"Bland" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lubricants from the peanut and the cotton seed. The first yielded a fine bland oil, resembling the ordinary grade of olive oil, but it was entirely too expensive for use in the arts. The cotton seed oil could be produced much cheaper, but it had in it such a quantity of gummy matter as to render it worse than useless for ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... tremendous placards on the disputed thoroughfare and (with his bird upon his head) to hold forth vehemently against Sir Leicester in the sanctuary of his own home; similarly, also, he defies him as of old in the little church by testifying a bland unconsciousness of his existence. But it is whispered that when he is most ferocious towards his old foe, he is really most considerate, and that Sir Leicester, in the dignity of being implacable, little supposes how much he is humoured. As little does he think how near ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... at Cambridge? You have hinted, I think, that your friend Bland is returned from Holland. I have always had a great respect for his talents, and for all that I have heard of his character; but of me, I believe he knows nothing, except that he heard my sixth form repetitions ten months together, at the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... where the centuries gaze upon perpetual summer. Small it is, and of varied charms—set in the fountain of time-defying youth. Abundantly sprinkled with tepid rains, vivified by the glorious sun, its verdure tolerates no trace of age. No ill or sour vapours contaminate its breath. Bland and ever fresh breezes preserve its excellencies untarnished. It typifies all that is tranquil, quiet, easeful, dreamlike, for it is the, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... gracefully predominant, and in the end somewhat termagant female figure, this divine Emilie. Her temper, radiant rather than bland, was none of the patientest on occasion; nor was M. de Voltaire the least of a Job, if you came athwart him the wrong way. I have heard, their domestic symphony was liable to furious flaws,—let us hope at great distances apart:—that 'plates' in presence of the lackeys, actual crockery ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... cried, tossing her head defiantly and turning angry eyes on the bland detective. "I am supposed to be unable to control myself, but it is not true! As a child I gave way to fits of temper, I acknowledge, but I have overcome that tendency, and I am no more hot-tempered now than ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... They understood all the hypocrisy of this bland assertion, but protest amounted to nothing. The voters were behind Sylvester. That gentleman promptly put in nomination the name of Harlan Thornton for representative to the legislature from the Canibas class of ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... for domestic things. I'd rather wear a dinner-gown than an apron; I'd a damn sight rather spin a roulette wheel than rock a cradle. And, perhaps, Peyton wanted a housewife; though heaven knows he hasn't turned to one. It's her blonde, no bland, charm and destructive air of innocence. I've admitted and understood too much; but I couldn't help it—my mother and grandmother, all that lot, were the same way, and went after things themselves. The men hated sham and sentimentality; ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... as possible, all traces of agitation, Della returned to her mother's apartment. The moment Mrs. Delancey's eyes fell upon her child's features, she held out her hand, with a bland smile, exclaiming:— ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... you! My little friend," said Sir Norman, with bland suavity, and unconsciously quoting Leoline, "once seen ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... certain forms of infection, such as diphtheria, streptococcal septicaemia, and tetanus. In other forms of infection, vaccines are employed to increase the opsonic power of the blood. When such means are not available, the circulating toxins may to some extent be diluted by giving plenty of bland fluids by the mouth or normal salt solution by ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... Miss Lenox stood, and was rewarded by a bright smile and an immediate air of attention. "I want to talk to Mr. Randolph," said she, claiming her bouquet from the professor, who regarded me with a bland smile. "He and I are the oldest friends, but we have not seen each other for years. You ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... perspicacity was not remarkable, Reardon's changed tone conveyed simply an impression of bland impudence. He ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... jigging of the small, wiry curls hanging out from either side of her old-fashioned bonnet would seem to betray an inner perturbation indicative of some hitherto suppressed information. At all events Mr. Gryce allowed himself this hope and was most bland and encouraging in his manner as he showed her the place which had been assigned her on the chart drawn up by Sweetwater, and asked if the position given her ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... anyone whose dreams are haunted by apprehensions of wild-cat legislative schemes, or the imminence of a Radical millennium, than five minutes' contemplation of our champions of progress as they recline together, dignified and whiskered and bland, upon the benches of ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... his glance of piteous entreaty, and Mr. Chadwick Champneys's bland, blind ignoring of its silent reproach and appeal. And then the long-legged young fellow pulled himself together. His head went up, his mouth hardened, and his voice didn't shake when he promised to cherish and protect her, until death did ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... uneasiness crept the round of the assembled nobles. Only the monarch's bland composure remained unruffled. Advancing with the deliberate grace that so well became his mighty person, he seated himself upon a convenient boulder and signed the figure in ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... door on me," Selwyn said, as they stood together in the passage, and Hanway, with his instinct to cut him off, had made a motion to draw the door after him; "this mountain air is so bland, even when it is damp." He paused on the dripping threshold, with his hands in the pockets of his red jacket, and surveyed with smiling complacence the forlorn, weeping day, and the mountains cowering under their misty veil, and the sodden dooryard, and the wild rocks and chasms of the gorge, ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... and is well watered by springs. The climate is pronounced to be even more salubrious than that of Cuba, while the soil is marvelously fertile. An English physician, who, with a patient, passed a winter at Nueva Gerona, which has a population of only a hundred souls, says the climate is remarkably bland and equable, especially adapted for pulmonary invalids. The coast is deeply indented by bays, some of which afford good anchorage, though the island is surrounded by innumerable rocky islets or keys. The Isle of Pines is very nearly in the same condition in which Columbus found it in 1494, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... the feast to go on with our banjo-strumming, and I attempted to bridge the hiatus by none too gracefully inquiring how things were getting along over at Casa Grande. Lady Allie's contemplative eye, I noticed, searched my face to see if there were any secondary significances to that bland inquiry. ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... drew out his spectacles, and fixing them on his nose with much care, regarded her through them with bland and ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... suspiciously at his nephew, but Coronado kept his bland composure, merely saying, "No present danger of that. She sees no one ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... than he did at the time of our last meeting: but his eyes were the same; misty, unholy, and bland. He wore gray cloth of the same accented plainness, and from the time of his entrance stood with his head uncovered in an attitude of great deference to the women-folk; a bearing which accorded poorly with the tales afloat concerning the manner of ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... solemn and exciting interest in the situation of those who remained in the vessel, after the party of bustling seamen had left them. The night came in bland and tranquil, and although there was no moon, they walked the deck for hours with strange sensations of enjoyment, mingled with those of loneliness and desertion. Mr. Effingham and his cousin retired to their rooms long before the others, who continued their exercise with a ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... sky it fairly got; The sky was vast and violet; The poor moon seemed to faint in fright, And pale it grew and paler yet, Like fine old silver, rinsed and bright. And yet it climbed so bravely on Until it mounted heaven-high; Then earthward it serenely shone, A silver sovereign of the sky, A bland sultana of the night, Surveying ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... by nightly dews, and occasionally by humid fogs in the mornings. These are not considered prejudicial to health, since both the natives and the whites sleep in the open air with perfect impunity. While this equable and bland temperature prevails throughout the lower country, the peaks and ridges of the vast mountains by which it is dominated, are covered with perpetual snow. This renders them discernible at a great distance, shining at times like bright summer clouds, at other times assuming the most aerial ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... Approved you, and when last he wrote, declared His comfort in your Grace that you were bland And affable to men of all estates, In hope to charm them from ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... implicit reliance on the good faith and friendly feelings of the very being whose entire life, both sleeping and waking thoughts, were devoted, not only to his destruction, but to that of the whole white race on the American continent. So bland was the manner of this terrible savage, when it comported with his views to conceal his ruthless designs, that persons more practised and observant than either of his two companions might have been its dupes, not to say its victims. While the missionary was completely ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... no doubt you have ample reasons for the regard you entertain for that young person," he began in his most bland tone. "She may be very estimable, and her beauty is, I own, of ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... the barriers of her very soul, her longing heart had pressed, had beaten against them, crying out for deliverance. She did not judge him, but, alone with him in the forest, alone with him in the bland, sunny hotel, alone with him through the long nights when she lay awake and wondered, in a stupor of despair, she saw that he was different. So different; there was the horror. She was the sinner; not he. He belonged to the bright, ardent ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... door, with his Thracian soldiers around him, he endeavoured to prevail on Demosthenes to quit the holy precinct. Antipater would be certain to pardon him. Demosthenes sat silent, with his eyes fixed on the ground. At last, as the emissary persisted in his bland persuasions, he looked up and said,—"Archias, you never moved me by your acting, and you will not move me now by your promises." Archias lost his temper, and began to threaten. "Now," rejoined Demosthenes, "you speak like a real Macedonian ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... sweet Mary, still the same, Kindly eas'd them of their shame; Spoke to them with accents bland, Took them friendly by the hand; Bound them both with promise fast, Not to speak of troubles past; Made them on the spot declare A new league of friendship there; Which, without a word of strife, Lasted thenceforth long as life. Martha now and Margaret ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... with him. But he is a card-sharper and a fraudulent company-promoter. He'll borrow money from any juggins who is ass enough to lend it to him. He haunts Piccadilly, Bond Street and the Burlington Arcade, and is always smart, and bland, and fascinating. If he sees a likely victim he makes his acquaintance in a hundred ways, and then proceeds to fleece him. In a word, Mr. Beecot, you may put it that Mr. Hay is Captain Hawk, and ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... mood, In riveted attention. This strong appeal did make him feel Most serious apprehension. He took the hand of maiden bland, And hastened fast away; Nor turned his face on that dread place Which ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... his jewell'd hand The jewel of that lady bland, He sees the tossing antlers pass And throw quaint shadows o'er the grass; While she alike the hour beguiles, And looks at him ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... to which, having cut it, you may come again and welcome, from year's end to year's end. In the frontispiece you see Mr. Punch examining the pictures in his gallery—a portly, well-dressed, middle-aged, respectable gentleman, in a white neck-cloth, and a polite evening costume—smiling in a very bland and agreeable manner upon one of his pleasant drawings, taken out of one of his handsome portfolios. Mr. Punch has very good reason to smile at the work and be satisfied with the artist. Mr. Leech, his chief contributor, and some kindred humorists, with pencil and pen have served Mr. ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had a foreign accent. There was something, also, in their bland impertinence which put Miss Redmond on her guard. He was a good-sized, blond person, carefully dressed, and at least ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... maybe, or a solemn D.D. - Oh, beware of his anger provoking! Better not pull his hair - don't stick pins in his chair; He won't understand practical joking. If the jests that you crack have an orthodox smack, You may get a bland smile from these sages; But should it, by chance, be imported from France, Half-a-crown is stopped out of your wages! It's a general rule, Though your zeal it may quench, If the Family Fool Makes a joke that's TOO French, Half-a-crown is ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... doing what a general had done? However this may be, he certainly became a mendicant, after changing his name,—and, steadily pursuing this profession for more than a quarter of a century, by dint of his fair words, his bland smiles, and his constant "Fa buon tempo" and "Fa cattivo tempo," which, together with his withered legs, were his sole stock in starting, he has finally amassed a very respectable little fortune. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... scenery of port and cliff; the "interiors"; the final sailing of the great ship—are perfect. The minor characters—the good-tempered, thick-headed bourgeois husband and father; the wife and mother, with her bland acceptance of the transferred wages of shame, and (after discovery only) her breaking down with the banal blasphemy of "marriage before God" and the rest of it; the younger brother—not exactly a bad fellow, but thoroughly convinced of the truth of non olet; the widow playing her part and no more,—all ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... you for his companion; and said, that the longer he knew you, he loved and esteemed you the more. This conversation passed in the interval between tea and supper, when we were by ourselves. You, and the rest of the company who were with us at supper, have often taken notice that he was uncommonly bland and gay that evening, and gave much pleasure to all who were present. This is all that I can recollect distinctly ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... embroidered leather wallets that hung from their girdled waists. The Jews of Morocco, dressed in oriental fashion with silk kirtle and an ecclesiastical calotte, passed by leaning upon sticks, as if thus dragging along their bland, timid obesity. The soldiers of the garrison,—tall, slender, rosy-complexioned—made the ground echo with the heavy cadence of their boots. Some were dressed in khaki, with the sobriety of the soldier in the field; others wore the regular red jacket. White ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the puritan, and the evil thinker. The people must obey the State and fight and die for its salvation, and for the Prince the hatred of the subjects is never good, but their love, and the best way to gain it is by 'not interrupting the subject in the quiet enjoyment of his estate.' Even so bland and gentle a spirit as the poet Gray cannot but comment, 'I rejoice when I see Machiavelli defended or illustrated, who to me appears one of the wisest men that any nation in any ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... protest, while wan dhrop iv pathriotic blood surges through me heart, I will raise me voice again a tariff on lathes, onless,' he says, 'this dhread implymint iv oppressyon is akelly used,' he says, 'to protict th' bland an' beautiful molasses iv th' State ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... voice: he is a born healer, as independent of mere treatment and skill as any Christian scientist. When he expands into oratory or scientific exposition, he is as energetic as Walpole; but it is with a bland, voluminous, atmospheric energy, which envelops its subject and its audience, and makes interruption or inattention impossible, and imposes veneration and credulity on all but the strongest minds. He is known in the medical world as B. B.; and the ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... I was cornered, and must do something, I tried to be bland and polite; but am inclined to think that I failed in the effort. As for fairs, I never did approve of them. But that was nothing. The enemy had boarded me so suddenly and so completely, that nothing, was left for ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... of emotional light and shadow was encouraged by the character of the full-page illustration which he had to supply. A signed full page appears in Part XVI., page 541. It is a scene in which the four martyrs, Bland, Frankesh, Sheterden, and Middleton, condemned by the Bishop of Dover, 25th June 1555, are shown being burned at the stakes. One of the martyrs certainly looks intensely smug with his hands folded as if he were at grace before a favourite dinner. Yes, du Maurier certainly failed to attain ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... a small game, And Ah Sin took a hand; It was euchre: the same He did not understand; But he smiled as he sat by the table With a smile that was childlike and bland. ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... advertisements, however, which the brokers send to our house and which are spread broadcast in the homes of the country to people who have no technical knowledge of stock-buying are surely not confined to such child-like and bland forms of suggestion. The whole grouping of figures, the distribution of black and white in the picture of the market situation, the glowing story of the probable successes with the bewildering hints of ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... VIEWS obtained with the greatest ease and certainty by using BLAND & LONG'S preparation of Soluble Cotton; certainty and uniformity of action over a lengthened period, combined with the most faithful rendering of the half-tones, constitute this a most valuable agent in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... child-like and bland, he diverted suspicion to our laundry man and allowed him to be taken to prison. It was only after being arrested himself that he confessed and restored the revolver. He was allowed to go on the promise that he ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... Captain Sons calls sago a root, while Purchas, in a marginal note, informs us that some say it is the tops of certain trees. Sago is a granulated dried paste, prepared from the pith of certain trees that grow in various of the eastern islands of India, and of which a bland, mucilaginous, and nutritive jell; is made by maceration and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... elderly but robust Sioux warrior, and however he may have been when torture was going forward he wore just then a bland smile, although not much else. With wonderfully light and skilful hands he took off Will's bandage and replaced it with another. Will never knew what it was made of, but it seemed to be lined with leaves steeped ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... publisher bland and rich Who bought the roll of paper which Was made by the man with the paper mill Who bought the pulp that paid the bill Of the lumberjack with the murderous ax Who felled the spruce with lusty hacks That grew ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... curious to see her adopted the simple plan of asking her to tea without knowing her, at which Marcello was furious; a semi-imperial Russian personage unblushingly scraped acquaintance with Marcello and was extremely bland for a few days, in the hope of being introduced to Regina. When he found that this was impossible, he went away, not in the least disconcerted, and he was heard to say that the ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... young man approached them. He was very nice looking and astonishingly cheerful. The hopes of the twain went up with a bound. His expression was so benign, so bland that they at once jumped to the conclusion that he was coming to tell them that they were free to go, that it had all been a stupid mistake. But they were wrong. He smilingly introduced himself as an advocate connected ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... had arrived from New York a few weeks previously, and was to accompany him, though the departure of this gentleman would cause no regrets in the household, for his true nature had been revealed during his stay amongst them. His bland and courteous manner was not inborn—it had but a surface character; and if "to know a man you must live in the house with him," then it took but a short time to become thoroughly acquainted with Mr. Plaisted. If he had not been so puffed up with conceit, he ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... I thought so at least, from the bland tones in which those two words were uttered. I would then have bartered a couple of years of life for every hour she chose to grant to me, and so prolong my ecstasy. My happiness was increased by the extent of the money I sacrificed. It was midnight before she dismissed ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... a big, florid man with sleek, smooth manners, a bland smile and an engaging eye, which held a deep gleam of insincerity. The governor posed as a genial, generous, broad-minded public official—and it had been upon that reputation that he had been nominated and elected—but the ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... then?" said Gherardi, still preserving his bland suavity of demeanour, "But permit me, Donna Sovrani, to express the hope that when the veil is lifted a crown of laurels may be disclosed ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... The bland and easy-going catholicity which professes so much in our day, which embraces all faiths and unfaiths in one sweet emulsion of meaningless negations, which patronizes the Christ and His doctrines, and applies the nomenclature of Christianity to doctrines ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... full red lips, in the high pale forehead and, above all, in those dark and haunting eyes lay a depth of feeling and profundity and nobleness of thought, which to a reflective mind have a charm infinitely more irresistible than that which belongs to mere youthful perfection. There was a bland beauty in the smile which slept upon her lips, a delicacy of sentiment in the faint flush that tinged her soft cheek, and a deep meaning in her dark and eloquent eye which told a whole history of experience ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... Befouled with mud, with raiment torn, wild hair And ragged beard, to Vladislaw. He sat Expectant in his cabinet. On one side His secular adviser, Narzerad, Quick-eyed, sharp-nosed, red-whiskered as a fox; On the other hand his spiritual guide, Bishop of Olmutz, unctuous, large, and bland. "So these twain are chief culprits!" sneered the Duke, Measuring with the noble's ignorant scorn His masters of a lesser caste. "Stand forth! Rash, stubborn, vain old man, whose impudence Hath choked the public highways with thy brood Of nasty vermin, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... vegetables contain a bland oil, or mucilage, or starch, or sugar, or acid; and, as their stimulus is moderate, are properly given alone as food in inflammatory diseases; and mixed with milk constitute the food of thousands. Other vegetables possess various degrees and various ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... wandered from stall to stall in a tireless search for peas a few cents cheaper than those of Mr. Dewlap. Youth, with its ingenuous belief that love dwells in external circumstances, was protesting against the bland assumption of age that love creates its own peculiar circumstances out of itself. It was absurd, she knew, to imagine that her father's affection for her mother would alter because she haggled over the price of peas; yet the emotion with which she endowed Oliver Treadwell ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... bland smile, and then observed to Alizon that it was time for them to retire, and that she had stayed on her account far later than she intended—a mark of consideration duly appreciated by Alizon. Farewells for the night were then exchanged between the two girls, and Alizon looked ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... feathers on their feet, Why is your headgear perched on top? And if you scorn the Commonplace, Why wear a Nose upon your Face? And since Pythagoras is mute on Sex Hygiene and Cosmic Law, Is your Blonde Beast as Bland a Brute, As Blind a Brute, as Bernard Shaw? No doubt, when drilling through the parks, With Ibsen's Ghost and Old Doc Marx, You've often seen two Golden Souls Drink Suds and Sobs ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... was produced, the cacao butter formerly used in this industry was freed for other purposes. Thus there was plenty of cacao butter available at a time when other fats were scarce. Cacao butter has a pleasant, bland taste resembling cocoa. The cocoa flavour is very persistent, as many experimenters found to their regret in their efforts to produce a tasteless cacao butter which could be used as margarine or for general purposes ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... not pay. Thereat he grinned broadly, and informed us that it was his duty to see justice done to Monsieur Roquion, and that he should stop a portion of our allowances till the debt was paid. We protested loudly against this decision; but he only grinned the more, and with a bland smile informed us that might made right, and that we might ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... Brewer, whose tongue drops honey still: Rough Rowley, handling song with Esau's hand: Light Nabbes: lean Sharpham, rank and raw by turns, But fragrant with a forethought once of Burns: Soft Davenport, sad-robed, but blithe and bland: Brome, gipsy-led across the woodland ferns: Praise be with all, and ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... arguments have lately been used here to show them that there is no difference;—at present they do not reason so; but in time they may possibly be convinced by these arguments." That time was now at hand. As early as 1766, Richard Bland, of Virginia, had declared that the colonies, like Hanover, were bound to England only through the Crown. This might be over-bold; but the old argument was inadequate to meet the present dangers, inasmuch as the Townshend Acts, the establishment of troops in Boston and New York, and the attempt ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... or hold precisely his views of criticism; but we are, upon the whole, very decidedly impressed with the general force and truth of his Discourse, with the gracefulness of his allusions and illustrations, his elegant and pointed style, and the bland and genial temper in which he writes. The work consists of a series of short chapters on books, authors, the circumstances in which they wrote, the moods in which they should be read to be appreciated, the nature and specific qualities of taste, poetry, fiction, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... George Gissing I have already mentioned. But it was Swinnerton's work on R. L. Stevenson that made the trouble in London. It is a destructive work. It is bland and impartial, and not bereft of laudatory passages, but since its appearance Stevenson's reputation ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... the Suliotes stretched the welcome hand, Led them o'er rocks and past the dangerous swamp, Kinder than polished slaves, though not so bland, And piled the hearth, and wrung their garments damp, And filled the bowl, and trimmed the cheerful lamp, And spread their fare: though homely, all they had: Such conduct bears Philanthropy's rare stamp - To rest the ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... entirely inattentive to the acclamations, stepped heavily from the platform and sat down. When Edwin caught Big James's eye he clapped again, reanimating the general approval, and Big James gazed at him with bland satisfaction. Mr Enoch Peake was now, save for the rise and fall of his great chest, as immobile and ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... want to drive out," he said, at once bland and aggrieved; "but it couldn't be helped. Here's a piece of news for all of you— Phebe is coming home to visit She wrote me to say so, and I only got the letter this evening. Whatever do you suppose ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... entered the room and came through it slowly, looking about them with an air of good-humoured amusement. Fleda's eye was fixed, but her mind puzzled itself in vain to recover what, in her experience, had been connected with that fair and lady-like physiognomy, and the bland smile that was overlooked by those acute eyes. The eyes met hers, and then seemed to reflect her doubt, for they remained as fixed as her own, while the lady, quickening her steps, ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... his eyes with a bland bewilderment, picked up the ferret by the neck, stuffed it alive into his trousers pocket, smiled ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... you I feel exactly like one of those chaps from another planet, who are always reaching here in the H.G. Wells's stories—a gentleman of fine attainments in his own planet, mind you—bland, agreeable, scholarly—with marked distinction of bearing, and a personal beauty rare even on a planet where the flaunting of one's secretest bones is held to betoken the only beauty—you understand that?—Well, I come here, and everything ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... Goldsmith's "Beau Tibbs." He has the dirt and dandyism of the one, with the ferocity of the other: sometimes he is made to swindle, but where he can get a shilling more, M. Macaire will murder without scruple: he performs one and the other act (or any in the scale between them) with a similar bland imperturbability, and accompanies his actions with such philosophical remarks as may be expected from a person of his talents, his energies, his ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Within earshot of Mr. Bryan, but not listening to him, one recognised without the slightest difficulty Dr. David Starr Jordan, the distinguished ichthyologist and director in chief of the World's Peace Foundation, while the bland features of a gentleman from China, and the presence of a yellow delegate from the Mosquito Coast, gave ample evidence that the company had been gathered together without reference to colour, race, religion, education, ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... turned his varied fancies into facts. He was greatly given to self-communing, and, when he and himself agreed upon anything, the thing was done. When every member of his domestic and political systems moved smoothly in its appointed course, his nature was bland and genial; but, whenever there was a little hitch, and some of his orbs got out of their orbits, he was blander and more genial still, for nothing pleased him so much as to make the crooked straight and crush ...
— The Lady, or the Tiger? • Frank R. Stockton
... the clear, bold words. There was a little well-bred stir in the congregation. Doctor Schoolman's disciplined countenance betrayed a startled moment and then relapsed into an expression of bland, but non-committal interest. Winifred glanced about to see how her neighbors were taking it. She looked first at George Frothingham, for he and she were unusually good friends. His handsome face showed only abstraction, and she knew he had not heard a word that ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... answered Mr Evergreen, with his usual bland smile, "whatever you think right I think right also; so, Mr Allwick, tell him from me, that I will give him a helping hand whenever I can; and if we can get back his old father and mother from Siberia, or rather from their way there, we will see what ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... honour," Varvara Petrovna approved magnificently. Yulia Mihailovna impulsively held out her hand and Varvara Petrovna with perfect readiness touched it with her fingers. The general effect was excellent, the faces of some of those present beamed with pleasure, some bland and insinuating smiles ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... around the room, a small secretary's ante-room. It stopped on a pair of legs, a body, slouched down in the soft plastifoam chair—a face, ruddy and bland, with a shock of sandy hair, with quixotic eyebrows. "Terry! For Christ ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... not forget Peter Rabbit—that captivating, realistic fairy tale by Beatrix Potter—and his companions, Benjamin Bunny, Pigling Bland, Tom Kitten, and the rest, of which children never tire. Peter Rabbit undoubtedly holds a place as a kindergarten classic. In somewhat the same class of merry animal tales is Tommy and the Wishing Stone, ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... disdained and perhaps even disliked him and made no effort to conceal her feelings, did not in the least ruffle his bland complacency nor affront his pride. He knew that not even an Inglesby could hope to find a Mary Virginia more than once in a lifetime, and the haughtier she was the more she pleased him; it added to his innate sense of power, and this in itself ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... looked up from the curios with an expression so bland that the air began to clear even before ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... our Dresden's wreck we scanned, Protested, with assurance bland, "It come to pieces in my 'and"? ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... when half a million souls beat up like sea around it, a model and modern institution that was presently and paradoxically to become architectural paragon for what to avoid in future high-school buildings, was again within street-car distance, except on usually bland days, when Lilly and Flora Kemble would walk home through Vandaventer Place, the first of those short, private thoroughfares of pretentious homes that were presently to run through the warp of the city ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... and innocence, was little short of desperation. There was an evident movement of adhesion towards the fair stranger, a slight muttering broke out on the right, but the very boldness of the act held them in stupefied surprise. Judge Thompson, with a bland propitiatory smile began: "Really, Bill, I must protest on behalf of this young lady"—when the fair accused, raising her eyes to her accuser, to the consternation of everybody answered with the slight but ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... seemed serene and bland; Who never asked for "cash in hand," Quite pleased that my account should "stand"? ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... wholly assumed. One of the primal instincts of Cowperwood's nature—for all his chicane and subtlety—was to take no rough advantage of a beaten enemy. In the hour of victory he was always courteous, bland, gentle, and even sympathetic; he was so to-day, and ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... of 'Lewis Hall!'" exclaimed Mrs. Marshall. "Is it possible? Was your father—could he have been—Will Watkins Lewis? He was such a dear friend of my Bland cousins. I remember seeing him at 'Belle Vue' when I was a girl. I never saw him after he married and settled down at his old home. Let's see. Your mother was a Mayo, ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... Bedford's Yard and the bull-baiting in Bachelor's Acre, drank mild punch at the "Christopher," and, no doubt, was occasionally brought back by Jack Cutler, "Pursuivant of Runaways," to make his explanations to Dr. Bland the Head-Master, or Francis Goode the Usher. Among his school-fellows were some who subsequently attained to high dignities in the State, and still remained his friends. Foremost of these was George Lyttelton, later ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... then left the bar and strode toward Blanca. The latter continued his card playing, apparently unaware of Dakota's approach, but at the sound of his former victim's voice he turned and looked up slowly, his face wearing a bland smile. ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of the impudence and violence of other North Sea smugglers could also be quoted. On the 7th of May 1778, Captain Bland, of the Mermaid Revenue cruiser, was off Huntcliff Fort, when he sighted a smuggling shallop.[9] Bland promptly bore down, and as he approached hailed her. But the shallop answered by firing a ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... Thackeray and Dickens, quite cheerfully. But the fashion of comparing Maltby and Braxton went out so long ago as 1795. No, I am wrong. But anything that happened in the bland old days before the war does seem to be a hundred more years ago than actually it is. The year I mean is the one in whose spring-time we all went bicycling (O thrill!) in Battersea Park, and ladies wore sleeves that billowed enormously out from their shoulders, and ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... represents this his favorite hero to be; how modest in his greatness, how great in his modesty; how dutiful and how devout; how brave, how gentle, how generous, how affable, how humane; how full of religious fervor, yet how bland and liberal in his piety; with "a tear for pity, and a hand open as day for melting charity"; how genuine and unaffected withal these virtues grow in him; in short, how all alive he is with the highest and purest Christian ethos which ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... a sturdy, middle-sized fellow, some thirty years of age, clean-shaven, and sallow-skinned, with a bland, insinuating manner, and a pair of wonderfully sharp and penetrating grey eyes. He shot a questioning glance at each of us, placed his shiny top-hat upon the sideboard, and with a slight bow sidled down into the ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Senate Mr. Blaine advocated the Chinese immigration bill, and opposed the electoral commission and Bland silver legislation. Here, as throughout his political career, he was never on the fence on any question. His position has always been clear and he has always taken ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... smiled in bland thankfulness, exhibiting a superb display of ivory and second-hand white kids in ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... Rowland, to express the pleasure he had derived from his beautiful "collection." His smile was exquisitely bland, his accent appealing, caressing, insinuating. But he gave Rowland an odd sense of looking at a little waxen image, adjusted to perform certain gestures and emit certain sounds. It had once contained a soul, but the soul had leaked ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... sat at his little camp-table, magnifying glass in hand, and at Dick's low "Hist," he turned a bland, inquiring gaze in his direction. Dick came close to him, and with head half averted so that he could listen for the slightest sound outside, he whispered his story. Not a sound came either from the camp or from his listener till ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... it means?" puzzled the Vicar-General, in an undertone, as the vote-taker disappeared; and the crowd fell back a little on Father Kelly's bland announcement that Mr. Duffy had been called off for a few minutes, and there would ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... much in amazement as in relief that at a few minutes after ten they saw him enter, calm, composed, and bland, and thread his way to his seat. The speaker occupying the rostrum at that moment—a member of the Privileged—stopped short to stare in incredulous dismay. Here was something that he could not understand at all. Then from somewhere, to satisfy the amazement on both ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... of fundamentals. She was a—simplifier of ideas. Plain and straightforward even in her enchantments. That moon they were waiting for.... Already she was looking down upon a pair of lovers, somewhere,—a thousand pairs!—with her bland unseeing face. And later to-night, long after she had risen on them, upon ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... couldn't be led. But when he liked a line he bought like mad, never cancelled, and T. A. Buck had just got him going. It spoke volumes for his self-control that he could advance toward the waiting three, his manner correct, his expression bland. ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... been seconded, Lord Raymond rose,—his countenance bland, his voice softly melodious, his manner soothing, his grace and sweetness came like the mild breathing of a flute, after the loud, organ-like voice of his adversary. He rose, he said, to speak in favour of the honourable member's motion, with one slight amendment subjoined. ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley |
