"Abrupt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the request of some of the members of the Browning Society, and was originally intended to be a primer. It bears the marks of this intention in its general scheme, and in the almost abrupt brevity which the desired limits of space seemed to impose on its earlier part. But I felt from the first that the spirit of Mr. Browning's work could neither be compressed within the limits, nor adapted to the uses, of a primer, as generally understood; and the book has naturally shaped itself ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... exciting. It was flattering. He saw again and again her gesture as she bent to Mr Shushions; and the straightening of her spine as she left the garden-porch on the night of his visit to the Orgreaves... Yet he did not like her. Her sudden departure, however, was a disappointment; it was certainly too abrupt... Probably very characteristic of her... Strange day! He had been suspected of theft. He had stood up to his father. He had remained away from the shop. And his father's only retort was to give him a rise of half a crown ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... within doors, once to try what was left of the claret, and later, after the snake episode, when some nerves might be in need of bracing, to sample some phenomenal Monongahela. Then when Harris was through, after saying good-night, he was presently followed by Willett, flushed in face and abrupt in manner. Miss Archer had been spirited off by her mother, and presumably gone to bed. She'd get used to snakes if she stayed long in Arizona, said Willett. What was the sense in scaring her, anyway? Why hadn't Harris quietly given him the tip? He could ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... for the nonce. So melancholy a face may well suggest some painful family secret. But how explain the violent part played by the young man, who is not mentioned in these abrupt and hastily penned sentences! It is all a mystery, madam, a mystery which we are wasting ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... the two boys had approached the spot where a low, jutting rock of red sand-stone, around which the roots of a large tree were seen clinging, narrowed the path; so that there was only the space of a few feet between the base of the rock and an abrupt and fearful precipice. ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... Vela, the first Viceroy appointed by Spain, arrived in Peru, where he found de Castro in charge of the Government. Nunez Vela's methods proved themselves arbitrary in the extreme. Scarcely had he landed when he sent an abrupt command to de Castro to resign his post, and to place himself forthwith in attendance on the new Viceroy. This action roused the anger of the Pizarro faction. Its adherents revolted and ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... Edition of Milton's Defensio Secunda, with the Fides Publica of Morus annexed: Preface by Dr. Crantzius to the Reprint: Ulac's own Preface of Self-Defence: Account of Morus's Fides Publica, with Extracts: His Citation of Testimonies to his Character: Testimony of Diodati of Geneva: Abrupt Ending of the Book at this Point, with Ulac's Explanation of the Cause.—Particulars of the Arrest and Imprisonment of Milton's Friend Overton.—Three more Latin State-Letters by Milton for Oliver (Nos. XLIX.-LI.): No State-Letters by Milton for the next Three Months: ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... you'd have really three names; and as you don't write society verse for the comic papers, what's the use? Newspaper reporters will refer to you as Napoleon B. Parte or N. Bona Parte, and the public hates a man who parts his name in the middle. Parte is a good name in its way, but it's too short and abrupt. Few men with short, sharp, decisive names like that ever make their mark. Let it be Buonaparte, which is sort of high-sounding—it makes ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... diligence my route now led towards Triest. With steam the long train of carriages flies along the narrow rocky way, following all the windings of the river. One wonders that with all these abrupt turnings one is not dashed against the rock, or flung down into the roaring stream, and is glad when the journey is happily accomplished. But in the slow diligence one wishes its more rapid journey might recommence, and praise ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... his anxiety, however, to avoid all superfluous ornament, he has stripped his dramas of the embellishments of imagination; and for the harmony and flow of poetical language he has substituted, even in his best performances, a style which, though correct and pure, is generally harsh, elaborate and abrupt; often strained into unnatural energy or condensed into factitious conciseness. The chief excellence of Alfieri consists in powerful delineation of dramatic character. In his Filippo he has represented, almost with the masterly touches ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... with a sort of grave wonder,—but said nothing in reply. If Lady Winsleigh liked the performance and wished to remain, why—then politeness demanded that Thelma should not interfere with her pleasure by taking an abrupt leave. So she resumed her seat, but withdrew herself far behind the curtain of the box, in a corner where the stage was almost invisible to her eyes. Her husband bent over ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... admirable and magnificent, an island of glass, full of fiery sparklings and ruby and emerald beams, a shape of crystal cut by the hand of King Frost into a hundred inimitable devices. Instead of which, the island of ice, on which lay the hull of the ship, was of a dead, unpolished whiteness, abrupt at the extremities, about a hundred and twenty feet tall at its loftiest point, not more picturesque than a rock covered with snow, and interesting only to my mind because of the distance it had measured, and because of the fancies it raised in one of the white, silent, and stirless principalities ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... blemishes were displayed, her husband, no adept in the female nature, had tried to use reason with her, instead of something far more persuasive. Hence his failure to convince and convert. The act of withdrawing from her, seemed, under the circumstances, abrupt. In brief, there were probably small faults on both sides, more than balanced by large virtues; and one should not be ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... wherein a couple of hundred of his swarthy countrymen worked with deft nimble fingers at a rate of pay which no English artisan could have accepted. Within a few months the result of this new competition was an abrupt fall of prices in the trade, which was serious for the largest firms and disastrous for the smaller ones. A few old-established houses held on as they were, others reduced their establishments and cut down their expenses, while one or two put up their shutters and confessed themselves ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... abrupt charge the Ensign looked somewhat puzzled, and then spoke with much gravity. "Roguery," said he, "Misthur Hees, is a sthrong term; and which, in consideration of my friendship for your family, I shall pass over. You doubt your son's honour, as ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... voice there was a ring of bitter contempt that lost itself, with the abrupt change, in yet more bitter rage. With an angry push that almost threw Pancha into the water, she turned, sprang up the bank, and disappeared among the trees. So was Pancha made yet more sorrowful, and yet more gladly turned ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... outward appearance. Painters and sculptors would have found her an affront to nature—but then Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay had no acquaintance with painters and sculptors. She thought them 'queer' people, with very improper ideas. She was exceedingly put out by Walden's abrupt pause in his reading of the 'Dearly beloved,' while she and the other members of the Manor house-party rustled into their places,—and when he recommenced the exordium she revenged herself by staring at him quizzically through a long- handled tortoiseshell-mounted ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... always sung as solos. They are all extemporaneous and for the most part legendary. The language is archaic and difficult for an outsider to understand. The singing is a kind of declamation, with long slurs, frequent staccatos, and abrupt endings. Of course, there are war songs that demand loudness and rapidity, but on the whole the song music is as weird and melancholy as the instrumental. Ceremonial chants do not differ from secular songs, except that they treat of the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... Hazlitt's merits as a judge of pictures or of the stage. The same literary qualities mark all his writings. De Quincey, of course, condemns Hazlitt, as he does Lamb, for a want of 'continuity.' 'No man can be eloquent,' he says, 'whose thoughts are abrupt, insulated, capricious, and nonsequacious.' But then De Quincey will hardly allow that any man is eloquent except Jeremy Taylor, Sir Thomas Browne, and Thomas De Quincey. Hazlitt certainly does not belong to their school; nor, on the other hand, has he ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... had been dead when her brother and sister-in-law arrived. A sudden attack of fainting had resulted in death. This abrupt termination of her illness was not quite unexpected by herself or her friends, as it was known she had disease of the heart, and the doctors had given warning that such might be her end. However, she herself had not liked to ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... between the Egyptian and English idioms will permit, but it has been necessary to insert particles and often to invert the order of the words in the original works in order to produce a connected meaning in English. The result of this has been in many cases to break up the short abrupt sentences in which the Egyptian author delighted, and which he used frequently with dramatic effect. Extraordinarily concise phrases have been paraphrased, but the meanings given to several unknown words ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... Sergeant Slavin's abrupt command. It was about ten o'clock the following morning. The hotel parlour had been hastily transformed into a temporary court-room. A large square table had been drawn to one end of the room and two easy chairs placed conveniently behind it. Fronting it was a long bench, designed ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... At an abrupt curve of the road the old woman came suddenly upon a full view of the castle. It was all ablaze with lights, and rose up from the embosoming trees like some enchanted palace upon which a tempest of stars had rained down in all their ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... exactly such a change as I am supposing to have occurred in the North-Atlantic area at the close of the Mesozoic period. An Australian fauna would be found underlying an American fauna, and the transition from the one to the other would be as abrupt as that between the Chalk and lower Tertiaries; and as the drainage-area of the newly formed extension of the American continent gave rise to rivers and lakes, the mammals mired in their mud would differ from those of like deposits on the Australian side, just as the Eocene mammals ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... killed; but his revolting personal appearance was now worse than ever, and the sacrilegious use of Father Pandoza's vestments, coupled with the ghastly scalp that hung from his bridle, so turned opinion against him that he was soon captured, dismounted, and his parade brought to an abrupt close, and I doubt whether he ever after quite reinstated himself in the good graces ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... fire-place had been, ascertained that the Indians had quitted it the day before; and as their marches are short, when encumbered with the women and baggage, we sought out their track, and followed it. At an abrupt angle of it, which was obscured by trees, the men suddenly disappeared; and hastening forward to discover the cause, I perceived them both still rolling at the foot of a steep cliff, over which they had been dragged while endeavouring to stop the descent of ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... then walked round, and, in short, abrupt sentences, seemed to give directions; whereupon some whitened, entire gourds, with long handles, and apparently filled with pebbles, were produced; and men took their stations with them on mats, while those who had been seated all arose, and formed in circles around the fire, led by ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... steep and grey, on the topmost side of an abrupt low hill. Such hills, more steep than high, are congregated round, circle beyond circle, to the utmost limit of the horizon. Not a wood, not a river. As far as eye can reach these treeless hills, their sides ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... taken me up; that I was going to go. I suddenly remembered it was said of Fox that everyone he took up did "go." The fact was obviously patent to Mr. Polehampton. He unbent with remarkable suddenness; it reminded me of the abrupt closing of a stiff umbrella. He became distinctly and crudely cordial—hoped that we should work together again; once more reminded me that he had published my first book (the words had a different savour now), and was enchanted to discover that ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... part of the road which bordered an abrupt descent to the left, the hill along whose side the path wound appearing to have been scarped in this place, probably to leave wider space for some vine-clad terrace below. Lights were gleaming in the far distance, marking the position ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... to two miles and a half. This trough-like area of about 100 square miles consists entirely of rich grass-land, with numerous small groves of palms, bananas, and sycamores. It is bounded on the south by the grassy hills which we had crossed over, on the west by abrupt rocky walls, on the north partly by dark forest-hills, and partly by barren lofty rocks which hide from view the main part of the Kenia lying behind them. On the east, between the hills to the south and the rocks to the north, there is an ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... Lady Tozer was unusually abrupt today. But she was annoyed by the assumption that the captain took a mere girl into his confidence and passed over the wife of the ex-Chief ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... occasion a fresh burst of grief from the affectionate and sorrowful girl. And she may be pardoned when I state, that, perhaps, the bitterest tears which were shed were those when she threw herself on that sofa where she had remained after the abrupt departure of ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... intimation that I must be prepared to start in the equivalent of two hours' time—or take the consequences of my disobedience. Upon which I, in turn, got angry, and, having told the king one or two plain truths in distinctly undiplomatic language, bade him an abrupt farewell and ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... advanced along the base of the mountain, the country became more and more abrupt in character. Trees were only scattered here and there; among them were the willows, slender wands of which were formerly used for hanging ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... that, on board the slaver,—during that brief voyage, brought to such an abrupt and disastrous termination,—the two had seen but little of one another, and knew less. The pretty little Portuguese had been kept within the cabin, never going beyond the confines of the "quarter"; ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... in a curious way. When I wanted my turtle to turn to the left, I simply thrust my foot into his right eye, and vice versa for the contrary direction. My two big toes placed simultaneously over both his optics caused a halt so abrupt as almost to unseat me. Sometimes I would go fully a mile out to sea on one of these strange steeds. It always frightened them to have me astride, and in their terror they swam at a tremendous pace until compelled to desist ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... which he had very nearly run aground, that Roberta's resentment, which had shown itself very marked in this regard, would probably be roused to such an extent that the affair would be brought to a very speedy and abrupt termination. If she had been obliged to forgive him, once, for this line of conduct, he could not expect her to do it again. To write a letter, which should err in neither of these respects, was a very difficult thing to do, and required so much preparatory thought, that when, toward the close ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... as she replied: "No, nothing serious, I should say. A bit of a cold, I fancy; and for a fortnight he has been more nervous than usual. The changes in the weather have been so great and so abrupt that they have worn upon his nerves. He is getting very uneasy again. Now, after spending the winter, and when spring is almost at hand, I believe that if he could make up his mind where to go he would be ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... before, and we never hear of him again, and yet, in the single phrase, "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel," Jesus stamps him with a special character and welcomes him with a peculiar confidence. How is it that there is given to him this abrupt {13} commendation? Why does Jesus say that he shows more faith than Israel itself? It was, of course, because of the man's attitude of mind. He comes to Jesus just as a soldier comes to his superior officer. ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... turned away with a shudder. Bright had entered. In his hand he was carrying two gas masks. He came over to the side of the couch, and, looking down at Julian, lifted his hand, and felt his pulse. Then, with an abrupt movement, he handed one of the ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... you fellows had gone through what I have done," answered Billy, and he gave, not for the first time, an account of the hardships he had endured, the weight he had carried on his shoulders, his hard fare, the steep hills he had climbed, and the abrupt descents down which he had had to make ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... but the abrupt manner of bringing it home to him momentarily took away Mr. Carr's power of repartee, although he was apt enough in general, as became a ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... at the high good fortune which had fallen to him, and at the same time saddened at the abrupt departure of the queen, the cardinal turned back to Paris. On the next day the Countess Valois brought a billet from the queen, in which she deeply regretted that their interview yesterday had been so brief, and promising a speedy ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... proud for very love Of their humility, and of his pride Ashamed. And in the coffin lay my wife. On, on, we went. The scene changed, and low hills Began to rise on each side of the path Until at last we came into a glen, From which the mountains soared abrupt to heaven, Shot cones and pinnacles into the skies. Upon the eastern side one mighty summit Shone with its snow faint through the dusky air; And on its sides the glaciers gave a tint, A dull metallic gleam, to the slow night. From base to top, on climbing peak and crag, Ay, on the glaciers' breast, ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... the girl's abrupt departure, to see that the wagon-loads were properly made up. Winterborne was connected with the Melbury family in various ways. In addition to the sentimental relationship which arose from his father ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... indulged them heretofore,—those whims which had by now become almost driving passions to the exclusion of all else;—and he was certainly not in the least disposed to take Sir Joseph at his word, and to embark upon that undertaking which he knew would put an abrupt end to all the careless dalliance in which his clothes, his fastidious speech, and his parade of artistic discrimination played ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... is forced upon me by my last days in Tuscany where a lower mean has secured a serener reign. I had hardly realised the comeliness of its intellectual vigour without this abrupt contrast. Pistoja, with its pleasant worship of the wholesome in common life; Lucca, girdled with the grey and green of her immemorial planes, and adorned with the silvery gloss of old marble and stone-cutter's work exquisitely curious; then Prato, dusty little handful of ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... than in any other; for here there are reefs of coral rock, rising like a wall almost perpendicularly out of the unfathomable deep, always overflowed at high-water, and at low-water dry in many places; and here the enormous waves of the vast Southern Ocean, meeting with so abrupt a resistance, break with inconceivable violence, in a surf which no rocks or storms in the northern hemisphere can produce. The danger of navigating unknown parts of this ocean was now greatly increased by our having a crazy ship, and being short of provisions and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... hearing. The horse swung gallantly into a bit of road where the stage drivers had never been in the habit of hurrying, a tricky bit of road, with overhanging rocks jutting out just where you might graze them at sudden turns, and with abrupt dips into precipitous hollows. One stretched dark ahead of them now. Judith caught her breath as they plunged into it, and clutched Neil's arm. He laughed shortly, and did not shake off her hand. She pulled at his wrist and ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... theology, but also that all the main points of his history are mysteries of the world's redemption. (Ephes. 19). But Ignatius is also distinguished by the fact that behind all that is enthusiastic, pathetic, abrupt, and again all that pertains to liturgical form, we find in his epistles a true devotion to Christ ([Greek: ho theos mou]). He is laid hold of by Christ: Cf. Ad. Rom. 6: [Greek: ekeinon zeto, ton hyper hemon apothanonta, ekeinon ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... have continued this commentary there can be no doubt, not only from the abrupt termination of his labours, and the blank paper following the manuscript, but from an observation he makes on the sabbath—the sabbath of years, the jubilee, &c., "of all which, more in their place, IF GOD PERMIT." ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... there was no train he should have a good sleep at a farmhouse hard by, which farmhouse one of them claimed to espy through the impenetrable night. The drunk was accordingly escorted into the dark, his friends' abrupt steps correcting his own large slovenly procedure out of earshot.... Some of the Black People sat down near me and smoked. Their enormous faces, wads of vital darkness, swooned with fatigue. Their vast gentle hands lay noisily about ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... had ever seen Miss Havisham's adopted daughter, Mrs. Bentley Drummle. He said no. To avoid being too abrupt, I then spoke of the Aged and of Miss Skiffins. He looked rather sly when I mentioned Miss Skiffins, and stopped in the street to blow his nose, with a roll of the head, and a flourish not ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... phenomena are rounded hummocks of rock on the skirts of the hills, and in the middle of the valleys; and as these hummocks, whatever may be the direction of the valleys, invariably present a smoothed side up, and an abrupt side downwards (stoss-seite and lee-seite of the Scandinavian geologists), it becomes certain that the glaciers proceeding from the mountains at the upper extremities were local to the several valleys. The ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... to humor. He knew that humor. The superior were fond of indulging in it at the expense of the less fortunate. Even Lois Willoughby had not escaped that taint of class. Fearing to wound her by some impatient word, he made zeal in his round of duties the excuse for an abrupt good-by. ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... abrupt and without direction, and therefore of the kind which leaves the person addressed in a state of confusion. Malluch looked into Ben-Hur's face for a hint of meaning, but saw, instead, two bright-red ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... wrote more than half a century ago for the last act of 'Il Trovatore.' If neither Mascagni himself nor his imitators have succeeded in equalling it since, it is because they have thought too much of the external devices of abrupt and uncouth change of modes and tonalities, of exotic scales and garish orchestration, and too little of the fundamental element of melody which once was the be-all and end-all of Italian music. Another fountain of gushing melody must ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... in that direction. Several officers tried to persuade me not to go, but knowing it would make an excellent scene, I decided to risk it. On the side of the bank nearest our front line the ground sloped at a more abrupt angle, the distance from the trench to the outpost being about sixty yards. Rushing over the top of the parapet, I got to the edge of the grass road and crouched down. The water up to my knees, I made my way carefully along. Twice I stumbled ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... vivid impression of contrast, there is nothing abrupt or harsh. A tissue of beautiful poetry weaves together the principal figures, and the subordinate personages. The consistent truth of the costume, and the exquisite gradations of relief with which the most opposite hues are approximated, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... The abrupt command would probably have disconcerted most men and effectually spoiled the appeal they meant to make, and Clavering's face flushed as he recognized its ludicrous aspect. Still, he could not withdraw then, and he made the best ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... in a somewhat abrupt manner, "I came here with Tematau about the time that the white lady Lucia and her husband came. Tematau is of the same family as myself. And it is of the blood ties between us that we remain together, for we are ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... May boast a thousand fountains that can cast The tortured waters to the distant heavens; Yet let me choose some pine-topped precipice Abrupt and shaggy, whence a foamy stream, Like Anio, tumbling roars; or some black heath Where straggling stands the mournful ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... of spies and "adders" in the family circle, and on the seditiousness of dark and mysterious councils in which a gray-haired father was left out. It was true that a word or look from Flip generally brought these monologues to an inglorious and abrupt termination, but they were none the less lugubrious as long as they lasted. In time they were succeeded by an affectation of contrite apology and self-depreciation. "Don't go out o' the way to ask the old man," he would say, referring ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... irritated at finding himself dragged away in so abrupt a manner by this Englishman, had sought in his subtle mind for some means of escaping from his fetters; but no one having rendered him any assistance in this respect, he was absolutely obliged, therefore, to submit to the burden of his own ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... your pardon," said Mr. Sinclair. "I did not mean to startle you. Have I been too abrupt? Surely you must have known—you must ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the canyon, in which I spent all the next day, is about a mile and a half in length; and I passed the time in tracing the action of the forces that determined this peculiar bottom gorge, which is an abrupt, ragged-walled, narrow-throated canyon, formed in the bottom of the wide-mouthed, smooth, and beveled main canyon. I will not stop now to tell you more; some day you may see it, like a shadowy line, from ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... organ of sensibility and touch. In some parts it is closely attached to the structures beneath, while in others it is less firmly adherent and rests upon a variable amount of fatty tissue. It thus assists in relieving the abrupt projections and depressions of the general surface, and in giving roundness and symmetry to the entire body. The thickness of the skin varies in different parts of the body. Where exposed to pressure and friction, ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... anyone is to blame. I can hardly see how the lady could have acted otherwise, though her abrupt method of doing it was undoubtedly to be regretted. Having no mother, she had no one to advise ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... as I have the most perfect confidence in you, from all I have heard of you, I trust you will not think me abrupt in saying that any longer delay ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... devoted himself to his cause in the early and trying days of his candidacy, and that Harvey's support of him was untouched by selfish interests of any kind. In every way he tried to soften the unfortunate impression that had been made on the country by what many thought was an abrupt, ungracious way of treating a friend. An incident in connection with this matter is ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... big girl," repeated the baby, nodding her pretty head approvingly, "that what Yosie say," then with abrupt change of tone, "where her breakfast, ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... man to offer an opinion to a woman, and I rather shrank from rushing in where my wife had evidently not thought it worth while to tread. Still, I could not help wondering in my heart whether the arrival of one gentleman on Sunday may not sometimes have something to do, however indirectly, with the abrupt departure ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... her mother in those days, which were quite hazy in memory because she was so young. The first change she remembered was an abrupt flitting from the splendid city house to a humble cottage in a retired village. There was no maid now, nor other servant whatever. Mamma Bee did the cooking and sweeping, her face worn and anxious, while Gran'pa Jim walked the floor ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... her once more. After all, he had expected something of the sort. She was just the woman to fall back on her infernal technique. "I know that you went down to Huntersville to meet Hohenhauer, and that the result of that interview was an abrupt flight from me—possibly from ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... There is no doubt that nee is convenient, and there is little doubt that it would be difficult to persuade the men of culture to surrender it or even to translate it. To the literate 'Mrs. Smith, born Brown', might seem discourteously abrupt. But the French word is awkward, nevertheless, since the illiterate often take it as meaning only 'formerly', writing 'Mrs. Smith, nee Mary Brown', which implies that this lady had been christened before she was born. And ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... at once, we shall have no space left to give any idea whatever of the manner in which Mr Grote treats the more historical periods of his history. We must be allowed, therefore, to make a bold and abrupt transition; and, as every one in a history of Greece turns his eye first toward Athens, we shall, at one single bound, light upon the city of Minerva as she appeared in the age of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... sneering," said the Anglo-Indian judge, with abrupt authority. "It doesn't make it look better for you that you can ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... brother Robert's shop, he heard his brother suggest to him, that a Dictionary of the English Language would be a work that would be well received by the publick; that Johnson seemed at first to catch at the proposition, but, after a pause, said, in his abrupt decisive manner, 'I believe I shall not undertake it.' That he, however, had bestowed much thought upon the subject, before he published his Plan, is evident from the enlarged, clear, and accurate views which ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... strain of the night's anxieties and their abrupt and terrible ending, uncurled her claws and struck at her with a snarl—tore off her sun-bonnet, and would have ripped up her face, if Gard had not flung his arms round her from the back and dragged her screaming and kicking towards her ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... it, adjoin no wastes; though it bears a hill, the hill is destitute of streaks; though it be close to water, this water has no spring; above, there is no pagoda nestling in a temple; below, there is no bridge leading to a market; it rises abrupt and solitary, and presents no grand sight! The palm would seem to be carried by the former spot, which is imbued with the natural principle, and possesses the charms of nature; for, though bamboos have been planted in it, and streams introduced, they nevertheless do no violence ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... to be too abrupt," he said. "I would spare you if I could. You speak as if you grudged me every moment with you. Yet I am here because ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... rascal!" retorted John Pendleton, dryly. Then, with one of the curiously abrupt changes of manner peculiar to him, he said, very low: "You have your mother's eyes and smile, Pollyanna; and to me ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... invariable custom to be announced when I visited my wife's closet; but I had no mind now for such formalities, and swiftly passing two or three scared servants on the stairs, I made straight for her room, tapped and entered. Abrupt as were my movements, however, someone had contrived to warn her; for though two of her women sat working on stools near her, I heard a hasty foot flying, and caught the last flutter of a skirt as it disappeared through a second ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... just inside the entrance to this gallery, and behind it are Minnie Hescott and Mr. Gower. Randal's eyes are sharp, but Minnie's even sharper. They both note, not only Maurice's abrupt entrance, but the ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... one in which to eat; and bedroom furniture must in all decorative ways carry out the idea of rest and sleeping. If period furniture is used, the drawing room usually gives the dominant note, which should be carried out (in more or less modified form) throughout the other rooms. Do not make too abrupt contrasts in using period furniture. Late Louis XVI and Early Empire have much in common. But it is a shock to find Louis XV and Late Empire in the same room. Sheraton and Rococo, Early Jacobean oak and late eighteenth century English mahogany ...
— Prepare and Serve a Meal and Interior Decoration • Lillian B. Lansdown
... sudden blow may bring back a lost identity to the victim of amnesia the discovery electrified the man and he straightened into an abrupt erectness. His features lost their sleep-walking indefiniteness and his ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... necessities as to dress, manners, and society, as well as politics; yet here again, as in the case of his removal from his father's cabin to New Salem six years before, peculiar conditions rendered the transition less abrupt than would at first appear. Springfield, notwithstanding its greater population and prospective dignity as the capital, was in many respects no great improvement on New Salem. It had no public buildings, its streets and sidewalks were unpaved, its ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... North, with trembling lips. "Oh, no, I do not—do not hate you. I am rude in my speech, abrupt in my manner. You must forget it, and—and me." A horse's feet crashed upon the gravel, and an instant after Maurice Frere burst into the room. Returning from the Cascades, he had met Troke, and learned the release of the prisoner. Furious at this usurpation of ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... burst into tears, and precipitately left the room. An hour later, and Hagar, sitting by her fire, which the coolness of the day rendered necessary, was startled by the abrupt entrance of Maggie, who, throwing herself upon the floor, and burying her face in the old woman's lap, ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... 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 loathing of cowled and cloistered fools, they flew to an extreme, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... so abrupt, my boy. Say 'sir' when you answer me. How is it that you don't know it? You go ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... peninsula. The distance across the isthmus at this place is only two miles, and there, is a good path, along which rice and sago are brought from the eastern villages. The whole isthmus is very rugged, though not high, being a succession of little abrupt hills anal valleys, with angular masses of limestone rock everywhere projecting, and often almost blocking up the pathway. Most of it is virgin forest, very luxuriant and picturesque, and at this time having abundance of large scarlet Ixoras in flower, which made it exceptionally gay. ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... This abrupt proposal was a surprise to the old gentleman, and hardly an agreeable one. The offer itself was not so astonishing, for the beauty of his younger daughter had often obliged the father to refuse proposals of this kind; but he had never been addressed quite so brusquely before. Moreover, of all ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... horse would allow me, however, I kept him on the side, rough as it was, for about a quarter of a mile pretty steadily, expecting, however, to upset every minute; when all at once I saw before me an abrupt, narrow, deep gully into which the wheels on one side were just upon the point of going down. It flashed across me in an instant that, if I could throw the horse down into the ditch, the wheels of the wagon might, perhaps, rest ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... consists in the supposition that each of these resonators can acquire or lose energy only by abrupt jumps, in such a way that the store of energy that it possesses must always be a multiple of a constant quantity, which he calls a 'quantum'—must be composed of a whole number of quanta. This indivisible unit, ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... statue, when presented in this way, and the aunts would have shuddered could they have foreseen the manner of delivery; but it was vastly impressive to the audience, who concluded that Mirandy Sawyer must be making her way uncommonly fast to mansions in the skies, else what meant this abrupt change ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... always left Mess after that toast, and being rather tired by his march his movements were more abrupt than usual. Kim, with slightly raised head, was still staring at his totem on the table, when the Chaplain stepped on his right shoulder-blade. Kim flinched under the leather, and, rolling sideways, brought down the Chaplain, who, ever a man of action, ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... and breaks the furrow slice. The degree to which the mouldboard pulverizes depends on the steepness of its slant upward and the abruptness of its curve sidewise. The steeper it is and the more abrupt the curve, the greater is its pulverizing power. A steep, abrupt mouldboard is adapted to light soils and to the heavier soils when they are comparatively dry. This kind of a plow is apt to puddle a clay ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... difficult to say which of the two, Miss Wall or Father Waite, was the more startled by this abrupt and lively rencontre. But to Carmen, as she sat back in the car absorbed in thought, it had been a perfectly natural meeting between two warm friends. Suddenly the girl turned to the woman. "You haven't anything but money, and fine clothes, and automobiles, and jewels, you ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... want a peep in the future," and she gave an abrupt laugh. "You don't any of you look as if you needed medical advice. My, I seldom see such rosy, good looking girls. Now, I'll tell you—it's a dollar if I go into a trance and see you inside, up and ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... offered hospitality. Night was now falling, when they came in sight of a pretty river winding its way through a pastoral country. The hills were greener and more abrupt than those which Brown had lately passed, sinking their grassy sides, at once upon the river. They had no pretensions to magnificence of height, or to romantic shapes, nor did their smooth swelling slopes ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... said with abrupt irrelevance, "you've changed. You usen't to be like that before. You're different somehow ... ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... and broad, and formed of thinner membrane than the dorsal. The horns just alluded to are long in Lepas and short in Scalpellum; their ends are either rounded and excessively transparent, or, as in Ibla, furnished with an abrupt, minute, sharp point: within these horns, I distinctly saw a long filiformed organ, bearing excessively fine hairs in lines, so exactly like the long plumose spines on the prehensile antennae of the larvae in the last stage; that I have not the least doubt, that these horns are the ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... Close with his sisters Sophia and Sarah. In the course of time a new Dean, Dr. Conover, was appointed to Durdlebury, and, restless innovator that he was, underpinned the North Transept and split up Canon Trevor's home by marrying Sophia. Then Sarah, bitten by the madness, committed abrupt matrimony with the Rev. Vernon Manningtree, Rector of Durdlebury. Canon Trevor, many years older than his sisters, remained for some months in bewildered loneliness, until one day he found himself standing in front of the cathedral altar with Miss Mathilda ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... shall we send In search of this new world, whom shall we find Sufficient? who shall tempt with wandring feet The dark unbottom'd infinite Abyss And through the palpable obscure find out His uncouth way, or spread his aerie flight Upborn with indefatigable wings Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive The happy Ile; what strength, what art can then 410 Suffice, or what evasion bear him safe Through the strict Senteries and Stations thick Of Angels watching round? Here he had need ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... treble. The Mazatlan was rolling worse than ever, now up and down, now from side to side, and now with long forward lurches that combined the other two motions. During one of these latter the little Jew was half awakened. He stopped snoring, leaving an abrupt silence in the air. Then Vandover could hear him threshing about uneasily; still half asleep he began to mutter and swear: "Dat's it, r-roll; I woult if I were you; r-roll, dat's righd—dhere, soh—ah, geep it oop—r-roll, you damnt ole tub, ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... replied. "The silly old josser! pulling me down there amongst the coals and rubbish for an insane idea like that! Why, the flues wouldn't admit the passage of a child; and, even then, there's a bend, an abrupt 'elbow,' that nothing but a cat could crawl up. And that's a man who's an authority on the human brain! I sent the old silly back to bed by the way ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Ann. Marcia tore it open eagerly. Never had Mary Ann's handwriting looked so pleasant as at that moment. A letter in those days was a rarity at all times, and this one to Marcia in her distress of mind seemed little short of a miracle. It began in Mary Ann's abrupt way, and opened up to her the world of home since she had left it. But a few short days had passed, scarcely yet numbering into weeks, since she left, yet it seemed half a lifetime to the girl promoted so suddenly into womanhood without ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... Instead of having a bed to sleep on, the unfortunate "detail" found himself condemned to the floor boards of a bell tent, with a very meagre allowance of well-worn blankets. In cold weather the change was abrupt and trying, but of course it had to be made sooner or later, and I suppose the men had ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... 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 ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... grown in pots in Graperies. After the vines have expanded their leaves maturely, and obstructed the light, it becomes necessary to remove the trees to the open air. The leaves and new grown wood being very tender, the abrupt change to a different climate is too great, and they suffer in consequence. In a well constructed Orchard house, the means of ventilation should be so ample that the trees may be gradually inured to the change; or if it is desirable to let the trees remain ...
— Woodward's Graperies and Horticultural Buildings • George E. Woodward
... which it had formed round it. The other mouth was lower, in the side of the same new-formed hill, and filled with such red hot liquid matter as we see in a glass-house furnace, which raged and wrought as the waves in the sea, causing a short abrupt noise, like what may be imagined from a sea of quicksilver dashing among uneven rocks. This stuff would sometimes spew over, and run down the convex side of the conical hill, and appearing at first red hot, it changed colour, and hardened as it cooled, ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown |
