"Bluff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the events related in the last chapter the bluff-bowed French coasting steamer, Admiral Dupont, dropped anchor in the shallow roadstead off the steamy harbor of Fort Assini on the far-famed Ivory Coast. A few days before, the boys had left Sierra Leone and engaged quarters on the cockroach-infested little craft ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... and set off towards the station. Looking up the canal, through the dark pass of the buildings, they saw the Castle on its bluff of brown, green-bushed rock, in a ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... discovered and surveyed by Captain Cook. To the southward again of this magnificent sheet of water, where it will be recollected it was the original intention, though afterwards judiciously abandoned, to found the capital of this colony, you behold the high bluff range of hills that stretch away towards the five islands, and likewise indicate the trending of the coast ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... killed. To us, after the transit of the Andes and the dangers and hardships of the wilderness and the river, it seemed as if we had reached the end of our journey, though we were over two thousand miles from the Atlantic. Pebas is situated on a high clay bluff beside the Ambiyacu, a mile above its entrance into the Maranon. Excepting Mr. Hauxwell, the Peruvian governor, and two or three other whites, the inhabitants are Indians of the Orejones and Yagua tribes. The exportations are hammocks, sarsaparilla, palo ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... whom I have mentioned more than once, is an odd figure, with his bluff, red face,—coarsely red,—set in silver hair,— his clumsy legs, which he moves in a strange straddle, using, I believe, a broomstick for a staff. The breadth of back of these fat men ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... jazz band and scrambled eggs at Jack's at one o'clock in the morning. Georgie, in my next incarnation, I hope there won't be any dansants or night frolics. I'd like a May-pole in the sunshine and a lot of plump and rosy women and bluff and hearty men for my friends—with a fine old farmhouse and myself in the dairy ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... being a sloop of less than thirteen hundred tons, with a battery of fifteen guns, none of long range. Clearly such an armada as this could be of but little avail against the earthworks which the Virginians were busily erecting on every commanding bluff. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... at the capital city, I went to Red Bluff where I was broiled and roasted in a day and night temperature of a hundred and twelve degrees in the shade. I survived only by keeping my head wrapped in ice water; I could neither eat nor sleep, and like Dickens, I longed to "take off my ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... great-grandfather's plantations were Conacanarra, Feltons, Looking Glass, Montrose, Polenta, and Barrows, besides a large body of land in the counties of Jones and Hyde. His residence was at Conacanarra, where the dwelling stood upon a bluff commanding a fine view of the Roanoke river, and, with the pretty house of the head overseer, the small church, and other minor buildings, looked like a small village beneath the great elms ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... knew why he stayed away. It could not be that he was afraid, for he had shown the utmost fearlessness in bringing to justice and transportation the four ringleaders in the attack on the mill. He had now returned, and one day as he rode over Rushedge Moore from Stilbro' market with a bluff neighbour, he unbosomed himself of the reason why he had remained ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... affairs sometimes makes us long to quit the side of beauty, however much we would tarry by it! In plain words, Mr. Vickers, I want to get out o' this. And I've been looking round, and my opinion is that the best thing we can do is to start as big a fire as we can find stuff for on yon bluff and keep a-feeding on it. In the meantime, while you're considering of that, I'll burn something ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... wolf's gray, was clipped all over within an inch of his head, and stood up like the bristles on a wild boar's back. His brows were bushy, and jutted, roof-like, over his deeply-sunken eyes; his nose was bluff as a bull-dog's; his cheek-bones were rough and high; his eyes were wide-set; his mouth was cut square across almost from ear to ear; his chin was square and massy; he had an Adam's apple as large as a gilly-flower ripening on his throat; his hands ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... different personage, but one who has rendered himself very conspicuous in our parish, is one of the old lady's next-door neighbours. He is an old naval officer on half-pay, and his bluff and unceremonious behaviour disturbs the old lady's domestic economy, not a little. In the first place, he will smoke cigars in the front court, and when he wants something to drink with them—which is by no means an uncommon circumstance—he lifts up ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... for Goyder was at Lake Torrens, where he found the water quite fresh. He described the Lake as stretching from fifteen to twenty miles to the north-west, with a water horizon, with an extensive bay forming to the southward; while to the north, a bluff headland and perpendicular cliffs were clearly to be discerned with the telescope. From the appearance of the flood-marks, Goyder came to the conclusion that there was little or no rise and fall in the lake, drawing the natural conclusion ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... in helpless bewilderment, watching the ship until she slowly drifted out of sight round a projecting bluff; and then, in a dazed, halfhearted way, and with nerves all unstrung by disappointment and the dreadful accident which had befallen the baronet, they began to slowly retrace their steps, in the faint hope of stumbling upon some ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... once, hearing Margaret rail like this: "She ought to make a better bluff, or get out,—not guy old Larry like that; it isn't decent, embarrasses one so. You can't guy ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... confirmed by his use of the word 'Christian,' which had by no means come into general employment when he spoke; and in itself indicates that he knew a good deal about the people who were so named. Mark the contrast, for instance, between him and the bluff Roman official at his side. To Festus, Paul's talking about a dead man's having risen, and a risen Jew becoming a light to all nations, was such utter nonsense that, with characteristic Roman contempt for men with ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... roaring, roystering blade, of the name of Abraham, or, according to the Dutch abbreviation, Brom Van Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rang with his feats of strength and hardihood. He was broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with short curly black hair, and a bluff but not unpleasant countenance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had received the nickname of Brom Bones, by which he was universally known. He was famed for great knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... watch for Posy, as her mother described her; and whenever the form of a grown-up girl darkened the doorway, she held her breath to listen if Mrs Blossom called her by that pet name. Mr George also was very good to Meg in his bluff way, and bought her a pair of nearly new shoes with his first week's wages, over and above the threepence a day which he paid her. With Mrs Blossom she held many a conversation about the lost girl, who had grown up wicked, and was therefore worse than dead; and before long Mr George ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton
... not find it. His mind had produced a detailed picture of that rounded depression, at the bottom of which the strong-jaw lurked. But when he reached the crown of the bluff, nowhere did he sight the mounded earth of the pit's rim. He searched carefully for a good length, both north and south. No den—no trace of one. Yet his memory told him that there ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... bar-room, where all the sports were setting, and said he was going in to town to see some friends; and as he starts off he laughs an' says, 'This don't look as if I was afraid of seeing people, does it?' but Dad says it was just bluff that made him do it, and Dad thinks that if he hadn't said what he did, this Mr. Carleton wouldn't have left his ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... are said to have been lodged there. Upon the walls hung portraits of the Duchesses of Leeds and Dorset, of Nell Gwyn and the Countess herself, and of Earl Portmore, who married her daughter. Here also formerly was Holbein's famous picture, Bluff King Hal and the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk dancing a minuet with Anne Boleyn and the Dowager-Queens of France and Scotland. Evelyn saw the painting in August, 1678, and records "the sprightly motion" and "amorous countenances of the ladies." (This picture ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... to "that exorbitancy of Vermeille" that it will hardly be reduced "under a fortnight's course of acids." It is the true spirit of comedy which introduces into this closely perfumed atmosphere the bluff country figure of Sir Positive Trap, with his exordiums on the rustic ladies, and on "the good old English art of clear-starching." Sir Positive hopes "to see the time when a man may carry his daughter to market with the same lawful authority as any other of his cattle"; and causes Lord Formal ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... said the admiral, a bluff, harsh-looking old gentleman; "but we were not aware, till we saw Mr. Merton, of the honour Lord Vargrave has done us. I can't think how we missed ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IV • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... or, as he is termed by the slangiest of his intimates, the "Bluff Boozer," is ordinarily the son of a wealthy, but injudicious father, who, having sent him to a good public school, furnished him with an income that would keep a curate in luxury. He developes an early inclination for check trousers, and the pleasures ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... is the story of Henry VIII., Catharine, and Anne Boleyn. "Bluff King Hal," although a well-loved monarch, was none too good a one in many ways. Of all his selfishness and unwarrantable acts, none was more discreditable than his divorce from Catharine, and his marriage to the beautiful Anne Boleyn. The King's love was as brief as it was vehement. ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... with orange, lemon, and olive plantations, their tints contrasting bright and sombre, and their wealth of fragrant blossoms filling the air with perfume; far away to the left, and parallel to the road by which I had come, stretched the rich, verdant vegetation, through the bluff headlands to the blue sea beyond, where Palermo glittered in the sun, like a queen in her splendour. No wonder she was named of poets, "Concho d'Oro," the Golden Shell! I lingered for some time, perfectly fascinated by the beauty ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... Hindostan. There is matter enough, in 1750-1765, for scores of romances, but who now can write them? But the Master did not now begin his deeds of bale. Stevenson's stepson, Mr. Osbourne, then very young, himself wrote "The Finsbury Tontine; or The Game of Bluff," and I was informed at the time by Stevenson's devoted admirer, Mr. McClure, that the book was completed by Mr. Osbourne for the Press. Then Stevenson took up the manuscript, and, as Mr. Osbourne says, "forced the thing to live ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... poor the prate Of statute and state, We once held with these fellows— Here, on the flood's pale-green, Hark how he bellows, Each bluff old Sea-Lawyer! Talk to ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... emigrating, with all his goods and gods, to that wonderfully winning region, in the estimation of this people, the valley of the Mississippi. The emigrant was a stout, burly, bluff old fellow, with full round cheeks, a quick, twinkling eye, and limbs rather Herculean than human. He might have been fifty-five years or so; and his two sons, one of them a man grown, the other a tall and goodly youth of eighteen, promised well to be just such vigorous and healthy-looking ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... whaleboats and set fire to the country mansion of our General De Lancey at Bloomingdale. Philip made the passage unseen, and drew the canoe up to a safe place under some bushes growing from the face of a low bluff that rose from the slight beach. His heart galloped and glowed at sense of being on the same island with his wife. He was thrilled to think that, if all went well, within an hour or two he should hold her ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... of Scottish birth. The most familiar example of whipping-boy is mentioned by Fuller in his "Church History." His name was Barnaby Fitzpatrick, and the prince whose punishments he bore was Edward, son of bluff King Hal, who was afterwards Edward VI., the ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... its best, the visitor should enter it at the western end, and follow its windings till he stands upon the bluff looking out upon the Atlantic. If his sensations at all resemble mine, he will feel, long before the last curve is rounded, as if he were ascending a mountain; and an odd feeling it is, the road being level, or substantially so, for the whole distance. ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... rounded the southern end of the white bluff, and when Hiram, following, rounded it also, they were ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... make them familiar. "Who is he?" they asked. "Is he a plutocrat?" "It's a Wall Street shark, sure." "Does Jimmy Grayson mean to hobnob with a man like that?" "Then we can't trust him either. He's going to be a monopolist, too, and his claiming to be champion of the people is all a bluff." ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... momentary suspense, the sunlight gilding their bronze feathers to a brighter sheen, there was a movement in the dense undergrowth. The flock took suddenly to wing,—a flash from among the leaves, the sharp crack of a rifle, and one of the birds fell heavily over the bluff and ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... the road hugged close the concave outline of a bushy bluff, Bud slowed and turned out behind a ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... to-night. I wonder whether he is in earnest about the divorce this time, or whether the whole scene was just bluff, to ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... the position of attention is "chest lifted; and arched." There should be a stretch upward at the waist. The position should give the impression of a man as proud of himself as he can be. This is a bluff which works, not only by making a good first impression on others, but by causing the man himself to ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... Far West made slow progress. The dead and broken snags, the "sawyers" of river parlance, fast in the sand-bars, seemed waiting to impale the steamboat. The lead-man called unceasingly from his position. One bluff yielded to another, a flat succeeded to a grove where wild roses burst into riotous bloom, and over all lay the enchantment of the gay, palpitant, ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... You're very good to me, Roy Pell." The miser sank back on the grass, while Roy hurried to the edge of the bluff and making a trumpet of his hands, ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... to the lodges of the hostiles safely enough; and their return gave us entrance if not welcome to the tepee village. We had entered a ravine and came on a cluster of wigwams to the lee side of a bluff. Dusk hid our approach; and the absence of the dogs that usually infest Indian camps told us that these fellows were marauders. Smoke curled up from the poles crisscrossed at the tepee forks, but we could descry no ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... boats sailed 'round and 'round, the sailors did vigorous Indian club exercises with their paddles. The grass in the little yard and the tall hollyhocks in the beds at its sides swayed and bowed and nodded. Beyond, seen over the edge of the bluff and stretching to the horizon, the blue and white waves leaped and danced and sparkled. As a picture of movement and color and joyful bustle the scene was inspiring; children, viewing it for the first time, almost invariably danced and waved their arms in sympathy. Summer visitors, ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... loaded with irons, and whom they were forcing over the side of the vessel into a boat. The two principal persons among our enemies appeared to be a man of a tall, thin figure, with a high-crowned hat and long neck band, and short-cropped head of hair, accompanied by a bluff, open-looking elderly man in a naval uniform. 'Yarely! yarely! pull away, my hearts,' said the latter, and the boat bearing the unlucky young man soon carried him on board the frigate. Perhaps you will blame me for mentioning this circumstance; but consider, my dear cousin, this man ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... he reach the telegraph key, to get in touch with someone on the wire. And in any case, how could that help him? For the next train was not due for two hours, and it did not seem possible he could carry on his bluff that length ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... vessels, abrigantine and a three-masted schooner, were merrily reaching down-channel before it, the brigantine leading; at two miles' distance they could see distinctly the white foam running from her bluff bows, and her forward deck from bulwark to bulwark ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... crept painfully up to the port-hole and looked out. The strangest sight that man has ever looked upon met my eyes. The side of the wall had blown out into a gigantic cavern, and with it the rest of the cars had rolled down the bluff a tangled, twisted mass of steel. My car had almost passed by, and now it still stuck in the tube, even though the last port-hole through which I peered seemed to be suspended in air. But it was not ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen
... t' you, sir," returned the farmer. "I knew the mare though I didn't know you. Rather bluff to-night it be. Will ye step in, Mr. Fev'rel? it's beginning' to spit,—going to be ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... with ling and heather. The morning sun has just climbed high enough to send a flood of light down the steep hill at the back of the barns, and we can hear the hum of the bees in the heather. In the direction of Levisham is Gallows Dyke, the great purple bluff we passed in the darkness, and a few yards off the road makes a sharp double bend to get up Saltersgate Brow, the hill that overlooks the enormous circular bowl of Horcum Hole, where Levisham Beck rises. The farmer whose buildings can be seen down below contrives to paint the bottom of the bowl ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... were to be coaxed into his purse there, unless he wished her to understand he intended to export spices, since he added: "If I had been a grocer for the last ten years, I should have become a millionaire." Forsooth, these details were mere bluff. His inmost thought was that Eve would prevent his going across the Atlantic now, as Madame de Berny had prevented him—so he said—in 1829. Moreover, there was Balthazar's prediction that he was to be happy with her for long ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... of season had influenced him, he would slowly stride up and down the porch, seeming to shake with joviality as he walked. Years ago he had served as captain of a large steamboat, and this at times gave him an air of bluff authority. He was a successful river man, and was therefore noted for the vigor and newness of his profanity. His wife was deeply religious, and year after year she besought him to join the church, pleaded with him at evening when the two children were kissed good night—and at last he stood ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... whether the orders to disintegrate had been a bluff. Would the attorney general have dared disintegrate a ship with even a Junior E on board? Maybe it had been just a threat of the local police, one they didn't expect ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... yards away, and not far from the bluff, a vigorous rivulet started from beneath the half-bared roots of a monster beech, and fell over an outcropping boulder into a pool so clear that sand on its bottom, worked mysteriously into a pattern by the action of the ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... dare to use them? And where would we be after that? We're here to keep the pot from boiling over, to keep out of planetary incidents, not push them along to a point where bluff won't work. That's why we've got to pick up Rakhal before this gets out ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... bluff old seaman; "great risk in making land—boats heavily laden with women and children will be swamped. Not a soul goes ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... planted in fat, loamy ground, to look at him. There was a healthy, liberal, lazy life for you! Yet the winter sky looked gray and dumb when he passed the window, and the fire-light broke fiercest against his bluff figure going to and fro. No matter; something there that would have warmed your heart to him: something genial, careless, big-natured, from the loose red hair to the indolent, portly stride. "Who knows? A comfortable, true-hearted, merry clergyman,—a jolly farmer, with open house, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... think much of striking my flag to your present force," responded bluff Samuel Tucker, who commanded the "Boston;" "for I have struck more of your flags than are now flying ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... and turned away." So you see, in that flotilla alone there was every variety of fight, from the ordered attacks of squadrons under control, to single ship affairs, every turn of which depended on the second's decision of the men concerned; endurance to the hopeless end; bluff and cunning; reckless advance and red-hot flight; clear vision and as much of blank bewilderment as the Senior Service permits its children to indulge in. That is not much. When a destroyer who has been dodging enemy torpedoes and gun-fire in the dark realises ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... descending. Delia Prince went out to the corner of the house and shaded her eyes to look at the sunset. The white clouds turned to a flaming red, and the reflection dyed to crimson the surface of the creeks; the sun descended toward the wooded bluff that flanked the bay, sent a thousand shattered, dazzling rays ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... gave a sudden bluff laugh when Fitz emerged on the little spidery bridge far above ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... regular way. How do I know if you own the ship even, or that the charter ain't busted long ago, or that you're being libelled ashore right now, or that you won't dump me on any old beach anywheres without a soo-markee of what's comin' to me? Howsoever"—he anticipated by a bluff of his own the show of wrath from the Jew that he knew would be wind and bluff—"howsoever, here's my papers ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... began Owen in his bluff, cheery way when they had retired to the study for coffee and cigars, "I am in a difficulty, I must ask you some questions that may embarrass you—it's the only ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... "Hold on there, Bluff Shipley! If you keep on falling all over yourself like that you'll have to take a whole week ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... waters, together with the warmth of a genial summer day, bespeak with eloquence the loving Mystery round about us. During the idle while I sat upon the sunny river brink, I grew somewhat, though my response be not so clearly manifest as in the green grass fringing the edge of the high bluff back of me. ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... right. Smoky did not flinch from rubbing, though he did lift his foot away from strange hands. They questioned Bud, who could offer no positive information on the subject, except that once he and Smoky had rolled down a bluff together, and Smoky had been ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... outstretched. He was a stout, brown-faced man of fifty, with muscles like iron and a mind all stuffed and tucked in with the glory of the United States. He was proud of the service he had passed the greater part of his life in, and was proud of the record for efficiency he had made. A kindly, bluff, seasoned old man of war, with soft blue ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... resent Charlton's manner—bluff, unceremonious, candid, at times rude. He treated women exactly as he treated men, and he treated all men as intimates, free and easy fellow travelers afoot upon a dusty, vulgar highway. She had found charm in that manner, ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... to the bluff with me? 'Twill be pleasant there this afternoon, and we could see the Polly if she chances to come into ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis
... and his party reached the junction of the San Juan with the Colorado, they might have found a large number of ancient dwellings in the cliffs not far away from where Bluff ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... man of moderate stature, who had lost the sight of one eye. The other, being covered with a green shade, gave him an ill look. His manner, however, was hearty, and showed a bluff, off-hand cordiality, as he welcomed the party to the hospitalities of the Travellers' Rest. He was familiarly called "Larry," by Fletcher, who greeted him like ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... and mossy piers of the old bridge. At a quick gallop Mr. Dunbar crossed the river, passed through the heart of the city, and slackened his pace only when he found himself opposite the cemetery, on the road leading to "Elm Bluff." As the iron gate closed behind him, he walked his horse, up the long avenue, and when he fastened him to the metal ring in the ancient poplar, which stood sentinel before the deserted House, the deep orange glow that ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... George was and had been essentially a sailor Prince; that he had in his younger days been open-handed, free, and possessed of a certain natural and bluff and pleasant geniality which was, however, quite different from the urbane, charming, courtly geniality of King Edward; that something of this characteristic had disappeared from public view after the death of his brother, the Duke of Clarence, and his own assumption of public duties ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... a seepage of broken-down chairs, peeling veneered tables, chromos pasted on wooden walls, and inefficient kerosene stoves. They were so thin-walled and so close together that you could—and did—hear a baby being spanked in the fifth cottage off. But they were set among elms and lindens on a bluff which looked across the lake to fields of ripened wheat sloping up ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... the stray cat at "Chez Nous" is never likely to get into the newspapers. On the other hand, lots of incidents which do get in never deserve to. It's all a question of head-lining, which is the bluff by which the public is induced to read matter ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... Lady Webling spread their hands and drew up their shoulders in surrender and gave up hope of bluff. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... believe a word of that! It was just a bluff to keep from seeming to need anything. So I smiled at her and said, 'That's all right, but suppose something happens this evening so he doesn't get here. I guess you'd better take the six sous—they won't hurt you any.' And I took hold of ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... sensible Englishmen, was a bluff, hearty sort of man, with a keen eye for the practical side of life and an equally keen enjoyment of every other, and it was not five minutes before he had located in his round head the precise standing and qualifications of every man ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... select and point out the places affording the most feasible route through the thick undergrowth, she slowly, and with no little personal inconvenience, made her way forward in the proposed direction, till she at length succeeded in reaching the desired station, which was the top of a low, woody bluff, commanding, from some portions of it, a near and distinct view of the hamlet, in the opening below, of which the intended reconnaissance was to be made. Bart, now assisting the maiden to dismount, and directing her attention to ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... with my boy," said the bluff city merchant. "Of one thing you may be assured, your scholarship won't be severely taxed in educating him. Walter is a pretty good boy, but he ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... the glance of old and young. Unlike the natives she was tall and fair; masses of golden hair encircled her oval face and clustered over her blue eyes. Who was she? Whence came she? None could answer. By degrees some of the boldest of the youths approached, but their bluff manners seemed to displease her; though unaccustomed to rebuffs they retired. One, however, among them fared differently. Jean Letocq, a member of the family to which the hero belonged who near this very spot discovered the sleeping troops ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... more than fifty houses, a few of them lodgings or humble cafes, but the greater part staid little whitewashed summer-dwellings with green verandas and occasional roof-balconies; set down irregularly, without street or system, along the sunny slopes of the bluff. Murray's Handbook for 1848 gives it passing notice, and disrespectfully styles it the dullest place upon earth for one having no resources of friends upon the spot. But in the modern edition of forty years later, the same manual has come to describe the place in a very different strain; ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... born to what destiny who shall tell? Watatic, and the neighboring hills in this State and in New Hampshire, are a continuation of the same elevated range on which we were standing. But that New Hampshire bluff,—that promontory of a State,—lowering day and night on this our State of Massachusetts, ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... old gentleman whose acquaintance we had made in an official visit on the previous day, as he was then the acting caimacam (mayor). His house was situated in a neighboring valley in the shadow of a towering bluff. We were ushered into the selamluek, or guest apartment, in company with an Armenian friend who had been educated as a doctor in America, and who had consented to act as ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... us, near twenty miles distant, lay a high hazy bluff, that was just visible. This was the western extremity of the Isle of Wight, and the end of our passage in the Hudson. A sloop of war was pointing her head in towards this bluff, and all the vessels in sight now began to take new forms, varying and increasing ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... scrap. These rustlers know they're caught now, and they may run for it. They can't get away with the steers, anyhow, without a fight. Of course if they get Babe covered—and us—they'll make their getaway, but he may bluff ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... night, you may remember, and afterwards I advised you to go into grand opera. A fellow with a voice like yours can't expect to have any secrets of his own." Bobby paused; then he added thoughtfully, "Life is bound to be a good deal of a bluff for us all." ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... tortured grey eyes—for a second only. Then the vision faded, and he was leaning back in the cab wiping the moisture from his forehead. God, would it never leave him! It haunted him. In the big bungalow on the Bluff; rising from the sea as he leaned on the steamer rail; during the long nights on the ship as he lay sleepless in the narrow brass cot; last night in the crowded railway carriage—then it had been so ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... all there is, and I help them grind it, to save injury to my mill. The wheat belongs to the neighborhood." "Where is there another mill?" "About three miles down the creek." Off our forager rode. He saw that money nor begging would prevail to get bread and determined on a bluff. The next mill had soldiers claiming all the wheat, but some of it was in boxes or bins. He called the miller out, and offered to pay for a couple of bushels. "It is not mine, said the miller, it belongs to people ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... formed against him in his own capital. The conspirators entered into negotiation with Clive, and he agreed to place Meer Jaffler, the head of the movement, upon the throne of Bengal. In his diplomacy Clive seems to have laid aside his character as a bluff soldier, and to have taken lessons from his wily and treacherous Indian foes. He intrigued and deceived until the last moment, when the conspiracy was ripe and ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... rushing torrents—drenched to the skin, on she passed toward the railroad to the well remembered foot-log, only to find the waters rushing along high above and beyond the place where it had been. Then she thought of the great bluff rising to the west of her home and extending southward toward the railroad track, and she determined to ascend it and reach the bridge over this barrier to the waters. Need I recount how she struggled on ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... approaching. She was dressed in white— that pure, transparent muslin in which her husband loved best to see her—and one large natural rose was fastened amidst her dark hair. As she drew nearer to the baronet and his friend, the bluff ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... sighted land; a wild and seemingly uninhabited stretch of the American coast. Rob made no effort to select a landing place, for he was nearly worn out with a strain and anxiety of the journey. He dropped his burden upon the brow of a high bluff overlooking the sea and, casting the vine from his shoulders, fell to the ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... crag, he saw redness glow in the face of a steep bluff. A cave mouth, a fire within—he hastened his steps, hungering for warmth, until he stood ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... Dubuque had ever seen, they told me, with cannon fired from the bluff at sunrise, a long parade, much speech-making, and a lot of wild drunkenness. The boatmen from the river boats started in to lick every railroad man they met, and as far as I could see, did so in ninety per cent. of the cases; but in the midst of a fight in which ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... just the way he had several years before when he had bluffed his way into a gigantic pot during a Washington poker game, with only a pair of fours to work with. At the last moment, his bluff had ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... to play, Ben, my boy," said the bluff old fellow. "Sometimes not too much to eat either, except fish and biscuit, and not much room to sleep in when you turn in to your hard wooden bunk and pull a rough blanket over you ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... care a damn. I feel like those fellows over in Russia, the revolutionist chaps I met, who didn't know if they'd croak in a month and didn't care one way or the other. But as a matter of fact," he added, "I think this time it's mainly bluff. They wanted to get us away from the crowd and keep us away while they broke the strike. Now that it's over you'll probably find they'll let us all off with light sentences. Of course the murder charge can't hold.... By the way," he ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... Congressional aspirations, which fact greatly annoyed the leaders of his political party, who had already selected as the Whig candidate E. D. Baker, afterward the gallant Colonel who fell so bravely and died such an honorable death on the battlefield of Ball's Bluff. ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... modified by a touch of doubt. I could see that these words, by lifting the accusation from the wholly absurd to the somewhat plausible, had impressed him. Once again I was gripped by the uneasy feeling that Sam had an unsuspected card to play. This might be bluff, but it had a ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... built upon it. For it was said that long ago, when wrecking was a profitable trade along the coast, and goodly vessels were frequently, by false lights, decoyed to their destruction, there was no more favorable point for the exercise of that systematic villainy than this rocky, high-lifted bluff. Projecting three or four hundred feet into the sea, with a gradually curved, sweeping line, it formed, to be sure, upon the one side, a limited anchorage—safe enough for those who knew it; but, upon the other side, it looked upon a waste of shoal, dotted, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... Merriam his face flushed a dark red. Then he shouted in his old, bluff way: "Hello, Merriam. Glad to see you. Didn't expect to find you out here. Quinby, this is my old friend Merriam, ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... eastern shore of the island of Baru as closely as the depth of water would permit; and when at length the wind failed he took advantage of its last expiring breath to run the boat in behind a small rocky, tree-crowned bluff, where she was not only completely hidden from sight, but where her crew enjoyed the further advantage of being sheltered from the too ardent rays of the sun. Here, having lowered their sails and moored the boat to a rock, they breakfasted comfortably ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... west the dwellings become fewer and fewer, until at last the village blends into a long stretch of sandy coast and scrubby pine-woods. Eastward the village ends abruptly at the foot of a windswept bluff, on which no ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... take care not to run around with married men whose incumbrances are in plain view of the audience.... Oh, I've seen lots of clever women in my time, but in the end they always took too much rope. Remember, you'll have your bluff ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... absolutely required, we again pushed on, anxious to find a safe camping-place for the night. Pierre led us to a spot which appeared as secure as we could desire, by the side of a broad stream of sufficient depth to afford us protection on that side, while a high knoll, with a bluff, would conceal our fire on the one side, and a thick wood on the other, leaving thus only one side towards the prairie. Thus, at all events, we had all the requirements for ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... of high half barren hills away ahead. Think this the ridge east of Michikamau. Hungry all the time. Down to 40 lbs. of flour, 8 lbs. tea, about 20 lbs. pea meal, a bit of sugar, bacon, baking powder and dried apple, just a bit of rice. Saw mountains ahead from a bluff just below our evening camp. River runs north apparently; it must therefore be Low's Northwest River I think. Mountains look high and rugged, 10 to 25 miles away. Ought to get good view of country from there, and get caribou and bear. Moccasins all rotten and ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... up leaped of a sudden the sun, deg.19 And against him the cattle stood black every one, 20 To stare through the mist at us galloping past, And I saw my stout galloper Roland, at last, With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff river ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... is termed, in nautical parlance, an "hermaphrodite brig," of about one hundred and fifty tons burden; and had been engaged, for some twelve or fifteen years, in the West India trade. This vessel could not with propriety be regarded as a model of grace and beauty, but gloried in bluff bows, a flat bottom, and a high quarter-deck; carried a large cargo for her tonnage, and moved heavily ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... called home was in a high corner of the Alaska building, where the western windows, overtopping other stone and brick blocks of the business center, commanded the harbor, caught like a faceted jewel between Duwamish Head and Magnolia Bluff, and a far sweep of the outer Sound set in wooded islands and the lofty snow peaks of the Olympic peninsula. Next to his summer camp in the open he liked this eyrie, and particularly he liked it at this hour of the night tide. He drew ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... thee! For many a merry hour we've known, And heard the chimes of midnight's tone. Cease, then, my friend! a moment cease, And leave these classic tomes in peace! Of Roman and of Grecian lore Sure mortal brain can hold no more. These ancients, as Noll Bluff might say, "Were pretty fellows in their day;" But time and tide o'er all prevail - On Christmas eve a Christmas tale, Of wonder and of war—"Profane! What! leave the loftier Latian strain, Her stately prose, her verse's charms, To hear the clash of rusty arms: In ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... be back until to-morrow, but I promised to pitch the bags into his granary," he said. "If I hump them up the trail here it will save us driving round through the bluff." ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... off up the bluff in search of the animals, which, when found, were treated in no very kindly manner by the sour faced, mosquito-bitten and generally disgusted tenderfoot, whose introduction into this new world was, apparently, taking ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... ne'er say die while there's life!" exclaimed the bluff old governor. "Ye have no positive proof that any one ye care for is dead or lost to ye. I tell ye, the mate of the Mary Jane found no one dead on board the vessel; and, as she had no boats remaining, it is just a plausible supposition that the survivors of the crew and the passengers may have ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... fortress in Bessarabia, captured from the Turks by Suvorov in 1790, after a peculiarly bloody siege. (Byron chose this episode for treatment in Don Juan, cantos vii and viii.) Mickiewicz makes Rykov give the name as Izmailov; Rykov is a bluff soldier, not ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... little one regarded at first with lofty contempt, but when she found they enabled her to run by her protector's side she was delighted. It was necessary to stop often and rest long, so our travelers made slow progress; but at noon, climbing a bluff which overlooked the river for miles in either direction, Pierre was delighted to find himself within two or three miles of the mouth. He marked, moreover, a short cut by which, taking advantage of the curve in the main river, he could cut off five or six miles and strike the banks of the Piziquid ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... bluff, cheerful voice of Captain Spark. "Heave up the anchor, brace around the yards, for we've got a good wind, a free ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... found not to answer, and Medina sandstone was finally adopted, with which all the stone paving of the streets has been since done. Within two or three years the Nicholson wood pavement has been introduced, and has been laid extensively on the streets above the bluff. On the low land along the river valley the paving still continues to be of stone. At the present time there are between seventeen and eighteen miles of pavement finished or under construction, about half of which is Nicholson wood pavement, ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... on the table. The Millionaire had once professed himself likely to be satisfied if the Iron King would only remove the fifth ace from his sleeve, and a certain coolness between the two men resulted. In general, however, he had the reputation of a frank, bluff fellow. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... limitless prairie straight on in front of me. I walked for days, and slept at night wherever I could find a bluff. I could hear the little grasses whispering when I lay half-awake, and it was comforting to know that there were leagues and leagues of them between me and the city. I drove a team for a farmer most of that season. Then I went on to a track that ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... a big, bluff fellow, to whose pride all that befell him seemed to minister. He was proud of his length of limb, and his hundred and eighty pounds of weight, and yet his slim appearance. "Ye wouldn't believe it now, would ye?" he was wont to say when he stepped ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the sun was red above the bluff where the curving line of cliffs end at the river's edge, she brought ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... be through psychology and molly-coddle stuff, We often talk in institutes, we've lost the power to bluff; Perhaps 'twas Pestalozzi, Froebel and John Herbart Who robbed the wand of Skinny of its pedagogic art; We'll not discuss philosophy, but we know about the chalk, That no theoretic dream of man can ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe
... other was perusing, with the aid of a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles, a small piece of parchment which lay before him. Mr. Limbkins was standing in front of the desk on one side; and Mr. Gamfield, with a partially washed face, on the other; while two or three bluff-looking men, in ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... whom he neglected shamefully, leaving her alone for weeks at a time. The baby's name was Eloise, and she was a great pet with Richard who was fond of children. At last, one day in autumn, the little Eloise, who had just learned to run alone, wandered off by herself to a bluff, or rock, or something, from which she fell into the river. The mother, Petrea, was close by, and her terrific shrieks brought Richard to the spot in time to save the child. He had not been well for several ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... had to come one time or another," said he. "The split was in the wood of their proposed platform of bluff and insincerity. 'What do the people say?' asks Jim Polk. 'What do they think?' asks John Calhoun. And being now, in God's providence; chosen to do some thinking ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... skies, the young man and the maiden drew near home. Apple Orchard smiled on them as they came, and the bluff Squire, seated upon the portico, and reading that "Virginia Gazette" maligned by Roundjacket, gave them welcome with a hearty, ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... the hard, bluff soldier, who has as much iron in his composition as any man of his time sprang one of those human surprises that even war fails to emulate—when he listened time after time to the record that he loved better than most music, "I know that my Redeemer ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... angrily, and old Neb, who had listened, stepped quickly up to him. "Marse Frank," he pleaded, "don' yo' let dat white-trash bluff yo'!" The old darkey's voice was tremulous, his eyes were moist with feeling for his humiliated master. A great resolve thrilled through him. "See heah, honey, I's be'n sabin' all mah life. I's got a pile o' money in de bank. ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... of glistering black And eyeballs white-rimmed fearfully, And nostrils red, and crests flying free; Who held them pawing at the verge, Tossing their spume up, as the surge Flung high against some seaward bluff. Nothing he spake, or smooth or gruff, But drave his errand, gazing down Upon the Maid, whose blown back gown Revealed her maiden. Still and proud Stood she among her nymphs, unbowed Her comely head, undimmed ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... old friend was a great blow to bluff Captain Cuttle, but, determined to do his part, he left his own lodgings and took up his place at the sign of the wooden midshipman to wait for news either of Walter or of ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... below: had I seen it nearer August, I'm sure it would have tempted me to waste a month among its solitudes. In winter nothing more dreary, in summer nothing more divine, than those glens shut in by hills, and those bluff, bold swells ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... not being thirsty, did not drink much. This is the first rock water-hole we have passed without finishing since we left Point Culver. After ten miles reached the cliffs, or Hampton Range, and had a splendid view of the Roe Plains, Wilson's Bluff looming in the distance, bearing North 77 degrees 30 ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... was led by the pilot to an introduction with Captain West. At the first glimpse I knew that he was no more a sea captain than the pilot was a pilot. I had seen the best of the breed, the captains of the liners, and he no more resembled them than did he resemble the bluff-faced, gruff-voiced skippers I had read about in books. By his side stood a woman, of whom little was to be seen and who made a warm and gorgeous blob of colour in the huge muff and boa of red fox in which she ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... cheerful, instead of quar'lin'. I made him come along to Maggy's cabin, to show it weren't a bluff ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips |
