"Abrupt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... abrupt interruption of the landlady's version of the "Marseillaise" the men swung round, and upon seeing the Deputy they sought in ludicrous haste to repair the disorder ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... It was believed that he was too ill to leave his bed without assistance. And, even though he had been strong, it was by no means probable that one so uniformly discreet in his conduct, and ever so regardful of the feelings of others, would have quitted the house in this abrupt and inexplicable manner. ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... person to whom this abrupt question was addressed, surprised into answering it by the sudden and fierce manner of the querist—"Reuben Butler, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... common life, in which this drama commences, with the direful music and wild wayward rhythm and abrupt lyrics of the opening of Macbeth. The tone is quite familiar;—there is no poetic description of night, no elaborate information conveyed by one speaker to another of what both had immediately before their senses—(such as the ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... a species of boulevard recently constructed for the use of visitors to Manitou. At places the grade is so abrupt that timid ladies do not care to drive down it. Otherwise it is a very pleasing thoroughfare, with fresh surprises and delights awaiting the tourist every time he passes along it. The view in every direction is most charming and extensive. Pike's Peak can be seen to great advantage, and in ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... are worked so as to gradually cut off the light, and the observer notes the appearance of the mirror surface. If the curves are perfect and spherical, the transition from complete illumination to darkness will be abrupt, and no part of the mirror will ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... au grand air, by Elena's desire, did nothing towards dissipating Andrea's suspicions. 'What could be her secret reasons for this abrupt departure?' He tried in vain to penetrate the mystery; he was oppressed with doubt ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... him," he cried out in abrupt violence, "vile es they war ... they warn't nothin' ter ther man thet made a dupe out of him ... ther man thet egged them on.... Bas Rowlett's accountable ter me—an' afore ther sun sets I aims ter stand over ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... a Protestant,—cold, severe, reserved, awkward, abrupt, and ostentatiously humble, but of inflexible integrity and unrivalled sagacity and forethought; more able as a financier and political economist than any man of his century. It was something for a ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... been sweet, with a rose-shadow of gentle apology cast over every approach; of a deepening of the atmosphere of his reverence, which yet as it deepened grew more diaphanous. And when now the episode of angelic visitation was over, with his usual wisdom he understood the wrench her abrupt departure must have given his whole being, and allowed him plenty of time to recover himself from it. Once he came upon him weeping: not with faintest overshadowing did he rebuke him, not with farthest hint ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... cultivated. Such mere scraps of earth do not admit of efficient husbandry, but are made to produce liberally by dint of patient effort. I should judge that a peck of corn is about the average product of a day's work through all this region. There is some pasturage, mainly on the less abrupt declivities far up the mountains, but not one acre in fifty of the Canton yields aught but it may be a little fuel for the sustenance of man. Nature is here a rugged mother, exacting incessant toil of her children as ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... Think of his dealing with the Syrophoenician woman. She was a Canaanite of the old race, and, though at first he seemed to turn her away, yet ultimately he gave her all she asked and more: and even his apparently abrupt treatment of her in the beginning, if I read the history aright, was meant to be an exposure and condemnation of the feelings commonly cherished toward those of her nation by the Jews of his day. No doubt it tested and strengthened her own faith. But we must not ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... of the Discontented Soul, the bari nosed among the reeds and grounded gently. Rachel stood for a moment gazing sadly across the stretch of sand toward the abrupt wall against which it terminated inland. Pepi, already on shore, reached a patient hand toward her and awaited her awakening. Anubis landed with a bound and made in a series of wide circles for the cliff. His escape aroused Rachel and she stepped out of the boat. ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... close contact with the free virility of the ancient world, and emancipated from the thraldom of improved traditions. The force to judge and the desire to create were generated. The immediate result in the sixteenth century was an abrupt secession of the learned, not merely from monasticism, but also from the true spirit of Christianity. The minds of the Italians assimilated paganism. In their hatred of mediaeval ignorance, in their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the abrupt question. I caught a glimpse of Yolanda's face and saw that I had made a mistake, so I continued hastily: "That is—yes—yes, she is pretty, though not beautiful. Her face, I think, is rather dollish. It is a fine creation ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... leaves a long while, he selected and read aloud a passage from Carlyle, one of his very worst; abrupt, nervous, jerking, and at the same time windy, long-drawn-out, and parenthetical; a period filling a ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... what love is now," was the abrupt way in which the young man opened the subject on the ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... he cried, the hurricane from the North Struck with a roar against the sail. Up leap The waves to heaven; the shattered oars start forth; Round swings the prow, and lets the waters sweep The broadside. Onward comes a mountain heap Of billows, gaunt, abrupt. These, horsed astride A surge's crest, rock pendent o'er the deep; To those the wave's huge hollow, yawning wide, Lays bare the ground below; ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... abrupt change. Impossibly strange! I walked toward one of the trees, stopped at a reddish boulder to examine it. And surprise caught at my throat. It was an artifact—a crumbling ruin, the remnant of an ancient structure whose original appearance I could not fathom. The stone ...
— Where the World is Quiet • Henry Kuttner
... staccato notes of widely varying pitch, together with little volleys of tinkling sounds such as his every-day song concludes with. This medley was not laughable, like the chat's, which it suggested, but it had the same abrupt, fragmentary, and promiscuous character. All in all, it was what I never should have expected from ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... is a love story by Mrs. Florence Shepphird. Though the major portion is quite polished and consistent, we cannot but deem the conclusion too abrupt and precipitate. Perhaps, being a frigid old critic without experience in romance, we ought to submit the question to some popular newspaper column of Advice to the Lovelorn, inquiring whether or not it be permissible for a young lady, after only a few hours' acquaintanceship ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... women fancy him so greatly. When I said I was sorry she was going, she replied, 'It is no one's business;' and then added, 'nor Mr. Wynne's neither,' as if Hugh had said a word. In fact, Miss Peniston was almost as cross and abrupt as dear Miss Wynne at her worst. If ever, God willing, I should marry her,—there, I am blushing even to think of such a sweet impossibility,—she would drive me frantic. I should be in small rages or begging her pardon ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... The abrupt, unexpected question startled her, and a crimson tide rushed over her face and neck; but she returned her father's gaze steadily: "No, papa; how could you think I would ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... head from the cover, and beheld what he justly considered a prodigy of rashness and skill. The river had worn away the edge of the soft rock in such a manner as to render its first pitch less abrupt and perpendicular than is usual at waterfalls. With no other guide than the ripple of the stream where it met the head of the island, a party of their insatiable foes had ventured into the current, and swam down upon this point, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... man full of honour, courage, and probity, and exceedingly regular in the performance of his duties. Bonaparte's attachment to him arose more from habit than liking. Berthier did not concede with affability, and refused with harshness. His abrupt, egotistic, and careless manners did not, however, create him many enemies, but, at the same time, did not make him many friends. In consequence of our frequent intercourse he had contracted the friendly practice of speaking to me in the second ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... astonish you much. Yes; imagine that they have discovered traces of your parents; your father lives, and your father is—I am your father.'" Here the prince again interrupted himself. "No, no; this is also too sudden, too abrupt; but it is not my fault that this revelation is always springing to my lips; one must have more self-command—you comprehend, my friend, you comprehend? To be there before your daughter, and restrain your feelings!" ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... height That competition, bursting builders' bonds, Starts from the shop, and rushing through the roof, Unites the basement with the floors above; Till, like a giant, that outgrows his strength, The whole concern, struck with abrupt collapse, In one "tremendous failure" totters down!— 'Tis food on which philosophy may fatten. [Turns round, musing, and looks ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... ancient handmaiden of Mrs. Oleander, very much discomposed by this abrupt proceeding. "How you do startle a body with your quick ways! ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... harmony. That mere speck full of movement was a starting-point whence the soul of man could descry the immutable vast of space. Solitude and bustling life, silence and sound, were all brought together in strange abrupt contrast; you could not tell where life, or sound, or silence, and nothingness lay, and no human voice broke the ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... woman with a hopelessly injured spine, but like a lady of the happy world, resting in luxury, a little while, from the assault of her own brilliant and fatiguing vitality. The flat, dark masses of her hair, laid on the dull red of her cushions, gave to her face an abrupt and lustrous whiteness, whiteness that threw into vivid relief the features of expression, the fine, full mouth, with its temperate sweetness, and the tender eyes, dark as the brows that arched them. Edith, in her motionless beauty, propped on her cushions, had acquired a dominant yet passionless ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... Browning Societies and University Extension Lecturers. Browning was first and foremost a poet, a man made to enjoy all things visible and invisible, a priest of the higher passions. The misunderstanding that has supposed him to be other than poetical, because his form was often fanciful and abrupt, is really different from the misunderstanding which attaches to most other poets. The opponents of Victor Hugo called him a mere windbag; the opponents of Shakespeare called him a buffoon. But the admirers of Hugo and Shakespeare at least knew better. Now the admirers and ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... of her now, out of sight, had disappeared utterly; and the smooth, empty sea along the coast was left behind in the glittering desolation of sunshine. On each side of her, low down, the growth of somber twisted mangroves covered the semi-liquid banks; and Massy continued in his old tone, with an abrupt start, as if his speech had been ground out of him, like the tune of a music-box, by ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... papers thus brought the visit to Pomeroy Court to an abrupt termination. The place had now become intolerable to Zillah. In her impatience she was eager to leave, and her one thought now was to apply to Lord Chetwynde for a ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... I expect, on this little debate of ours. Yep! Gerald is No. 8 on Pyramid Gordon's list. He'd been a private secretary for Mr. Gordon at one time or another; but he'd been handed his passports kind of abrupt one mornin', and had been set adrift in a cold world ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... the author of "The Amateur Detective" at first seemed nonplussed; but quickly changed his expression to one of abrupt intelligence. ...
— Punchinello Vol. II., No. 30, October 22, 1870 • Various
... to feed in public, is recognised in a moment by his uneasy movements. He generally slinks into the nearest vacant seat, and is evidently taken aback by the apparently abrupt and rapid annunciation of the voluble and active waiter, and, in the hurry and confusion, very frequently decides upon the dish ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... clauses of the treaty of Washington, in pursuance of the joint resolution of March 3, 1883, must have resulted in the abrupt cessation on the 1st of July of this year, in the midst of their ventures, of the operations of citizens of the United States engaged in fishing in British American waters but for a diplomatic understanding reached with Her Majesty's Government in June last, whereby assurance was ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Sound, the course of which is almost rectilinear for about fifty miles in a south-eastern direction; a fact which will probably be found to be connected with the geological structure of the country. The general character of the banks, which are lofty and abrupt, is precisely the same with that of the rivers falling into York Sound; and the level of the country does not appear to be higher in the interior than near the coast. The banks are from two to four hundred feet ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... Attaf" occupies pp. 10-50, and the end is abrupt. The treatment of the "Novel" contrasts curiously with that of the Chavis MS. which forms my text, and whose directness and simplicity give it a European and even classical character. It is an excellent ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... was in the discussion on this Bill that the long personal friendship which had existed between Fox and Burke was brought to an abrupt termination.—H. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... her moral inheritance was not all that might be desired; for her father had left her mother in a fit of pardonable jealousy, after nearly killing her and quite killing his rival, and her mother had not redeemed her character after his abrupt departure. On the contrary, if an accident had not carried her off suddenly, Regina's virtuous parent would probably have sold the girl into slavery. Poor people are not all honest, any more than other kinds of people are. Regina did not mourn her mother, and hardly remembered her ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... by several idle- looking fellows, came up to me, and in a hasty tone said, "Sir, in the king's name I seize your person and papers." To which I replied that I should be glad to see his authority, and know the reason of an address so abrupt. He told me the want of time prevented his taking regular steps, but that it would be necessary for me to return to Penzance, as I was suspected of being a French spy. I proposed to submit my papers to the nearest Justice of Peace, who was immediately ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he was in a cotton suit walking about among his flowers and enjoying the evening. He was a man of about fifty, short, strong, brown, and abrupt. Though it was already evening and one could see little, we knew well enough that his eyes were steady and dark. For he had the attitude and carriage of those men who invigorate France. His self-confidence was evident in his sturdy legs and his arms akimbo, his ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... was close hauled when these abrupt orders were given, battling in the teeth of a stiff breeze, off the coast of South America. About this time, several piratical vessels had succeeded in cutting off a number of merchantmen near the coast of Brazil. They had not only taken the valuable parts of their cargoes, ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... was in a very real sense a living God; but the manifestations of His life in the great crises of His people's history were of necessity separated by considerable intervals of time. His activity had something abrupt and tumultuary about it, better suited for extraordinary occasions than for ordinary daily life. Traces of this feeling appear very prominently in the later stages of the development. But although the relations between Israel and Israel's God came ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... answered, in order not to appear to attach any importance to this declaration, that she was very glad of it, he took an opportunity, as their horses stopped side by side before a beautiful sunset, to put his arm suddenly round her waist, and give her a kiss, so abrupt, so violent, so outrageous, that she screamed aloud. He did not remove his arm from her, his coarse, red face drew near her own again with an expression that filled her with horror. She struggled to free herself, her horse began to rear, she screamed for help with all her might, but nothing answered ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... abrupt retirement on the part of the captain was little Kitty among the trees. The captain went out of sight and waited, and kept out of sight and waited, until it occurred to him to beguile the time with another cigar. He lighted it, and smoked it out, and still ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... Suddenly a happy thought struck me: it was to write a novel, in which only the actual spirit of the narration should be retained, rejecting all expletives, flourishes, and ornamental figures of speech; to be terse and abrupt in style—use monosyllables always in preference to polysyllables—and to eschew all heroes and heroines whose names contain more than four letters. Full of this idea, on my returning home in the evening, I sat ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... I had been too abrupt. The nun turned deadly pale, and clung to the bars of the grate for support; but the emotion was momentary. "Go on," said she, in ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... the time on account of a considerable gambling debt which she had suddenly discovered. But before she left Switzerland she had felt that on her return she must make up for it to her forsaken friend, especially as she had treated him very curtly for a long time past. Her abrupt and mysterious departure had made a profound and poignant impression on the timid heart of Stepan Trofimovitch, and to make matters worse he was beset with other difficulties at the same time. He was worried by a very considerable money obligation, which had weighed upon him for ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... by bit between others, for in any case such people are everywhere merely incidental—both in life and on the stage. Make Elena dine with all the rest in the first act, let her sit and make jokes, or else there is very little of her, and she is not clear. Her avowal to Pyotr is too abrupt, on the stage it would come out in too high relief. Make her a passionate woman, if not loving at least apt ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... measure allotted to the cadence-chord, that the desired dual impression,—that of cadential interruption without actual cessation,—is secured. It is like rounding off a corner that might otherwise be too angular or abrupt. ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... we speak of, stood some miles above that gorge in the Harlem River which is now spanned by the High Bridge. This region of Manhattan Island is even yet more than half buried in its primeval forest trees. Hills as abrupt, and moss as greenly fleecy as if found on the crags of the Rocky Mountains, still exist among the wild nooks and wilder peaks which strike the eye more picturesquely from their vicinity ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... one Scott,(198) recommended by Lord Bolingbroke. You may add that recommendation to the chapter of our wonderful politics. I have received your letter from Fiesoli Hill; poor Strawberry blushes to have you compare it with such a prospect as yours. I say nothing to the abrupt sentences about Mr. B. I have long seen his humour—and a little of your partiality ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... ordinary standards. And the gossip of the season had apparently gathered and culminated round some incident of a graver character than the rest—though nobody precisely knew what it might be. But it seemed that Ashe had at last asserted himself; and if in Kitty's abrupt departure to the country, and the sudden dissolution of the intimacy between herself and Cliffe, those who loved her not had read what dark things they pleased, her uncle by marriage was quite content ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is warning the menials that their charge is sacred; that the sheets he has produced are impossible to replace. High words. Abrupt re-opening of the front door. Struggling humanity projected on to the pavement. Three persons—my scribe in the middle, an emissary on either side—stagger strangely past me. The scribe enters the purple night only under the stony compulsion ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... their domestic wars they appeared as divided clans or abrupt insurgents; they were exposed to the treachery of a more instructed, of an unscrupulous and a compact enemy; they had neither discipline, nor generalship, nor arms; their victories were those of a mob; their ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... low abrupt hills of Kowno, the country was flat again until the valley of the Vilia opened out. And here, almost within sight of Vilna, D'Arragon drove down a short hill which must ever be historic. He drove slowly, for on either side were gun-carriages deep sunken in the snow where the ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... these two lived, the Yoritomo family could count on the allegiance of the Kwanto, and so long as that allegiance remained intact, the elevation of the Hojo to the seats of supreme authority could not be compassed. Further, the substitution of Hojo for Minamoto must be gradual. Nothing abrupt would be tolerable. Now the Hojo chief's second wife, Maki, had borne to him a daughter who married Minamoto Tomomasa, governor of Musashi and lord constable of Kyoto, in which city he was serving when history first takes prominent notice ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... jagged, craggy, rugged, cragged, scraggy; rude, inurbane, burly, unrefined, discourteous, uncivil, blunt, bluff, brusque, austere, abrupt, gruff, boorish, uncourtly; boisterous, tumultuous, tempestuous, stormy; harsh, hard, severe, inclement, drastic, violent; harsh, grating, raucous, discordant, inharmonious; unkempt, disheveled, shaggy; incomplete, superficial, cursory, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... genuinely distressed. Despite all his rebuffs, he had for some weeks looked upon the Master of the Shell as one of the most promising men on his staff; and he deplored the infatuation which now promised to bring his connection with Grandcourt to an abrupt end. ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... along for nearly a mile, when the howl of the hounds began to sound through the woods with more abrupt and fiercer echoes. We knew by this that the moose had been brought to bay, and we hurried forward, ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... gallantly to their work, and returned volley for volley. They fought on doggedly. Suddenly the armored train shot up the line which the British were holding, and Hal brought it to an abrupt stop. ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... not look gracious or grateful, but he began to put it in a small pocket in the breast of his worn corduroy shooting jacket. Suddenly he stopped, as if with abrupt resolve. He handed the coin back without any change of ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Greece.' "Plutarch gives this interchange of brief questions, between Agesilaus and Epameinondas, which is in substance the same as that given by Pausanias, and has every appearance of being true. But he introduces it in a very bold and abrupt way, such as cannot be conformable to the reality. To raise a question about the right of Sparta to govern Laconia was a most daring novelty. A courageous and patriotic Theban might venture upon it as a retort against those Spartans who questioned the right of ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... be to grant that there are any spots in the character of his hero's government, the Prince is, nevertheless, obliged to allow that such existed; that the Emperor's manner of rule was a little more abrupt and dictatorial than might possibly be agreeable. For this the Prince has always an answer ready—it is the same poor one that Napoleon uttered a million of times to his companions in exile—the excuse of necessity. ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... text of this ballad is in the Percy Folio, from which it is here rendered in modern spelling. Although the original is written continuously, it is almost impossible not to suspect an omission after 2.2. Child points out, however, that the abrupt transition is found in other ballads (see Adam Bell, 2.2), and Hales and Furnivall put 2.3,4 in inverted commas as part of Robin's relation of his dream. Percy's ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... perhaps a hundred feet down the lane that led from the main road to the farm of Mr. Appleby when he came to an abrupt halt. ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... have been temporarily lost sight of by the little crowd of onlookers that clustered closely round us on the poop, in the absorbing interest attendant upon our endeavours to get a line on board the barque, and was only recalled to them—and that, too, in a very abrupt and startling manner—by the significance of the skipper's last remark. The imminence and deadly nature of the Frenchmen's peril was brought home to them anew; and now they seemed to realise, for the first time, the possibility that they might be called upon ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... upper field the fence crosses an abrupt ravine upon leggy stilts. My line skirts the slope halfway up. My neighbour owns the crown of the hill which he has shorn until it resembles the tonsured pate of a monk. Every rain brings the light soil down the ravine and lays it ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... gunwale and neatly in through the hole which I had espied. I should have fallen on the deck on my head, and probably dislocated my neck had not a brawny Spaniard happened to be immediately beneath me. Taken by surprise at my abrupt appearance, he had not time to get out of my way or even to strike at me, and before he could recover himself my pistol was at his temple and he staggered backward, shot through the head. In his fall, he forced back two or three of ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... locker) were as well as could be expected, and giving any other interesting particulars regarding himself, his fellow-travellers, or the country in general, that could be compressed into the space of sixty seconds or thereabouts; and the visits were regularly and ruthlessly brought to an abrupt termination by the angry "Now, then, sir!" of the guard, and the reckless thrusting of the little gentleman into his second-class carriage, to the endangerment of his life and limbs, and the exaggerated display of authority on ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... out abruptly, "I see a man!" Every one looked to that point,—"I see a man of Tarsus; and he says, Make mention of me!" It must not be supposed that the discourses of "Uncle Ebenezer," with these abrupt appeals and sudden starts, were unwritten or extempore; they were carefully composed and written out,—only these flashes of thought and passion came on him suddenly when writing, and were therefore quite natural when ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... with her face towards it and proceed. But she had not done this for many minutes, when it occurred to her that she must have turned about more or less, several times, during her outward journey. This brought her to an abrupt halt. She looked up and around several times, and then, feeling quite sure that the shore must lie in a certain direction pointed out by Hope, set off in that direction at a good round pace. As the wood seemed to get thicker, ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... Alboni's kindness of heart, occurred on the eve of her departure for Italy, whither she was called by family reasons. Her leave-taking was so abrupt that she had almost forgotten her promise to sing in Paris on a certain date for the annual benefit of Filippo Galli, a superannuated musician. The suspense and anxiety of the unfortunate Filippo ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... was an abrupt chilling and lowering of Landis' voice. "The colonel knows him? He's one ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... ever before the mind of the growing youth, as his model and inspiration. He found himself perpetually asking, How did Elijah act, and what would he do here and now? And there is little doubt that his choice of the lonely wilderness, of the rough mantle of camel's hair, of the abrupt and arousing form of address, was suggested by that village of Thisbe in the land of Gilead, and those personal characteristics which were so familiar ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... leggings, and a long, sleeveless Mackintosh seemed to me the most comfortable and sufficient guards against weather. Ladies should ride astride; they will be most comfortable thus. There are no steep ascents or abrupt descents on the way. Kilauea is nearly four thousand feet higher than the sea from which you set out; but the rise is so gradual and constant that if the road were good one might gallop ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... written for the people, and is therefore in a more popular tone than usual: portions strike as abrupt and unpolished, but many stanzas are all his own. I heard him repeat, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... plashed to his ankles, and this brought his headlong race to an abrupt termination. What could it mean? Then he remembered, with a sudden chill, what, in his eagerness and anxiety, he had entirely forgotten,—the tide was coming in, and was already over the path which Uncle Richard warned ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... precede them, carrying anchors and cables to guide and arrest their course. The navigation of a raft down the Rhine to Dort, in Holland, which is the place of their destination,[4] is a work of great difficulty. The skill of the German and Dutch pilots who navigate them, in spite of the abrupt turnings, the eddies, the currents, rocks and shoals that oppose their progress, must indeed be of a very peculiar kind, and can be possessed but by few. It requires besides a vast deal of manual labour. The whole complement of rowers and workmen, together with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... doubt, and will not bring us ourselves to the front to sit in high place and put them into effect; but so they will be all the more beneficial. Everything teaches us how gradually nature would have all profound changes brought about; and we can even see, too, where the absolute abrupt stoppage of feudal habits has worked harm. And appealing to the sense of truth and reason, these considerations will, without doubt, touch and move all those of even the Barbarians themselves, who are (as are some of us Philistines also, and some of the ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... a dispute in the Socratic method; and soon after I procured Xenophon's Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there are many instances of the same method. I was charmed with it, adopted it, dropt my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter.... I found this method safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it; therefore I took a delight in it, practised it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... which he developed the history of mankind from a philosophical point of view; and "The Compendium of the History of Italy," which embraces in a synthetic form all the history of the country from the earliest times to 1814. His style is pure, clear, and sometimes eloquent, though often concise and abrupt. ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... parting moment. Then with a dash the carriages vanished in a cloud of July dust, and the familiar Palace Green, with its spreading trees and the red chimneys beyond—the High Street—Kensington Gore, were left behind. Kensington's last brief dream of a Court was brought to an abrupt conclusion. What was worse, Kensington's Princess was gone, never to return to the changed scene save for the most ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... faces the Dark Tower and blows the blast upon his horn. Browning was wise to carry his romance no further; the one moment of action is enough; it is the breaking of the spell, the waking from the nightmare, and at that point the long-enduring quester may be left. We are defrauded of nothing by the abrupt conclusion. ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... An abrupt ascent, long and steep, formed a pleasant change to the monotony of the rugged plain. Up this 'berg' our ponies wound their way zigzag between the rough boulders of rock which strewed the path. At the top we met several ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... astonishment. The swelling in the diaphragms of the squires Otterbrook, Turnbull, and Swagsides, and all the rest of the worshipful row, was too big to admit of utterance. Only Sir Roger himself burst forth with an abrupt— ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... side of the approaching darkness, the archaic assemblage of Basque houses, the little square of the village with its kalsomined porches and its old plane-trees, then the old, massive belfry of the church, and, higher than everything, dominating everything, crushing everything, the abrupt mass of the Gizune from which comes so much shade, from which descends on this distant village so hasty an impression of night—Truly it encloses too much, that mountain, it imprisons, it impresses—And Ramuntcho, in his ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... imitating as well as he could, the free, upward swing of his neighbor, he began working off his impatience on the unresisting earth. But he could not help hearing that, just as he expected, Vincent plunged at once into his queer, abrupt talk. He always seemed to think he was going right on with something that had been said before, but really, for the most part, as far as Mr. Welles could see, what he said had nothing to do with anything. ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... the accuracy or propriety, of the metaphysical analogies, in accordance with which his work has unhappily been arranged. Though these had been as carefully, as they are crudely, considered, it had still been no light error of judgment to thrust them with dogmatism so abrupt into the forefront of a work whose purpose is assuredly as much to win to the truth as to demonstrate it. The writer has apparently forgotten that of the men to whom he must primarily look for the working out of his anticipations, the most part are of limited knowledge ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... with exaggerated courtesy. He was beginning to feel a secret irritation. His aristocratic nature was revolted by Bazarov's absolute nonchalance. This surgeon's son was not only not overawed, he even gave abrupt and indifferent answers, and in the tone of his voice there ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... they were, the lads lifted their own weapons, and dashed after the Cossack. Straight out the door of the bandit chief's private room the three ran into the corridor beyond. Sprawling figures sitting idly about gave evidence that the chief had not taken all of his men with him. At the abrupt entrance of Alexis these jumped to their feet, drawing ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... misty valley, fenced in by a mountain wall, and with villages scattered along it, and miles of forest, which appear but as patches scattered here and there upon the landscape. The descent from the Notch southward is much more abrupt than on the other side. A stream flows down through it; and along much of its course it has washed away all the earth from a ledge of rock, and then formed a descending pavement, smooth and regular, which the scanty flow of water scarcely suffices to moisten at this period, though ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and Slidell were not trotted out. The Foreign and Home Secretaries, the very distinguished civil servants declared, would not unlikely be agitated when they heard of the shocking affair. Soldiers, no doubt, were by nature abrupt and unconventional in their actions, and the Foreign and Home Offices would make every allowance, realizing that we had acted in good faith. But, hang it all—and they gazed at us ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... was beginning to feel that David and Jimmie had been guilty of the most unsympathetic exaggeration of her state of mind—unquestionably she was not as fit physically as usual—she startled him with an abrupt change into ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... This abrupt removal of weight from one end, and large increase of avoirdupois at the other, produced a natural but very surprising result. Chokie in his tub, though at the long end of the beam, so to speak (the rear axletree being the fulcrum), was not heavy enough to counterbalance two brothers ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... He wrote an abrupt note of a few lines. Then with a sudden impulse he tore it to shreds and flung it ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... contempt for you. The first letter in a series (and the series often includes as many as six or eight) should be simply a reminder. Drastic measures should not be taken until they are necessary, and at no time should the letters become abrupt or insulting. In the first place, it is ungentlemanly to write such letters, in the second it antagonizes the debtor, and if he gets angry enough he feels that it is hardly an obligation to pay the money; that it will "serve 'em right" if he does not ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... constable, not at all satisfied with this abrupt close of the conversation, but too unready to prolong it. He went on his own way slowly, looking back often, till he saw the door open, after which he seemed better satisfied, and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... recovering from the fainting-fit into which Mr. Brownlow's abrupt exclamation had thrown him, the subject of the picture was carefully avoided, both by the old gentleman and Mrs. Bedwin, in the conversation that ensued: which indeed bore no reference to Oliver's ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... proceed with this abrupt logic: they love to bargain with necessity. M. Dupin (session of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, June 10, 1843) expresses the opinion that, "though competition may be useful within the nation, it must be ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... strong and helpful, yet tender and sympathetic, friendship of Alfred Tennyson and Arthur Hallam was at its height, there came a brief and abrupt word from Vienna to the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... word, not a word, my boy. We want your verses, we want your verses. That's right, isn't it? Good verses, good money! Now no more of that," and the good man, in alarm lest he should be thanked further, made an abrupt ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... fearful impetuosity, recalling to Powell the poem of Southey, on the Lodore he knew, hence the name. The beginning of the gorge is at the foot of Brown's Park through what is called the Gate of Lodore, an abrupt gash in the Uinta Mountains 2000 feet deep. In viewing this entrance the ordinary spectator is at a loss to comprehend how the stream could have begun its attack upon this precipitous ridge. The theory that the river was there before the upheaval formed the mountain does not ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... Betty's method of breathing while asleep conducive to the slumber of anything but babies. It was so hot, too, and the sound of the violin still in her ears. By that little air of Poise, she had known for certain it was Fiorsen; and her father's abrupt drawing of the curtains had clinched that certainty. If she had gone to the window and seen him, she would not have been half so deeply disturbed as she was by that echo of an old emotion. The link which yesterday she thought broken for good was reforged in some ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... east end of the magnificent island of Java. About the middle of August, early in the morning, again land was seen from the mast-head, and in a few hours we entered the Straits I have just mentioned. We could see the shores on both sides, that of Bally somewhat abrupt, while the Java shore, agreeably diversified by clumps of cocoa-nut trees and hills clothed with verdure, looked green and smiling, contrasting agreeably with that of New Holland, which we had so lately left. A large number of small boats ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... A question so abrupt, upon a subject so momentous, required consideration. After blowing out a great cloud of smoke, and looking at it with his head now on this side and now on that, as if it were actually the question, and he were surveying it in ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... Baker agreed and departed. As the door closed behind them Gray exploded, but Murray checked him quickly, saying with an abrupt change of manner: ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... a kindly and friendly confidence soon grew up between us. After a performance of Tannhauser, at which he was present, he called on me one morning and declared himself fully and decidedly in favour of my work. The only objection he had to make was that the stretta of the second finale was too abrupt, a criticism which proved his keenness of perception; and I was able to show him, by the score, how I had been compelled, much against my inclination, to curtail the opera, and thereby create the position to which he had taken exception. We ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... his necessity to find the camp where Gordon and Fredericks were buried, there to procure another rifle and ammunition. He felt the wet blood dripping down his arm, yet no pain. The forest was too open for good cover. He dared not run uphill. His only course was ahead, and that soon ended in an abrupt declivity too precipitous to descend. As he halted, panting for breath, he heard the ring of hoofs on stone, then the thudding beat of running horses on soft ground. The rustlers had sighted the direction he had taken. Jean did not waste time to look. Indeed, there was no need, ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... three thousand feet of the summit; but the general character of the tract is bare and bleak; the villages are few; and the terraced cultivation, which adds so much to the beauty of the western side, is wanting. In the southern half of the range the descent is abrupt from the crest of the mountain into the Buka'a, or valley of the Litany, and the aspect of the mountain-side is one ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... probably for hundreds of years, and at present the retreat of the elegant peafowl; in other places embanked with huge blocks of cut granite, embrowned by the shade of magnificent trees, under which small bright Hindoo temples, carefully whitewashed, might be seen in the shade; or bounded by abrupt rocky promontories, surmounted by many-pillared temples in ruins, hanging in the sky. A fine rich sunset gave an exquisite richness and classic magnificence to the scene. Many little boys with rod and line were ensnaring the sweet little ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... this letter was written from France after Goring's abrupt retreat into that country. It is stated that the letter comes from Mr. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various
... end of the world—didn't the maps show that it was the end of the world, didn't the railroad stop there, and doesn't the world always come to an abrupt end, all white and uncharted beyond, at the last station on every railroad map you ever saw? It might be the end of the world, indeed, but there was the flag! Commerce could flourish there as well as in Washington, D. C., or New York, N. ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... the proceedings of the evening, Donald, with a countenance beaming with hilarity, and eyes sparkling with wild and reckless glee, took up a conspicuous position in the room, and from thence commenced edifying the dancers by a series of short abrupt shouts or yells, accompanied by a vigorous clapping of his hands, at once to intimate his satisfaction with the performances, and to encourage the performers themselves to further exertions. Getting gradually, however, too much into the spirit of the thing to be content with being merely an onlooker, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... had had a serious and legitimate reason for bringing her reception to an abrupt conclusion. A Court ball for the high functionaries and dignities of the Kingdom was ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... 1660. We have already observed that, as Shakspere's career suggests, there was no abrupt change in either life or literature at the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603; and in fact the Elizabethan period of literature is often made to include the reign of James I, 1603-1625 (the Jacobean period [Footnote: 'Jaco'bus' is the Latin form of 'James.']), or even, especially in the case of ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... events throughout the numerous discoveries, colonizations and conquests of the Spaniards, in all the islands and continental provinces of Spanish America, by which he is forced into perpetual and abrupt transitions from subject to subject; instead of using a double arrangement, geographical as well as chronological, in which the narrative belonging to each territorial division might have been distinctly ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... backwards and causes the machine to dive. The Wrights had known of this tendency from Lilienthal's researches, but had imagined that the phenomenon would disappear if they used a fairly lightly cambered—or curved—surface with a very abrupt curve at the front. Having discovered what appeared to be the cause they surmounted the difficulty by 'trussing down' the camber of the wings, with the result that they at once got back to the old conditions of the previous year and could control the machine readily ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... Tonick, Subtonick, and Atoniek elements."—Ib., p. 15. "The subtonick elements are inferiour to the tonicks in all the emphatick and elegant purposes of speech."—Ib., p. 32. "The nine atonicks, and the three abrupt subtonicks cause an interruption to the continuity of the syllabick impulse."—Ib., p. 37. "On scientifick principles, conjunctions and prepositions are but one part of speech."—Kirkham's Gram., ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... with the sword of flame drive Adam from the Tree of Life, since with his soul he had received that which could never die?" "That was part of the mercy of God," the shade replied; "for immortality could be enjoyed but meagrely on earth, where natural limitations are so abrupt. And know this, ye who are something of chemists, that had Adam eaten of that substance called fruit, he would have lived in the flesh to this day, and would have been of all men the most unhappy." "Will ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... to the drama was not, then, so abrupt as might appear. But two things were against his success. First, few writers have approached the stage with so poor a practical equipment. His friends assure us that, cut off as Galds was from social diversions ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... This abrupt exclamation came from the rough voice of Grandchamp, who was so astonished at what he had seen that he dropped the glass of lemonade he was bringing in. Finding that his master did not answer, he became still more alarmed, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... until a few years later, when George IV. was on his memorable visit to Edinburgh. Walter Scott was one of the heroes of the occasion, and was the selected cicerone to the King. One day George IV., in the sudden and abrupt manner which is peculiar to our Royal Family, asked Scott point-blank: "By the way, Scott, are you the author of 'Waverley'?" Scott as abruptly answered: "No, Sire!" Having made this answer (said Mr. Thomas Mitchell, ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... Surely, this is not a curative symptom or a blessing in disguise, or, if so, it is exceedingly well disguised. And yet it unquestionably has a preventive purpose and meaning. Pain, wherever found, is nature's abrupt command, "Halt!" her imperative order to stop. When you have obeyed that command, you have taken the most important single step towards the cure. A headache always means something—overwork, under-ventilation, eye-strain, ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... a long train, like silver, like moonlight; her hair flared like flames against the white fur of her jacket. Now she stood in front of me with her left hand firmly planted on her hips, in her right hand she held the whip. She uttered an abrupt laugh. ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... rather an abrupt and unconnected mode of commencing conversation. It might indeed be supposed to refer to the course of Gluck's thoughts, which had first produced the dwarf's observations out of the pot; but whatever it referred to, Gluck had no inclination ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... to him to go forth where he might see the fields clad in tender green, the waters murmuring in the acequias; the soft blue sky dotted with white, fleecy islets, the dark green hills where stood the windmills swinging their arms upon the summits, the abrupt sierras forming a rose-colored background to a landscape which everywhere smiled and whispered sweetly, as in the days when, it astounded the ancient navigators, causing them to name Majorca "the Fortunate ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... me an abrupt farewell. Plainly she did not want more of my company; so I stood still, and heard her footsteps die away ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... of this nervous ode, the author has shown equal power of judgment and imagination. Nothing can be more striking than the violent and abrupt abbreviation of the measure in the fifth and sixth verses, when he feels the strong influence of the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... no more of a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde than most of us. Merely, his daily transition was a little more abrupt. And when all is said and done most of the devices invented by his fertile little brain to further the interests of his clients were no more worthy of condemnation than those put forward by far higher-priced and much more ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... the lines were short and often abrupt, the curves quick and expressionless; it would do capitally for the "Bacchante," it would not have served for a moment for the "Soul of ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... Bertram now. You see," she added in a discouraged aside to Billy, "she can't seem to forget the first one. But then, what can you expect?" laughed Mrs. Hartwell, a little disagreeably. "Such abrupt changes from one brother to another are ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... stallion. There were Wildfire's tracks again, slow and short, and then deep and sharp where in the impetus of fright he had sprung out of reach. A second leap of the lion, and then lessening bounds, and finally an abrupt turn from Wildfire's trail told the futility of that stalk. Slone made certain that Wildfire was so keen that as he grazed along he had kept to ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... She gave an abrupt, frozen little laugh; then bent down her face slightly. "And do you wash and curl and perfume them?" she asked, her small white teeth ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... that crosses the village lane in trembling clearness, to the massy and silent march of the everlasting multitude of waters in Amazon or Ganges, owe their play, and purity, and power, to the ordained elevations of the earth. Gentle or steep, extended or abrupt, some determined slope of the earth's surface is of course necessary, before any wave can so much as overtake one sedge in its pilgrimage; and how seldom do we enough consider, as we walk beside the margins of our pleasant brooks, how beautiful and ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... his renovating hand. With the abrupt, determined tones which he assumed more and more on reaching absolute power, he one day ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... became more and more abrupt as they advanced, though they were less covered with brushwood. The fugitive made no attempt to climb the bank, but still pressed forward. The road was tortuous, and wound round a jutting point of rock. Now he was a fair mark—no, he had swept swiftly by, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the ravine, disclosed above, Mid toppling stones, black gulfs and yawning caves, Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues To the loud stream. Lo! where the pass expands 550 Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks, And seems, with its accumulated crags, To overhang the world: for wide expand Beneath the wan stars and descending moon Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams, 555 Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom Of leaden-coloured even, and fiery hills Mingling ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... door. The night air was sweet and cold. She paused for a moment under the light of the porte-cochere to watch the string of carriages and the swirl of silk and laces that passed through the opening door, to listen to gusts of music that came to an abrupt end as the outside door shut ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... Santa Brigida mole," Dick answered quietly, and noting the man's abrupt movement, went on: "What were you talking to Ramon Oliva about ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss |
