"Blunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tapering, sub-erect (? sub-lyrated) horns, having a slight concave arctuation forwards, and blunt annulations (prominently ridged on the frontal surface), except near the tips; a double coat throughout, greyish blue internally, but superficially fawn-coloured above, and white below, a black forehead, and stripes down the legs; ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... elbow a mere lad, Of a high spirit evidently, though At present weigh'd down by a doom which had O'erthrown even men, he soon began to show A kind of blunt compassion for the sad Lot of so young a partner in the woe, Which for himself he seem'd to deem no worse Than any other scrape, a ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... on these occasions carried long lances, blunt, indeed, at the end, so that they could not penetrate the armor of the antagonist at which they were aimed, but yet of such weight that the momentum of the blow was sometimes sufficient to unhorse him. The great object of every combatant was, accordingly, ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the blunt thegn from Saxon Kent; "it is plain that neither King nor Witan can replace thee in thine earldom. Tell us not farther of these atrocities; or by're Lady, if the Northumbrians had chased thee not, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for three years. So obscure was his existence that on the death of an aunt, who left him a small farm in Cornwall, it was necessary to advertise that "If John Jones Tibbets, Esq., would apply to Messrs. Blunt & Tin, Lothbury, between the hours of ten and four, he would hear of something to his advantage." But even as a conjurer declares that he will call the ace of spades, and the ace of spades, that you thought you had safely under your foot, turns up on the ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... strong," pursued Mary, who had a blunt downright sort of manner; "I wonder if India will agree with you; I wonder if you will ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... But it is usually introduced as a special weapon of a special hero, who fashions a gold-headed club to slay one that steel cannot touch, or who tears up a tree, like the Spanish knight in the ballad, or who uses a club to counteract spells that blunt steel. The bat-shapen archaic rudder of a ship is used as a club in the story of the Sons ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... abide by the decision of any other judge than my own conscience. Much humor—less wit—has been expended upon the Emperor of Germany's supposed carefulness to reject arbitration because an infringement of his divine rights; a phrase which may well be no more than a blunt expression of the sense that no third party can relieve a man from the obligations of the position to which he is called by God, and that for the duties of that position the man can confidently expect divine guidance and help. Be that as it may, the divine right of conscience ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... or bolts. These were made of various sorts of wood; about a dozen trees were used for the purpose, but ash-wood was thought to be the best. Generally the arrows had a tip of iron, shaped like a pyramid, pointed, though for shooting at birds the top was sometimes blunt, so that a bird might be struck down without being badly wounded. One old writer says that a great difference between the long-bow and the crossbow was, that success did not depend upon who pulled ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... be inflicted with a blunt instrument, there is produced a bruise, or ecchymosis, of which it is unnecessary here to describe the appearance and progress. A bruise may be distinguished from a post-mortem stain by the cuticle in the former often being abraded and raised. When an ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... for ten and the other two for nine days. The bits of bone were surrounded all the time by acid secretion. When examined under a weak power, they were found quite softened, so that they were readily penetrated by a blunt needle, torn into fibres, or compressed. Dr. Klein was so kind as to make sections of both bones and examine them. He informs me that both presented the normal appearance of decalcified bone, with traces of ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... expected as he gazed at the flaming water. He had seen the others of his own party approaching, and he walked quickly across the clear space to Persimmon Sneed. He was a little, slim, wiry man, with light, sleek hair, pink cheeks, high cheek-bones, and a bony but blunt nose. He had a light eye, gray, shallow, but inscrutable, and there was something feline in his aspect and glance, at once smooth and caressing and of ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... I divested maimed and sightless Musidora of her flannel mufflings and dressed her in a clean night-gown. Without saying what I meant to do with it I had begged a square of white cambric from Mam' Chloe, and set about notching it with a pair of blunt scissors. Mariposa had described a winding-sheet minutely to me, and I meant that my dead doll-baby should be decently laid out. The notching took a tedious time, and the bows of the blunt scissors left purple furrows upon thumb and fingers. Uncle Ike had given me an empty raisin ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... Abolitionists full thirty years to convince the American people, the ministry of Christ included, that slavery was, pure and simple, a "Covenant with death and an agreement with hell;" and then, sad to say, they were convinced against their wills. Their sense of justice had become so obtuse as to wholly blunt the sense of reason, the brotherly sympathy of a common race-feeling, and the broad, liberal and just inculcations of Jesus Christ. The nation was sunk to the moral turpitude of Constantinople; and not even a John crying ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... on himself; and his lasting impression of any object depends less on the object itself than on the point of view from which he regards it. Thus by a sparing use of examples, lessons, and pictures, you may blunt the sting of sense and delay nature while following her ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... word, but its incomparable hardness enables it, unlike ordinary stones, to retain very acute angles. When every other stone is pounded, that extreme sharpness of edge is lost; their fragments becoming blunt and rounded. The diamond alone preserves its trenchant qualities; wherefore, if it chances to enter the stomach together with food, the peristaltic motion [2] needful to digestion brings it into ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... affairs, meditating (if he chose) on the vanity of all things human. At one time they must have been full of good old slow West Indiamen of the square-stern type, that took their captivity, one imagines, as stolidly as they had faced the buffeting of the waves with their blunt, honest bows, and disgorged sugar, rum, molasses, coffee, or logwood sedately with their own winch and tackle. But when I knew them, of exports there was never a sign that one could detect; and all the imports I have ever seen were some rare cargoes ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... reads a little of everything," he returned with a reassuring commonplaceness of manner. He was thunderstruck at his outburst. Never had he had occasion to talk in that vein. He remembered how blunt he had been with the older Rose twenty years before—how he had jumped to the point at the start and landed safely; clinched his wooing, as he had since realized, by calling her his Rose of Sharon, and now he was saying the ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... walking about the room, and talking with considerable vehemence, but no more in anger. He would tell her what cause there was for this silly gossip. He would tell her who this girl was who had been lightly mentioned. And in his blunt, frank, matter-of-fact way, which did not quite conceal his emotion, he revealed to his cousin all that he thought of Wenna Rosewarne, and what he hoped for her in the future, and what their present relations were, and then plainly asked her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... iron for things like these; The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"— Last of its timber,—they couldn't sell 'em, Never an axe had seen their chips, And the wedges flew from between their lips, Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, Steel of the finest, bright and blue; Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide Found ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... wondrous long!"[3] their power is wondrous great, But not to them 'tis given to stem the rushing tide of fate. A king may man a gallant fleet, an island fair may give, But can he blunt the sword's sharp edge, or bid ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... Gen. Blunt in a letter to a friend speaks of the valor of Colored Troops at the battle of Honey ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... a scientific fact that that which is sharp is penetrating and moves quickly; that which is blunt is non-penetrating and of necessity moves slowly. The needle darts through the cloth more quickly than the bodkin. The greyhound is swifter than the bulldog. The stiletto does quicker work than the bludgeon. This, of course, is only a symbolism which may make vivid the truth that the convex man ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... Breede. The little hair left him was an atrocious foggy gray; never in order, never combed, Bean thought. The brows were heavy, and still curiously dark, which made them look threatening. The eyes were the coldest of gray, a match for the hair in colour, and set far back in caverns. The nose was blunt, the chin a mere knobby challenge, and between them was the unloveliest moustache Bean had ever been compelled to observe; short, ragged, faded in streaks. And wrinkles—wrinkles wheresoever there was room for them: across the forehead that lost itself ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... the place of execution upon a sledge, with two robbers, who were executed with him. After Eagles had mounted the ladder, and been turned off a short time, he was cut down, before he was at all insensible; a bailiff, named Wm. Swallow, then dragged him to the sledge, and with a common blunt cleaver, hacked off the head: in a manner equally clumsy and cruel, he opened his body and tore ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... seriously to rubbing rosin over the bow. There was scant music in his face—a square physiognomy, with thick features, and a shock of hay-colored hair striped somewhat with an effect of darker shades like a weathering stack. He handled the bow with a blunt, clumsy hand that augured little of delicate skill, and he seemed from his diligence to think that rosin is what makes a fiddle play. He was evidently one of those unhappy creatures furnished with some vague inner attraction to the charms of music, with no gift, ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... of domestic hells? Skilled by a touch to deepen Scandal's tints With all the kind mendacity of hints, While mingling truth with falsehood—sneers with smiles— A thread of candour with a web of wiles;[sg] A plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming, To hide her bloodless heart's soul-hardened scheming; 60 A lip of lies; a face formed to conceal, And, without feeling, mock at all who feel: With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown,— ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... occur a Liberal Government can look only to the people. We count on you, and we shall come to you. If you sustain us we shall take effectual steps to prevent such a deadlock ever occurring again. That is the whole policy of his Majesty's Government—blunt, sober, obvious, ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... thou unpolished shaft, why leave the quiver? O thou blunt axe, what forests canst thou hew? Untempered sword, canst thou the oppressed deliver? Go back to thine own ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... "To put it selfishly blunt, then, since you insist, I think you ought to for my sake. If an income you can depend upon means nothing in particular to you you might consider what it would mean ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... canoes, but in scows, to-day. The scow has even taken the place of the old York boat. That was the boat which they formerly used on the Saskatchewan and some of these rivers for their up-stream work. It's a good deal like a Mackinaw boat. You'll see here, too, one or two scows with blunt ends, such as they call the 'sturgeon' nose. They tow a little easier than the square-ended scow. But these new square-facers are the best things in the world for going down-stream ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... Dr. Dumba had just reached the German Foreign Office at the moment when the American Ambassador arrived to inform the Under Secretary of State, Zimmermann, in his customary blunt and abrupt manner, that Germany must yield to America's demands or war would inevitably follow. Zimmermann thereupon, with the object of causing Mr. Gerard to moderate his tone, showed him Dumba's wire, which pointed to the inference that the ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... his little accidents next day, and went straight to the carpenter, bullied him again, and after bearing it for awhile Chips's adze would become so blunt that he was obliged to go off to the grindstone, where he would stop for a couple of hours, a good deal of which time was spent in oiling the spindle before ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... which Mr. Nott was beginning to regard his own mal a propos presence, arrested the young man's attention. "What's the reason you didn't sell this old ship long ago, take a decent house in the town, and bring up your daughter like a lady?" he asked, with a sudden blunt good-humor. But even this implied blasphemy against the habitation he worshiped did not prevent Mr. Nott from his usual ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... meanes that I bid you do: Let the blunt King tempt you againe to bed, [Sidenote: the blowt King] Pinch Wanton on your cheeke, call you his Mouse, And let him for a paire of reechie[9] kisses, Or padling in your necke with his damn'd Fingers, Make you to rauell all this matter out, [Sidenote: rouell] [Sidenote: 60, ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... master, took his captivity exceedingly to heart, and fell into bitter grief and boundless rage when he heard that he had been tried in Nottingham and sentenced to die. Alice Gamwell, at Little John's request, wrote three letters of one tenour; and Little John, having attached them to three blunt arrows, saddled the fleetest steed in old Sir Guy of Gamwell's stables, mounted, and rode first to Arlingford Castle, where he shot one of the three arrows over the battlements; then to Rubygill Abbey, where he shot the ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... smoke-smudged coats, Lay funnelled liners, dirty fishing-craft, Blunt cargo-luggers, tugs, and ferry-boats. Oh, it was good in that black-scuttled lot To see the Frye come lording on her way Like some old queen that we had half forgot Come to her own. A little up the Bay The Fort lay green, for it was springtime ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... I've seen you fellers some place before," said the rancher, staring hard at the boys. "Say," and his face cleared, "wasn't you along this way a few days ago with Barzy Blunt an' some more, runnin' some ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... thrown into the street, as well as apple-parings and cabbage-stalks, were voraciously devoured. But hunger did not confine itself within these disgusting limits. More than twenty eye-witnesses can attest that wounded French soldiers crawled to the already putrid carcasses of horses, with some blunt knife or other contrived with their feeble hands to cut the flesh from the haunches, and greedily regaled themselves with the carrion. They were glad to appease their hunger with what the raven and the kite never feed on but in cases of necessity. They even tore ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... and will forgive a soldier's blunt speech. I beg you, Sire, to consider the services and the sorrows of Bienville's people, the loyal le Moynes. Where rests his father? Where his valiant brothers, Ste. Helene and Mericourt? Dead, and for the silver lilies! Where's Iberville, the courteous, the brave; he who ravaged ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... trunk, on which the dry skin stretched so thin that Rynason could see the solid bone of the chest wall. Two squat arms hung from the shoulders, terminating in four-digited hands on which two sets of blunt fingers were opposed; Horng kept moving them constantly, in what Rynason automatically interpreted as a nervous habit. The lower body was composed of two heavily-muscled legs jointed so that they could move either forward ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... I hope?" he said cordially, and yet in a tone of more respect than was often perceptible in his deep, blunt voice. ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... necessary to say, however," he went on, "that the skull was fractured in several places, as by blows of some blunt instrument; and that instrument itself—a pick-handle, still stained with blood— lay ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... might not long encumber the soldier, or blunt his ardour for farther enterprise, the usual means of dissipating military spoils were already at hand. Courtezans, mimes, jugglers, minstrels, and tale-tellers of every description, had accompanied the night-march; and, secure in the military reputation ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... letters and numbers which proclaimed her proper business. She was a trawler. In peace times she cast nets for fish in the North Sea. Now she flew the white ensign and on her fore-deck, above the high blunt bows, she carried ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... unfolded the situation. At the mention of Grimsby, Holloway grunted with disgust—it may have been a variety of professional jealousy. Who knows? However, the problem fascinated the mysterious young woman, who blushed, in spite of herself, when Shirley put his blunt question to her. ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... fluid which must often be yellow and sometimes salt, possibly indicate the earlier use of urine. (The Greek water of aspersion, according to Theocritus, was mixed with salt, as is sometimes the modern Italian holy water. J.J. Blunt, Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs, p. 173.) Among the Hottentots, as Kolbein and others have recorded, the medicine man urinated alternately on bride and bridegroom, and a successful young warrior was sprinkled in the same way. Mungo Park mentions ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... thinking, and she thought to some purpose. Her natural disposition was always to obtain results by blunt, matter-of- fact methods. In school her policy was, 'Come along with you now, I'm not going to have any nonsense!' Backed by her position, her strong personality, and her prowess at games it succeeded. But here in the hostel, if she wished to effect ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... lower outline of our illustration. This curve should also be marked out with chalk, and should commence a little nearer the end of the log than the curve on the upper side. Shave off the wood to a blunt edge on this curve, at both bow and stern. The rough form of the canoe is now obtained, and by the aid of the draw-knife, or shaving-knife, it can ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... The blunt club of the lumberman's speech was scarcely a match for the sharp rapier of Raffer's tongue. As the crowd laughed it was evident that the fox-faced man was getting the ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... Mazatlan, and he had brought wine of the finest and cigars such as Arizona never had known, and Sancho was manifestly disconcerted at the regrets or refusals, coldly courteous on the part of Loring, blunt and brusque on the part of Blake. The veterans, however, saw no harm in going and were sumptuously entertained by mine host in the best room of the ranch. Blake caused a strong guard to be posted at camp, a most unusual thing, and one instantly ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... more. A jay with skyblue shaft Set in blunt wing, skimmed screaming on ahead. She followed him. A murrey squirrel eyed Her warily, cocked upon tail-plumed haunch, Then, skipping the whirligig of last-year leaves, Whisked himself out of sight and reappeared ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... is receptive to the kind of individuated characterization soon to distinguish the mid-eighteenth century novel. The type is still his measuring-stick, but he calibrates it far less rigidly than a Rymer analyzing Iago or Evadne. A man can be A Flatterer or A Blunt Man and still retain a private identity: this private identity Gally recognizes as important. Gally's essay thus reflects fundamental changes in the English attitude toward human ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... blunt and even brutal. It burst like a thunder-bolt on Raymond's head, staggered him, and ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... in the act of dressing when a knock sounded at the outer door; Hinge marched off to answer it, returning with a large visiting-card edged with a line of mourning. He presented this to me, and I read the words "Count Ruffiano," printed very badly in blunt script type. ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... thank you for the box of magnets which I found here. Though I do not know certainly, by, or from whom they come, I presume they came by Colonel Smith, who was here in my absence, and from Messrs. Nairne and Blunt, through your good offices. I think your letter of February the 16th, flatters me with the expectation of another, with observations, on the hygrometers I had proposed. I value what comes from you too much, not to remind ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... aisle toward Senator Morton. The Senator from Indiana retreating, Mr. Conkling exclaimed, in the most dramatic tone, "I see that the Senator retreats before what I say!" "Yes," replied Senator Morton, in his blunt way, "I retreated as far as I could from the false doctrine taught by the gentleman from New York." "Mr. President," said Senator Conkling, evidently disconcerted, "the honorable Senator observes that ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... in his voice her eyes, while his own still strayed away, just fixed him. "Don't you think it's really rather exciting? Everything's ready, the feast all spread, and with nothing to blunt our curiosity but the general knowledge that there will be people and things—with nothing but that we comfortably take our places." He answered nothing, though her picture apparently reached him. "There ARE ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... that time my body was distempered, and very likely my mind also.... I know nothing of coming to town; I only know that when I do I shall not be sorry to see you; and this is knowing a great deal; for I shall not be glad to come, and shall only come if it be unavoidable: this is the blunt truth. I own it would look less like indifference if I had written some ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... Imperial Government. In the midst of this entanglement, Slidell lost his head, for hope deferred when apparently within reach of its end is a dangerous councilor of state. In his extreme anxiety, Slidell sent to the Emperor a note the blunt rashness of which the writer could not have appreciated. Saying that he feared the Emperor's subordinates might play into the hands of Washington, he threw his fat in the fire by speaking of the ships as "now being constructed at Bordeaux and Nantes ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... the cavity was thickly lined with fur from some small animal, such as a hare or rat. I found my second nest close to my tent in a cleft of a pine, quite low down, only 3 feet from the ground. I cut it out and it contained five eggs of the usual type—broad, blunt little ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... new colony, where he had arrived in April, after the admiral had sailed to explore Cuba. Don Bartholomew was a discreet man, as skilful in sea affairs as his brother, and had many commendable qualities; he was besides very brave and resolute but of a blunt manner, and somewhat harsh in his temper, by which he incurred the hatred of some persons of the colony. As the admiral hoped to derive much assistance from Don Bartholomew, he gave him the title of adelantado, or lieutenant-governor of the Indies; at which their Catholic ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... the ocean. Great changes have therefore taken place since these barks were launched upon the waves.[78] Their mode of construction is an excellent indication of the date to which they belong. Some which are hollowed out of the trunks of oaks by the help of fire, or with a blunt tool, are supposed by Lyell to date from the Stone age. Others have clean-cut notches, evidently made with metal implements. Some are made of planks joined together with wooden pegs, and one canoe found in County Galway even contained copper nails. Most of the boats from the bed of the Clyde ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... about you," he observed in his blunt fashion. "Are you going to take on this job? It's no light one but you'll probably do it better than ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... into the round grotto, there to fast and to pray for the safe maturity of the scanty crops. But Tyope is not among them. His accomplice, the Naua, has forsaken him. He, too, has become convinced that everything is lost for them, and he has thrown away Tyope like a blunt and useless tool. Hereafter the Naua attends strictly to his official duties, and to nothing beyond his duties. For the Shkuy Chayan is dead, the Shikama Chayan has no love for him, and the old Hishtanyi, who has seen more of the real nature of events than any on the Rito, went ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... must have speedily become a prey to the opposition. The right of ejection was retained; but what they chiefly needed was the glitter of the naked blade—the edge of it, which they feared, they took care to blunt. Besides the check involved in the nature of the office—under which the lists of the members of the aristocratic corporations were liable to revision only at intervals of five years —and besides the limitations resulting from the right ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... have senses keen as that, and a dog tracing his master's steps over the city pavement is supposed to be a feat no other animal can equal. No doubt the artificial life a horse lives in England, giving so little play to many of his most important faculties, has served to blunt them. He is a splendid creature; but the noble bearing, the dash and reckless courage that distinguish him from the modest horse of the desert, have not been acquired without a corresponding loss in other things. When ridden by night the Indian horse—and sometimes the same habit is found ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... taking a short stroll just before sundown. As they were about to return they espied the largest and strangest lizard they ever saw. It was nearly two feet long, with a perfectly round body, a broad, flat head, short legs and a short, blunt tail. It was a chunky little animal, all covered with a rough skin like an alligator and dotted with square warts. It seemed very tame and followed Mary into the tent where she made a warm nest for it in the corner near her bunk. It was very ...
— Little Tales of The Desert • Ethel Twycross Foster
... She believed in his protestations of friendship, and in his blunt sincerity. She allowed him to conduct her to his wife, the queen, and was received by her and Madame Adelaide with the same cordiality the king had shown. Once only in the course of the conversation did Madame Adelaide forget her cordial disposition. She asked the duchess ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... pass'd away, and every day The lovers still were wont To meet together, and their shame At meeting had grown blunt; For they were of an age when sin ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... unshaven, and his clothing was precisely what he had worn all yesterday at the counter. The girl's eyes passed observantly over him now and then; she was critical of appearances, no doubt. That his aspect and demeanour might be in keeping, he bore himself somewhat bluffly, threw out brief, blunt phrases, and met Miss Elvan's glance with a confident smile. No resentment of this behaviour appeared in her look or speech; as the meal went on, she talked more freely, and something of frank curiosity began to reveal itself in her countenance ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... great part of Zealand was at that time in Subjection to that Dukedom. The Prince himself was a Person of singular Humanity and Justice. Rhynsault, with no other real Quality than Courage, had Dissimulation enough to pass upon his generous and unsuspicious Master for a Person of blunt Honesty and Fidelity, without any Vice that could bias him from the Execution of Justice. His Highness prepossessed to his Advantage, upon the Decease of the Governour of his chief Town of Zealand, gave Rhynsault that Command. He was not long ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... became friends on the spot; Nurse, who might have proved a problem, took an instant fancy to delicate Win and started on a course of coddling that luckily amused Win quite as much as it satisfied Nurse. Blunt, downright Roger appealed especially to Estelle, who also ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... to the grotesque—would it not have been agreeable to hear something more than two lines from the lips of a lover so stout-hearted, yet so ardent, in his own rough, blunt way, as he who ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... indescribable relief to us. The skull of our poor Oscar was not injured. There was concussion of the brain, and there was a scalp-wound—inflicted evidently with a blunt instrument. As to the wound, I had done all that was necessary in the doctor's absence. As to the injury to the brain, time and care would put everything right again. "Make your minds easy, ladies," said this angel of a man. ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... thing after another.—You have been as noted, all round our town, for being a kind man, as being a blunt one. ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... than the interview of John Adams with an envoy from Tripoli in London. The oily-tongued barbarian, with his soft voice and his bland smile, asseverating that his only interest in life was to do good and make other people happy, stands out in fine contrast with the blunt, straightforward, and truthful New Englander; and their conversation reminds one of the old story of Coeur-de-Lion with his curtal-axe and Saladin with the blade that cut the silken cushion. Adams felt sure that the fellow was ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... as the country is, with the wheat green over the blunt hill-tops, and the sky vibrating with larks, a long wing of smoke lies round the horizon. The country, rather thinly and languidly cultivated above, has a valuable sub-soil, and is burrowed with mines; the breath of pit and factory, out of sight, thickens the lower sky, and lies heavily ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... before I slept, I thought of that annotated Guide Book which is cried out for by all Europe, and which shall tell blunt truths. Look you out 'Garfagnana, district of, Valley of Serchio' in the index. You will be referred to p. 267. Turn to p. 267. You will find ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... fallen in love with a pretty girl, and thought it his duty to become a "regular," and thus have the chance of seeing her every three months in London. He had conceived a liking for me, reciprocated on my part; the more so, because I knew that behind his blunt exterior there was a warm and manly heart. When he left me I went to my cabin and prepared for dinner, laughing as I did so at his keen, uncompromising criticism, which I knew was correct enough; for of all official ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... frankly, after their blunt nature, call the place Landudno, but the Welsh call it, according to one superstition of their double l and their French u, Thlandidno. According to another, we cannot spell it in English at all; but it does not much matter, for the last superstition is the ever-delightful but ever-doubtful ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... concerns. There is always a tendency and a readiness to inveigh against cliques, especially family cliques. And at one time there was certainly a disposition in some quarters to keep a jealous eye upon Joseph and his brethren, lest they should acquire an undue amount of influence and power. One blunt, outspoken Scotchman, I remember, expressed this feeling in his own characteristic way by saying, "If we don't mind we shall be having too ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... might be turned to practical account in play. Nor is the sense of touch so clean and poignant in children as it is in a man. If you will turn over your old memories, I think the sensations of this sort you remember will be somewhat vague, and come to not much more than a blunt, general sense of heat on summer days, or a blunt, general sense of well-being in bed. And here, of course, you will understand pleasurable sensations; for overmastering pain—the most deadly and tragical element in life, and the true commander of man's soul and body—alas! ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which Charley, who now seemed lost, gladly steered. Our sudden appearance so early that gray morning had evidently alarmed our neighbors, for as soon as we were within hailing distance an Indian with his face blackened fired a shot over our heads, and in a blunt, bellowing voice roared, "Who ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... their full meaning. He had not a feeling that they were free, but that something awful at the same time had happened which filled him with uneasiness and weighed upon his bosom like a heavy stone. Finally his thoughts began to grow blunt. For a long time he gazed at the big moths hovering above the flame and in the end he nodded and dozed. Kali also dozed, but awoke every little while and threw twigs into ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Unciform bone of the wrist. V was the Vein which a blunt lancet miss'd. W was Wax, from a syringe that flow'd. X, the Xaminers, who may be blow'd! Fol de rol ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... "she is very little the worse. The teeth of the trap had grown blunt, although they were strong enough to ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... remarkable in beasts, whose souls are void of reason. But the likeness in men consists more in the configuration of the bodies; and it is of no little consequence in what bodies the soul is lodged; for there are many things which depend on the body that give an edge to the soul, many which blunt it. Aristotle indeed, says, that all men of great genius are melancholy; so that I should not have been displeased to have been somewhat duller than I am. He instances many, and, as if it were matter of fact, brings his reasons for it: but if ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... seen him. Undoubtedly some of the stories of his childlike vanity, his frankly expressed envy, and his general capacity for blundering, owe something to Boswell's feeling that he was a rival near the throne, and sometimes poor Goldsmith's humorous self-assertion may have been taken too seriously by blunt English wits. One may doubt, for example, whether he was really jealous of a puppet tossing a pike, and unconscious of his absurdity in saying "Pshaw! I could do it better myself!" Boswell, however, was too good an observer to misrepresent at ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... touch of the spear, one of the collies turned round sharply, and barked; then the other received a prod—from the blunt end in both cases—and the bark uttered was exactly ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... more widely appreciated, or more frequently drawn upon. "Sumner, Trumbull, and Wade," says McClure, speaking from personal acquaintance, "had intellectual force, but Trumbull was a judge rather than a politician, Wade was oppressively blunt, and Sumner cultivated an ideal statesmanship that placed him outside the line of practical politics. Fessenden was more nearly a copy of Seward in temperament and discretion, but readily conceded the masterly ability of ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... a mean soul disguised by a bluff, hearty exterior, and the mask is much the more difficult to penetrate. It is said of such an one—"He says hard things, but you always see the worst of him, for he puts his worst side out." Shakespeare's rogue, honest Jack Falstaff, was brusk and blunt, but he carried a rascal's heart, and there are many now living who are just as great blusterers, and are equally as cowardly ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... still called the Squire "James" were Democrats. Swallow, the only lawyer the town possessed, was silent, which was felt as remarkable in a man who usually talked much more than occasion demanded and wore a habit-mask of good-fellowship, which had served to deceive many a blunt old farmer, ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... education: to know the essential things that made daily intercourse possible between people of culture. She had been accustomed to look on it as affectation. Now she realised that it was as natural to those who had acquired the masonry of gentle people as her soft brogue and odd, blunt, outspoken ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... no sanctity of family, no binding tie of marriage, none of the fine felicities and the endearing affections of home. Few of these things were the lot of the Southern black woman. Instead, thereof, a gross barbarism, which tended to blunt the tender sensibilities, to obliterate feminine delicacy and womanly shame, came down as her heritage from generation to generation; and it seems a miracle of providence and grace that, notwithstanding these terrible ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. XLII. April, 1888. No. 4. • Various
... such a blunt way of putting it? She may be exchanging her earthly garb for a celestial one—but die! We do not acknowledge death in the Church of the New Faith." He paused and blandly stroked his huge left hand, ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... he, "I am a blunt man, not a very good doctor maybe, and perhaps not much of a gentleman, I don't know—never stopped to ask myself about it. But now, anyhow, I don't know how you happened to be here, or who you are, or when you are going away, ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... sphere. Thus fired with the thoughts of accomplishment, I returned to my task, but I cannot say it went easily. I remembered many great writers indulged in stimulants in the throes of composition, but I decided such a course might blunt the keen edge of my mind and afterall there was no better stimulant than plain oldfashioned perseverance. I picked up the pencil again and doggedly went on to the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... mother's friends at Chamonix, only to find herself helpless amongst a worse gang in her father's house. Very well. She must be released. He had proposed to take her away then and there. She had refused. Well, he had been blunt. He would go about the business in the future in a more delicate way. And so he came again and again to the little house under the hill where the stream babbled through the garden, and every day the apples ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... other's character thoroughly, because they are so closely alike." Michie went on to say that "when either a Russian or a Chinese meets a European, say an Englishman, he instinctively recoils from the blunt, straightforward, up-and-down manner of coming to business at once, and the Asiatic either declines a contest which he cannot fight with his own weapons, or, seizing the weak point of his antagonist, he angles for him until he wearies him into acquiescence. ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... of Bearn, young Conde, and all our leaders, though making use of less blunt speech, were of the same opinion, but the Admiral cared little for his own safety, when there was a chance ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... full trade of Hermes' own Cheapside, Nor gold itself, nor all the Ganges laves, Or shrouds, well shrouded in his sacred waves; Nor gorgeous vessels deck'd in trim array, Which the more noble Thames bears far away; Let those whose nod makes sooty subjects flee? Hack with blunt steel the savory callipee; Let those whose ill-used wealth their country fly, Virtue-scorn'd wines from hostile France to buy; Favour'd by Fate, let such in joy appear, Their smuggled cargoes landed thrice a year; Disdaining ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... moment, Malipieri might have doubted the logic of the last statement; but at the present moment he was not very calm, and he turned a pencil nervously in his fingers, standing it alternately on its point and its blunt end, upon the blotting-paper beside him, and looking at ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... I know of," was the blunt answer; and, at the same instant, Mr. Ogilvie arrived. He was a pleasant, high-bred looking gentleman, brown-complexioned, and dark-eyed, with a brisk and resolute cast of countenance, that, Ethel thought, might have suited the Norman of Glenbracken, who died on the ruddy Lion of Scotland, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... the office with his first feeling of suspicion and repulsion for his Chief. He didn't like the blunt, brutal way this Southern Democrat talked. He couldn't believe in his honesty. Beneath those bushy eyebrows burned a wolf's hunger for office and power. On the surface he was loyal to the Union. He wondered ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... honorable! What private griefs they have, alas, I know not, That made them do it! They are wise and honorable, And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you. I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts: I am no orator, as Brutus is; But as you all know me, a plain, blunt man, That love my friend; and that they know full well That gave me public leave to speak of him. For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, To stir men's blood:—I only speak right on; I tell you that which ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... get a sharp or blunt letter asking for a settlement, go to your creditor face to face, set a date when you will make a ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... long time Dona Isabel had been sure in her own mind that Pancho Cueto, her administrador, was robbing her, she had never mustered courage to call him to a reckoning. And there was a reason for her cowardice. Nevertheless, De Castano's blunt accusation, coupled with her own urgent needs, served to fix her resolution, and on the day after the merchant's visit she sent for the overseer, who at the time was living on one ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... exceed belief. These trees yield a profusion of thick red gum (not unlike the 'sanguis draconis') which is found serviceable in medicine, particularly in dysenteric complaints, where it has sometimes succeeded, when all other preparations have failed. To blunt its acrid qualities, it is usual to combine it ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay • Watkin Tench
... Gentleman who does not a little value himself upon his ancient Descent, I expected he would give me some Account of them. We were now arrived at the upper End of the Gallery, when the Knight faced towards one of the Pictures, and as we stood before it, he entered into the Matter, after his blunt way of saying Things, as they occur to his Imagination, without regular Introduction, or Care to preserve the Appearance of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Anthony Ratcliffe, Steuen Some, and Robert Brooke Aldermen of the saide Citie of London, Simon Laurence, Iohn Wattes, Iohn Newton, Thomas Middleton, Robert Coxe, Iohn Blunt, Charles Faith, Thomas Barnes, Alexander Dansey, Richard Aldworth, Henry Cowlthirste, Caesar Doffie, Martine Bonde, Oliuer Stile and Nicholas Stile Marchants of London for their abilities and sufficiencies haue bene thought fit to be also of the sayd Company of the saide gouernour and Company ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... yet the only girl out of all her set who had never had any especial attention. Perhaps it was because she was no flirt. Bell Masters said no girl could get along who did not flirt. Perhaps because in her excessive truthfulness she was sometimes blunt and almost brusque; it is dreadfully out of place not to be able to lie a little at times. Even Mrs. Upjohn, the female lay-head of the Presbyterians, who was a walking Decalogue, her every sentence being a law beginning with Thou shalt not, admitted ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... thoroughly moved than his daughter expected; and in all probability his nephew's bold defence of his religious and political opinions rather pacified than aggravated his displeasure. Although sufficiently impatient of contradiction, still evasion and subterfuge were more alien to the blunt old Ranger's nature than manly vindication and direct opposition; and he was wont to say, that he ever loved the buck best who stood boldest at bay. He graced his nephew's departure, however, with a quotation from Shakspeare, whom, as many others do, he was wont ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... Rube said in his ordinary cheerful tone; 'except that I feel as if a fellow was sawing away at my ankles and wrists with a blunt knife.' ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... waterfalls. A tree that stands all along the banks here must be very fond of water; its roots lie close-packed down the stream, like hanks of guts, so as to make often a corrugated walk, each root ending in a blunt tuft of filaments, plainly to drink water. Twice there came in small tributaries from the left or western side - the whole plateau having a smartish inclination to the east; one of the tributaries in a handsome little web of silver hanging in ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a different fashion, the qualities which were most offensive both to his personal preferences and his inherited standards of taste. The girl in her scarlet dress, with her dark bobbed hair curling in on her neck, her candid ivory forehead, her provoking blunt nose, her bright red lips, and the inquiring arch of her black eyebrows over her gray-green eyes, had appeared to him absurdly like a picture on the cover of some cheap magazine. He had heartily disapproved of her, but he couldn't help looking at her. ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... it from pimento wood on Juan Fernandez; but, in fact, I believe the art is confined to savages. I never met a civilized man who could do it, and I have questioned scores of voyagers. As for my weapons, they consist of a boat-hook and an ax; no gun, no harpoon, no bow, no lance. My tools are a blunt saw, a blunter ax, a wooden spade, two great augers, that I believe had a hand in bringing us here, but have not been any use to us since, a center-bit, two planes, a hammer, a pair of pincers, two brad-awls, three gimlets, two scrapers, a plumb-lead and line, a large pair of scissors, and you have ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... study of the law; and whatever his real ability, the jealousy of the Cecils no doubt prompted the opinion of the queen, that he was not very profound in the branch he had chosen, an opinion which was fully shared by the blunt and outspoken Lord Coke, who was his rival in love, law, and preferment. Prompted no doubt by the coldness of Burleigh, he joined the opposition headed by the Earl of Essex, and he found in that nobleman a powerful friend and generous patron, who used his utmost endeavors to have Bacon appointed ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... an end, and so, little by little the blunt bow crept nearer until it was in the very shade of my tree. Grasping the branch, I let myself swing at arm's length; and then I found that I was at least a foot too near the bank. Edging my way, therefore, still further ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... that the said Richard Gaylord came to his death in Luray Cavern on the 19th day of May, by cerebral hemorrhage, the result of a wound inflicted by some blunt weapon in the hands of a person or persons unknown. We recommend that Radnor Fanshaw Gaylord be held for ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... Sir Charles surprised by this blunt reference to a subject they had never before discussed. "He does not intend to propose to ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... carelessly. "A man has to defend himself, and even with blunt swords he will get awkward cracks if he cannot protect his head. Besides, in the arena a man's life depends upon his skill, and the conquered is sure to have no mercy shown him unless he has borne himself well. Therefore, each man ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... Augustus Grant are constantly staying here; they help to ride Mr. Doran's horses and shoot his birds. They are all old friends, and rather hard up, so Mr. Doran just keeps them. He—Mr. Doran—seems different after meals; from being as quiet as a lamb, he gets quite coarse and blunt. The rest of the party were just the kind of neighbours that always come to shoot. Mr. Roper told me they never have smart parties, with only the best shots, and heaps of beautiful ladies. Mr. Doran asks just any one he likes, or he happens to meet, and the shooting is some ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... outside, has a small core of pith, and this notched stick is laid horizontally on a knife-blade on the ground; the operator squatting, places his great toes on each end to keep all steady, and taking the other wand which is of very hard wood cut to a blunt point, fits it into the notch at right angles; the upright wand is made to spin rapidly backwards and forwards between the palms of the hands, drill fashion, and at the same time is pressed downwards; the friction, in the course of a minute or so, ignites ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... gang of natives, who had been stealing horses. The savages of this part of California are represented as extremely poor, and armed only with stone-pointed arrows; it being the wise policy of the Spaniards not to furnish them with firearms. As they find it difficult, with their blunt shafts, to kill the wild game of the mountains, they occasionally supply themselves with food, by entrapping the Spanish horses. Driving them stealthily into fastnesses and ravines, they slaughter them without difficulty, and dry their flesh ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... ought surely to be qualified by the implied condition that such consent must not be unreasonably withheld. In the private law of England equity has long since grafted this implication upon prohibitions against assignment. If, however, the Government had been content with a blunt non possumus, a case could no doubt have been made out for insisting upon their pound of flesh. They chose, however, to do the one thing which was neither dignified nor defensible: they offered to assent to an assignment on condition that Mr Reid surrendered ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... driven through with scarcely a quiver, the big ship trembled with the buffets and suction of a wintry blast that drove dry snow like sand across the lookout glasses. The twelve thousand level was an unbroken cloud of snow—a gray smother where the red ship's blunt and rusty bow ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... forty feet long, and twenty feet round at the thickest part. Its head, which seemed to me a great, blunt, shapeless thing, like a clumsy old boat, was eight feet long from the tip to the blowholes or nostrils; and these holes were situated on the back of the head, which at that part was nearly four feet broad. The entire head measured about twenty-one feet round. Its ears were two small holes, ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... Peel in the House of Commons, and on whom the destiny of the country perhaps depends? There he was, as if he had no thoughts but for the turf, full of the horses, interest in the lottery, eager, blunt, noisy, good-humoured, 'has meditans nugas et totus in illis;' at night equally devoted to the play, as if his fortune depended on it. Thus can a man relax whose existence is devoted to great objects and serious thoughts. I had considerable hopes of winning the Derby, but was beaten easily, my ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... lord, and back'd With circumstances of a stronger nature. It now appears, his secretary, Cuff, With Blunt and Lee, were deep concern'd in this Destructive scheme contrived to raise this lord, And ruin Cecil. Oh, it is a subtile, A deep-laid mischief, by the earl contrived In hour malignant, to o'erturn the state, And, horror to conceive! ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... We had left the business of cutting my bonds almost too late. In the darkness of the bush the strips of hide could only be felt for, and my Kaffir had a woefully blunt knife. Reims are always tough to sever, and mine had to be sawn through. Soon my arms were free, and I was plucking at my other bonds. The worst were those on my ankles below the horse's belly. The Kaffir fumbled away in the dark, and pricked my beast so that he reared and ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... criminal law in the state's attorney's office, have characterized the state's attorney himself as a "damned gallery-playing mountebank," nor have described the professions and the misdeeds of some of the persons he prosecuted in blunt Anglo-Saxon terms she had never heard used ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... secretary. Besides, she neglected no opportunity of inculcating precepts of sound morality. Thus the child, being surprised at seeing her one evening press a kiss upon the forehead of her secretary, cried out, with the blunt candor of ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... and head monitor at Saint Dominic's—far too blunt and honest ever to be an object of anything but dislike and uneasiness to Loman. Now the uneasiness was the more prominent of the two. Loman replied, confused and reddening, "Oh, that boy? Why—oh, he's a shop-boy from the town, come up about an ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... Pretence in Nature but that (as her silly Phrase is) no one can say Black is her Eye. She has no Secrets, forsooth, which should make her afraid to speak her Mind, and therefore she is impertinently Blunt to all her Acquaintance, and unseasonably Imperious to all her Family. Dear Sir, be pleased to put such Books in our Hands, as may make our Virtue more inward, and convince some of us that in a Mind truly virtuous the Scorn of Vice ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... he began again, "the whole thing resolves itself into a matter of discretion. But now—if you'll pardon me for asking anything so blunt—how am I to know that you would ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... instance, he learned that a sailing craft had the right of way over a power craft, something he had not known previously, and observed that a large proportion of them used that right to its limit. He got quite incensed with a small, blunt-nosed schooner which insisted on crossing the Adventurer's course just as they were passing Fort Hamilton. Steve had to slow down rather hurriedly to avoid a collision and Perry viewed the two occupants of the schooner's deck with a scowl ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... of it; it was horrible. And perhaps, after all, he was mistaken; perhaps his dislike of the work had got upon his nerves, and showed him everything in the darkest colours. It could scarcely be as bad as he thought, or human society would be impossible. But argument could not blunt the poignancy of his feelings; he preferred, therefore, to leave them inarticulate, striving to forget. In any case, the ordeal would soon be over; it had to be endured for a few hours more, and then he would ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... of the General Staff's Operations Division, Lt. Gen. John E. Hull, dismissed the Gillem report with several blunt statements: black enlisted men should be assigned to black units capable of operational use within white units at the rate of one black battalion per division; a single standard of professional proficiency should be followed ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... appeared, plain, blunt, critical. His teaching was in effect an appeal to men to reflect: to turn their attention away from the world which they were supposed to be explaining to the contemplation of their own Minds by which the explanation was furnished. ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... great roll of evil smelling grayish unbleached calico from the schoolroom cupboard and heaved it on to the table. It was very heavy. The scissors were blunt and left deep red-blue indentations on finger and thumb. She was rather pleased that ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... a week, visiting back and forth in amity, as I must say. I grew to like well enough those blunt young fellows of the Navy. With young Lieutenant Peel especially I struck up something of a friendship. If he remained hopelessly British, at least I presume I remained quite as hopelessly American; so that we came to set aside the topic of conversation ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... Zib. The list of notables ends with the Sayyid Ibrahim El-Mara' and with the sturdy Abd el-Hakk, pearl and general merchant. All recognized our friend the Sayyid, whom even the "gutter-boys" saluted by name; and, although the Arab manner is blunt and independent, all showed perfect civility. It is needless to say that our late work, and our future plans, were known to everybody at El-Wijh as well as to ourselves; and that the tariffs of pay and hire, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... crowded canvas injures the unity of the design, be these as they may, "Romola" strikes one as great in spots and as conveying a noble though somber truth, but does not carry us off our feet. That is the blunt truth about it, major work as it is, with only half a dozen of its kind to equal it in all English literature. It falls distinctly behind both "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Esmond." It is a book to admire, to praise in many particulars, ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... cautious use thereof. When sarcastic twitches are needful to pierce the thick skins of men, to correct their lethargic stupidity, to rouse them out of their drowsy negligence, then may they well be applied when plain declarations will not enlighten people to discern the truth and weight of things, and blunt arguments will not penetrate to convince or persuade them to their duty, then doth reason freely resign its place to wit, allowing it to undertake its work ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... blunt, clumsy weapon, the point being merely the wood of which it was formed, hardened by thrusting in the fire, but the hand which held it was powerful, and the prod received severe, though the skin was not pierced. Jack uttered ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... weasel. The trees over our head abounded with birds of various kinds, among which were many of exquisite beauty, particularly loriquets and cockatoos, which flew in flocks of several scores together. We found some wood which had been felled by the natives with a blunt instrument, and some that had been barked. The trees were not of many species; among others there was a large one which yielded a gum not unlike the Sanguis draconis; and in some of them steps that had been cut at about three feet ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... A prince's banner 5 Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes. A craven hung along the battle's edge, And thought, "Had I a sword of keener steel— That blue blade that the king's son bears,—but this Blunt thing!" He snapped and flung it from his hand, 10 And lowering crept away and left the field. Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead, And weaponless, and saw the broken sword, Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand, And ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... Walter Blunt: there's honour for you! here's no vanity! I am as hot as molten lead, and as heavy too. God keep lead ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... hither to wait upon the Queen of England and our Lady of Normandy, for such is your well-born Majesty to your loyal Jersiais." And thereupon he plunged into an impeachment of De Carteret of St. Ouen's, and stumbled through a blunt broken story of the wrongs and the sorrows of Michel and Angele and the doings ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
