe was able to bear down the hostility of some of the most powerful orators of his time by a bluff manliness which no rhetoric could withstand. And so also with Jimmy—his sheer audacity carries him along the slow, dull, inept, muddy ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... honest fashion. A little simple drunkenness, a little frank love-making, to conclude ... poor dear Lady Wondershoot—she didn't like these Innovations. Very conservative, poor dear lady! A touch of the eighteenth century about her, I always Said. Her language for example ... Bluff vigour ... ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... aware that he had made a false move. His bluff had been called. He'd made it impossible for himself to prolong his call; at the same time he didn't dare to leave this man behind in the house. It wasn't Maisie that he was thinking of now—he could warn her as she entered the Court—it was Porter. A madman was capable of anything; and yet, ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... rendered for anything done in life below. Another drawback in the case was, that one could never be very seriously angry with him. If more real than pretended at any time, his broad bright eye and bluff face, magnificently lifted up, like the sun on frost-work, melted down displeasure and threatened to betray all the policy depending on it; for in the main never a bit of ill heart had Colin, though doubtlessly he had in him, deeply established, a trim of rebellion against education that ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... left Cahusac speechless. But among the English buccaneers in the square there were many who savoured the audacious humour of the trapped dictating terms to the trappers. Laughter broke from them. It spread into a roar of acclamation; for bluff is a weapon dear to every adventurer. Presently, when they understood it, even Cahusac's French followers were carried off their feet by that wave of jocular enthusiasm, until in his truculent obstinacy Cahusac remained the only dissentient. He withdrew in mortification. ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... bluff and hearty greeting from the clergyman as Cardo took off his hat to the two young ladies, who simpered and blushed becomingly, for Cardo Wynne was the catch of the neighbourhood; his good looks, his father's reputed wealth, and the slight air of ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... been good for Jeff. Could he, with his infernal luck, have been good for any youth of Jeff's impetuous credulity? Mightn't Jeff have got the idea that life is an easy job? The colonel felt now that he had always distrusted Reardon's bluff bonhomie, his sympathetic voice, his booming implication that he was letting you into his absolutely habitable heart. He knew, too, that without word of his own his distrust had filtered out to Anne and Lydia, and that they were prepared, while they ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... further provoked to action by the unintended actions of the aggressor. Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis' invasion of Kuwait demonstrate when this Potemkin Village model can backfire. Saddam simply let his bluff be called. ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... I told them that I was glad to see them and had a great deel to say to them. we mounted our horses and rode towards the river which was at but a short distance, on our way we were joined by Drewyer Fields and the indian. we decended a very steep bluff about 250 feet high to the river where there was a small bottom of nearly 1/2 a mile in length and about 250 yards wide in the widest part, the river washed the bluffs both above and below us and through it's course in this part is very deep; the bluffs are ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... 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
... believe that Lupin is coming to-night?" said the Duke, with a sceptical laugh. "The whole thing is sheer bluff—he has no more intention of coming tonight to steal that coronet ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... days' towing, she was anchored within half-a-mile of the schooner in Portland Bay, and the men went ashore. During the night a gale of wind came on from the south-west, and the whale, being a bit stale and high out of the water, drove ashore at the Bluff, a ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... 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
... at Lake Torrens, where he found the water quite fresh. He described the Lake as stretching from fifteen to twenty miles to the north-west, with a water horizon, with an extensive bay forming to the southward; while to the north, a bluff headland and perpendicular cliffs were clearly to be discerned with the telescope. From the appearance of the flood-marks, Goyder came to the conclusion that there was little or no rise and fall in the lake, drawing the natural conclusion that its size was such as not to be ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... The dictionary definition is a ravine or gulch, but it also means a high bluff or cliff and in that sense is ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... we cut diagonally across the lake to the southern shore, passed Cape Corbeau River and landed near the base of Cape Corbeau bluff, that the elevation might be taken and geological specimens secured. After making our observations we turned again toward the northern shore, where more specimens were collected. Here Tom and Henry Blake said goodby to ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... in shadowing the strange girl, had kept well in under the shadow of the bluff, and could not have been seen; and when he saw the man confront the girl, he moved rapidly forward, and gained a point near enough to overhear the talk that ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... breach, particularly upon the question of permitting the sale of liquor to the Indians. In 1662 the quarrel became bitter. Laval hastened home to France where he placed before the authorities the list of ecclesiastical grievances. The governor, a bluff old soldier, was thereupon summoned to Paris to present his side of the whole affair. In the end a decision was reached to reorganize the whole system of civil and commercial administration in the colony. Thus, as we shall soon see, the power ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... summer titles, was only a nine days' wonder 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 M. Yonge
... funny—when one could sit at ease upon the hilltop and smoke a cigarette while others risked apoplexy and their souls' salvation below. By the time they panted up the last rock-strewn slope of the bluff, and sent the vanguard of the invaders under the fence, Andy's mood was complacent in the extreme, ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... deplorably curt of speech and brusque of deportment. Suavity, repose, that kindliness which is the very marrow and pith of high-breeding, shock you in his manners as acutely by their absence as if they were rents in his waistcoat or gapes in his boot-leather. The "bluff," impudence, and swagger of the Stock Exchange cling to him in society like burrs to the hair of horse or dog. He would be far more endurable, this socially rampant and ubiquitous Wall Street man, if he revealed the least ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... his mirthless laughing and his sarcastic bluff. He leaned forward, facing Harris with his hands on the paper which he had laid on the table before him. He picked up ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... Mr. Gooch with triumph. "You can't bluff me. Well, it's no good, sonny. I've nothing for you. You'd better chase off and try ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... Jimmy had naturally undergone the influence of the stage. It had affected his ideas, with all its new-fangled "turns," which owed their success to a maximum of daring—or bluff—coupled with a minimum of scientific knowledge: illusionists basing their effects upon the reflections of invisible mirrors and the cunning use of combined lights; "looping the loop," "circles of death," ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... about twenty thousand a year English, and I considered that Nancy could have a pretty good time on that or less. Anyhow, we had a stiff set of arguments up at the Hurlbird mansion which stands on a bluff over the town. It may strike you, silent listener, as being funny if you happen to be European. But moral problems of that description and the giving of millions to institutions are immensely serious matters ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... salt-water lagoons, shut in by a dense growth of leather-leaved bushes and low, scrubby China-berry, sea-grape, and Jamaica-apple trees. The highest part of the Key is occupied by the city, and the highest part of the city is the low bluff on its western side, where the slender shaft of the lighthouse stands at a height of fifteen or eighteen feet above the level of tide-water. Owing to its geographical position in a semi-tropical sea, just north of the Gulf Stream ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... charity of the rich was largely a species of "bluff" that they make at one another. It was not real charity; it was an advertisement—it ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... stood to the southward for a considerable distance without finding a harbour, tacked and stood to the northward, in hope of being more successful in that direction. The ship was off a high bluff headland with yellowish cliffs, which was accordingly called Cape Turnagain. Soon afterwards two chiefs and their three attendants paddled off, and willingly came on board. One of the chiefs had a very pleasing and honest expression of countenance. Though they ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... when General U.S. Grant was shortening his lines around Petersburg, it was his policy to have every man, both in the army and navy, employed, in order to draw off as many as possible from General Lee's forces at Petersburg. Accordingly, for the purpose of capturing Rainbow Bluff, the fleet composed of the United States steamers Wyalusing, Otsego, General Berry, Bazeley, Valley City, Chicopee, tug Belle, and the picket launch No. 5, weighed anchor at 5 p.m., December 9, 1864, and ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... blood, was loaded with irons, and whom they were forcing over the side of the vessel into a boat. The two principal persons among our enemies appeared to be a man of a tall, thin figure, with a high-crowned hat and long neck band, and short-cropped head of hair, accompanied by a bluff, open-looking elderly man in a naval uniform. 'Yarely! yarely! pull away, my hearts,' said the latter, and the boat bearing the unlucky young man soon carried him on board the frigate. Perhaps you will blame me for mentioning this circumstance; but consider, my dear cousin, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Chinese images, and dumpy pillars—his native cheekiness faded into most unwonted humility. For he was increasingly conscious of being, to put it vulgarly "up against something pretty big." Conscious of a personality altogether too secure of its own power to spread itself or, in the smallest degree, bluff or brag. Sir Charles Verity struck him, indeed, as calm to the confines of cynicism. He gave, but gave of his abundance, royally indifferent to the cost. There was plenty more where all this came from, of knowledge, of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... to go away next week. Of course, it may be another bluff, but somehow I think we really are going now, as we have been fitted out with a "field service-dressing," a packet containing two bandages and safety pins, which we have to sew into the right-hand bottom corner of our tunics. We have also been given our active service pay book, ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... have her voice tried. I was out to dinner with the same crowd that she was with the other evening. Arthur and I were sitting at the table in the restaurant waiting for the rest of the crowd when in she canters, dressed up regardless like a queen in a book, in a low-neck gag. She run a bluff as if she just had it made, but if a certain K. & E. wardrobe mistress ever catches her with it on this party is due to get pinched for petty larceny. As soon as she spotted me she rushed over and yelped, 'Oh, Sabrina, ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... dismissed with slight ceremony; and soon as eaten, they recaparison their horses; then leading them out of the cavern, mount, and are off. As the arroyo has long since shrunk to its ordinary level, and the path along the base of the bluff is dry as when trodden by them in their rush for shelter from the storm, they have no difficulty in getting out. So on they ride up the steep acclivity to the cliff's crest; which last is on a level with the ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... twenty yards away, and not far from the bluff, a vigorous rivulet started from beneath the half-bared roots of a monster beech, and fell over an outcropping boulder into a pool so clear that sand on its bottom, worked mysteriously into a pattern by the action of the ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... Williams' fingers, and now and then she touched her eyes lightly, one after the other. Her husband and Sebright, with a grave mien, stamped busily around the binnacle aft, changing places, making way for each other, stooping in turns to glance carefully along the compass card at the low bluff, like two gunners laying a piece of heavy ordnance for an important shot. The steward, emerging out of the companion, rang a handbell violently, and remained scared at the failure of that appeal. After waiting for a moment, he produced a further feeble ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... disconsolate, yet designing month—in fewer words, a month scarcely fit to live. Abhorring all personalities, we repent having sometimes given in to this national abuse of November. We know him well—and though we admit at once that he is no beauty, and that his manners are at the best bluff, at the worst repulsive, yet on those who choose to cultivate his acquaintance, his character continues so to mellow and ameliorate itself, that they come at last, if not to love, to like him, and even to prefer his company "in the season of the ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... favoured the escape, they should not be present. They supposed that they were not half-a-mile from the scene in the pass where Nagen was being forcibly deposed from his authority: Merthyr borrowed Count Karl's glass, and went as they directed him round a bluff of the descending hills, that faced the vale, much like a blown and beaten sea-cliff. Wilfrid and Karl were so certain of Count Ammiani's safety, that their only thought was to get under good cover before nightfall, and haply into good quarters, where the three ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 see ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... dare interfere! I want the gown, but I know she'll come down,—if she doesn't, I'll make a bluff at going. Then if she sticks to her price, I'll ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... a bluff! That's all there is to it," asserted Mathews, reaching into the corner for his rubber boots, preparatory to going underground. "He knows it ain't right, just as well as I do. If he can put this over, all right. If he can't he'll ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... presented without a flaw. However, all of a sudden I saw that we should have to act. Ebers was found dead in a small hotel near the Docks, and at a conference in which Mr. Fullaway insisted I should join, in his rooms, and at which Van Koon, who had been playing a bluff game, was present, there was enough said to convince me that Van Koon and his associates would take alarm and be off with what they believed themselves to possess—the jewels in that parcel. So then Mr. Rayner ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... thing in the position of attention is "chest lifted; and arched." There should be a stretch upward at the waist. The position should give the impression of a man as proud of himself as he can be. This is a bluff which works, not only by making a good first impression on others, but by causing the man himself to ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... if he had heard the warning of a rattlesnake at his feet. Turning like a flash, he saw Mr. Warmore standing at his elbow. Had he received but a few seconds' notice, he might have tried to bluff it out, by pretending he had come to look after some matters about which he was not fully satisfied. Holding the situation he did in the establishment, he could feel certain no one would suspect him of any ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... it may be mistaken in some details, is likely to be a resultant of broad experience. There is in competitive trade a public, a social character, which monopoly destroys. Even in a simple auction, when the bidding is really competitive, price depends far less on shrewd bargaining, on bluff, or on stubbornness, than is the case in isolated trade. Each bidder is compelled by self-interest to outbid his less eager competitors, and thus the limits within which the price must fall are narrowly fixed. The auction-sale is less a purely personal matter, takes on ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... down quite to the bottom of the cliff, and make his way, as best he could, over rocks and shingle round the bluff which shut in one side of the little bay on which he stood, and along the narrow line of beach, to Saint Winifred's head. This was possible sometimes, and he fancied that the tide was sufficiently far out to enable him to do it now. At any rate herein lay, so far ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... "There is no bluff in either case. That was shown (1) in Tullamore on March 20th, when an attempt at disarming the small local corps of Irish Volunteers was met with revolver shots and a policeman was wounded—fortunately not seriously; (2) in Dublin, on March 24th ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... captain told us bluntly that we were obviously outnumbered by the Germans, ten to one. Then he told us that practically speaking, we had scarcely the ghost of a chance, but that a bluff might succeed. He told us to "swing the lid over them." This we did by yelling, hooting, shouting, clamoring, until it seemed, and the enemy believed, that we were ten ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... time,—if indeed less than several months,—before the waters would begin to abate, and in the absence of an Ararat on which to rest, the settlers occupied the rock-bared elevations, the highest Stony Mount, only eighty feet above the level, with the middle bluff, little Stony Mountain and Bird's Hill, east of the river. It is interesting to know that Silver Heights and the banks of the Sturgeon Creek near its mouth, were not submerged and at their various points the Colonists pitched their tents ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... these rich Dantzigers," wrote Napoleon to Rapp) trembled for their wealth, and stood aghast by their empty counting-houses; for their gods had been cast down; commerce was at a standstill. There were many, therefore, who hated the French, and cherished a secret love of those bluff British captains—so like themselves in build, and thought, and slowness of speech—who would thrash their wooden brigs through the shallow seas, despite decrees and threats and sloops-of-war, so long as they could lay them alongside the ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... from the Plaza there is a high bluff with the ocean breaking uninterruptedly along its rocky beach. There are several cottages on the sands, which look as if they had recently been cast up by a heavy sea. The cultivated patch behind each tenement is ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... story of Henry VIII., Catharine, and Anne Boleyn. "Bluff King Hal," although a well-loved monarch, was none too good a one in many ways. Of all his selfishness and unwarrantable acts, none was more discreditable than his divorce from Catharine, and his ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... placid river into one of sparkling animation. The strong wind, meeting the current of the stream, breaks the water into waves which are foam-flecked and dash against the muddy cliffs and sand-banks, while the quickly sailing boats bend to the wind, and from their bluff and brightly-painted bows toss the sprays high into the air, or turn the water from their sides in a creamy cataract. The sky also is flecked with rounded little wind-clouds, whose undersides are alternately grey or orange as they pass over the cultivated land or desert rock, ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... cup's a bottle," Polly returned. "This is a baby's benefit. It's Constance's pet scheme and I'm crazy about it. We've found a big, hundred-room summer hotel, with two hundred acres of ground, on a high bluff overlooking the ocean; and we're going to turn it into a free hotel for sickly babies and their mothers. Isn't that ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... Anthony, at the confluence of the Mississippi—and St. Peter's rivers—built in 1819, and named after the gallant Colonel Snelling, of the army, by whom the work was erected. It is constructed of stone; is one of the strongest Indian forts in the United States; and being placed on a commanding bluff, has somewhat the appearance of an old German castle, or one of the strongholds ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... to be a typical Spanish soldier of the period, bluff and hearty, but exceedingly courteous in manner, with, according to his own account, a profound respect and admiration for the English, so far as his knowledge of them extended, yet George quickly came to the conclusion that the good man was suffering ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... it, to save injury to my mill. The wheat belongs to the neighborhood." "Where is there another mill?" "About three miles down the creek." Off our forager rode. He saw that money nor begging would prevail to get bread and determined on a bluff. The next mill had soldiers claiming all the wheat, but some of it was in boxes or bins. He called the miller out, and offered to pay for a couple of bushels. "It is not mine, said the miller, it belongs to people around here, but I had better take even Confederate money for it, than nothing ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... big, bluff artist, deep-seated amid the ferns and grasses. The big, bearded man, who thinks of nothing but his art, who lives in it, who would not be thin because fat enables him to sit longer out of doors, the man who will not even turn round on his camp-stool to see the ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... the bluff and he made her sit down to rest. A pale moon suffused the country, and in that stage set to lowered lights her pallor was accented. From the colorless face shadowy, troubled eyes spoke the misery through which she was passing. The man divined ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... month! See the pictures that's on it, of the two grand old men. See the fine chin-whiskers on His Nibs here! Ain't it a pity he can't write his name, Ma, and him President of the Bank, and just has to make a bluff at it like this. Sure, and isn't that enough to drive any girl out to teach school, to see to it that bank presidents get a chance to learn to write. Bank presidents always come from the country; I'll be having a row of them at Purple Springs—I'm ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... tomorrow—in the morning, if you wish. Take word to St. Pierre that I will make him a great wager that I win, a gamble so large that I think he will be afraid to cover it. For I don't think much of this St. Pierre of yours, Bateese. I believe him to be a big-winded bluff, like yourself. And also a coward. Mark my word, he will be so much afraid that he will not accept ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... "You can't bluff him and you can't beat his system," continued the Tennessee Shad. "If you guess don't hesitate; jump at it. The only thing you can do is to wait for his jokes, and then grab the desk and weep for salvation—it's ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... he encountered a friend, a bluff man of science, who was engaged in a singular investigation. He kept a large variety of fowls, and tried experiments in cross-breeding, noting carefully in a register the plumage and physical characteristics of the chickens. ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... people who go away from there think they were cured from this, that and the other; whole business founded on a perfectly authenticated case of dementia praecox—as much a pathological condition as gout or insomnia. I interviewed a prize case; she appeared before their bluff at a scientific council and presented affidavits of cure from consumption, a year previous. I examined her later. It was—as the man said—interesting if true, but the trouble was, it wasn't true, for she was nearly gone, ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... Sam watched her gravely. He had taken the odd chance to win quickly by a bluff and had won. But Luella London was not to ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... 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 ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... force his way through jungle growth, while screaming birds marked where they went. The sounds of their pursuers were close behind them when the two tore their way through the last snarled tangle of pale vine to stand on a sheer bluff, where, below, deep waters crashed against a rocky wall. They staggered with weariness and gulped sobbingly of the morning air. McGuire could have sworn he was exhausted beyond any further effort, yet from somewhere ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... her accomplished daughters, who willingly received Colonel John Stark into the house as a safeguard against insult, or any invasion of the estate the soldiers might attempt. A few rooms were accordingly set apart for the use of the bluff old ranger, and he, on his part, treated the family of the deserter with considerable respect and courtesy. It is odd to think that while the stately Royalls were living in one part of this house, General Stark and his ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... boy, you can cut out all that outlaw talk. The gun business was all bluff and you know it as well ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... meantime! In spite of all "steps" taken before and thereafter, the English have everywhere had important losses to show at sea—some 200 ships lost since the beginning of the war, according to the latest statements of the Allies—so that even they themselves no longer dare to talk about the "German bluff." ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... that night, and the next day, cautiously approaching a bluff that arose precipitously from the water, their hearts were gladdened by the sight of three men, standing on a bluff, excitedly beckoning to them, and shouting at the ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss |
