"Bluff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... these faces are commonplace, with bourgeois cunning written on the heavy features; one is bluff, another stolid, a third bloated, a fourth stately. The sculptors have dealt fairly with all, and not one has the lineaments of utter baseness. To Cristoforo Solari's statues of Lodovico Sforza and his wife, Beatrice ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... vessel of about 300 tons burden, with bluff, rounded bows sitting high up out of the water, a long, straight waist, and a bridge and cluster of deckhouses ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... sometimes winding through narrow gorges where the soil was covered with an efflorescence of salt, at other places clambering over loose rocks and entering narrow glens, we arrived in a plain at the foot of the bold and bluff range of the Carpas mountains. The path led to a village almost concealed amongst dwarf-cypress and pines, at a spot where the ascent commenced to a deep gorge forming a gap between the heights upon either ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... of the day the Father was unable to control himself for any work whatsoever. He paced back and forth the length of his room; walked up and down the cloister surrounding the patio; wandered out around the garden, and even as far off as the bluff, a mile from the mission, from which could be seen the beach below, white with foam from the inrushing waves. It was many days before he regained his ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... kinds o' fol-de-rols. Then with frosty bells a-chime, Slidin' down the hills o' time, Right amidst the fun an' din Christmas come a-bustlin' in, Raised his cheery voice to call Out a welcome to us all; Hale and hearty, strong an' bluff, That was Christmas, sure enough. Snow knee-deep an' coastin' fine, Frozen mill-ponds all ashine, Seemin' jest to lay in wait, Beggin' you to come an' skate. An' you 'd git your gal an' go Stumpin' cheerily thro' the snow, Feelin' pleased an' skeert an' warm 'Cause ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... pointed to the left—the direction which I had intended to take. I could see through a break in the bluff a precipitous mountain spur running north and south—parallel with the ravine I had been threading. It certainly appeared impassable—trending along the sky like the escarpment of some gigantic fortress. If this was true, there would be but little chance of ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... after a short scrutiny declared the path practicable. Garey believed he could easily go up; and Rube in his terse way said, that his "jeints wa'nt so stiff yit;" only a month ago he had "clomd a wuss-lukin bluff ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... tactics for keeping discipline; tricks which they conceive as profoundly hidden from their underlings, and which are intimately known and discussed by those underlings.... There are the bosses who "bluff," those who lie, those who give good-fellowship or grave courtesy in lieu of wages. None of these was Mr. Wilkins. He was dully honest and clumsily paternal. But he was a roarer, a grumbler; he bawled and ordained, in order ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... ahead a gray rock protruding from the green foliage. It was ponderous, overhanging, and seemed to frown down on the river. This was Shawnee Rock. Joe looked long at the cliff, and wondered if there was now an Indian scout hidden behind the pines that skirted the edge. Prominent on the top of the bluff a large, dead tree projected its hoary, ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... and tears and whines? I must assume that they are bluff, That, as compared with your designs, You find our terms are easy stuff, And, with your tongue against your cheek, You'll sign the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... knowledge begins or leaves off, and so when he gets beyond routine conditions he begins to pretend—to make claims for which there is no justification, and to trust to luck and to ability to impose upon others—to "bluff." Moreover, he assumes that because he has learned one thing, he knows others—as the history of Athens showed that the common craftsmen thought they could manage household affairs, education, and politics, because they had learned to do the specific things of their ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... was invited by her successful daughter to repair to Wirtemberg but the harsh old lady responded by a bluff refusal and a command to Wilhelmine to return to virtue. She never visited Wirtemberg, and though she condescended to receive small sums from Friedrich Graevenitz, regardless of the fact that the money actually came from Wilhelmine, ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... of the bluff and gave a long, quavering cry which could be heard far in the still evening air. Instantly out of the group of jacals came a crowd of men and boys, who gave ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... to the ways of the Avenue and all that kind of thing, where would I be now, trying to run in the right kind of bluff ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... Ka-wai-kini. The name of a rocky bluff that stands on the side of Mount Wai-ale-ale, looking to Wailua. It as said to divide the flow from the great morass, the natural reservoir formed by the hollow at the top of the mountain, turning a part of ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... said the landlord; "but as they are gone, let them go on. What they have drank is not of much consequence." "What is the matter with you?" said I, staring at the landlord, who appeared strangely altered; his features were wild and haggard, his formerly bluff cheeks were considerably sunken in, and his figure had lost much of its plumpness. "Have you changed your religion already, and has the fellow in black commanded you to fast?" "I have not changed my religion ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... first presented himself to the Captain of the Hydrographer, the bluff skipper set the young man down as a college boy in search of sociological experience and therefore to be viewed with good-humored tolerance—good-humored, because Dan was six feet tall and had combative red-gold hair. His steel eyes were shaded by long straw-colored lashes; he had a fighting ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... had been easing their horses vaulted into the saddle. Away they all raced, following Baptiste westward through the foothills. The route was rough, but he fled straight across red sandstone ledges, some dropping six and seven feet, in the arroyos and draws, until he rounded to behind a bare bluff. ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... just as well have made it grow upon the banks of a river, upon some pretty bluff, where it might have seen the boats pass; or, better still, upon the mall in some garrison village, where it could have had the pleasure of listening twice a week to military music. But, no! it was written ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... conduct than one could well have imagined could have been rendered for anything done in life below. Another drawback in the case was, that one could never be very seriously angry with him. If more real than pretended at any time, his broad bright eye and bluff face, magnificently lifted up, like the sun on frost-work, melted down displeasure and threatened to betray all the policy depending on it; for in the main never a bit of ill heart had Colin, though doubtlessly he had in him, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... very much relieved when the Thompson family reached their home in Pine Bluff. Here I saw their slaves come to meet them for their baggage. They urged me to stop with them and spend a week or two, and they would take me out into the country to see some beautiful plantations, as they ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... make short work of it, General," he said, in his bluff, abrupt fashion. "It will come rattling about their heads, and they must take to the walls behind, and these will soon give way before a steady cannonade. Or if we take the cannon up to yonder heights of Rattlesnake Hill, we can fling our ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... him; his face, now calm, wore a look of hope and also a sort of pride. His eyes scanned the horizon with a glance of defiance; he listened for sounds in the air. It was now nine o'clock; the moon was beginning to cast its light upon the margin of the forest and to illumine the little bluff on which they stood. The position struck him as dangerous and he left it, fearful of being seen. But no suspicious noise troubled the peace of the beautiful valley encircled on this side by the forest of Nodesme. Marthe, exhausted and trembling, was awaiting some explanation ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... pair followed the constable in uniform, now hurrying ahead to ring for the elevator. The big, bluff, bullet-headed Superintendent was physically well fitted for his responsible position, though he combined with the official demeanor some of the easy-going characteristics of a country squire; but Charles Francois Furneaux was so ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... and eat them as drops; where there are such tens of thousands there is always some as is old or injured and can't keep up; besides, sometimes they get scared, and then they will run over a bluff and get piled up there dead by hundreds. The coyotes pick the bones of every beast as dies in the plains. The badgers helps them a bit; there are lots of those ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... the mill was once largely inhabited by Indians, for the foreman of the mill ranch declares that he has hauled from the adjacent bluff as many stone pestles and mortars, metates and grinders as ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... actual or feigned, about getting coal; but why the large expense was incurred of passing through the canal, merely to double the amount by returning, is beyond understanding. It may have been simply to carry bluff to the extreme point; but it is difficult not to suspect some motive not yet revealed, and perhaps never ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... principles of journalism. Do you suppose I'm going to do anything to spoil a half-column of leaded brevier copy—from an eye-witness, too? No; it's a square enough fight as it stands. We must look out for the woman, and not let Tournelli get an unfair drop on Hays. That is, if the whole thing isn't a bluff." ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Fraser?" cried the newcomer as he jumped off his horse and hurried up to her with outstretched hand and an eager light in his eyes; "this is a pleasant surprise. I was on my way to see your father, and when riding along the beach below caught sight of your filly feeding on the bluff. I knew that it could be no one but you who would camp here, so instead of going on to Fraser's Gully, I turned off; and ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... "Be bluff an' bullyin' he gits th' wor-rk out av th' crew; but av ut wasn't that Misther Appleton lets um pay a bit over goin' wages, he'd have no crew, fer th' men hate um fer ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... the trader was beginning to feel that he had done pretty well for the family already; but he kept up the appearance of bluff good ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... was only a bluff of Hank's to make me ride along so he and his pal might follow us. I haven't the least doubt but that both of those cowardly rascals are hiding just out of sight where they can watch my every movement. Should we start to ride along towards the cave, they would follow and shoot us from the ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... witnesses ready to give evidence regarding all that passed between you and the unfortunate girl supposed to be your niece during your midnight calls upon her," I interposed, speaking for the first time, "so bluff or pretence of any kind on your part is unavailing. Remain silent and hear what we intend ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... harbors: Bluefields, Corinto, El Bluff, Puerto Cabezas, Puerto Sandino, Rama, San ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... a heavy step in the passageway outside, and then a lighter one. The next moment the door opened and I saw my mother, more pale and fairy-like than ever, and behind her came Captain Ramsay, bluff and hearty, but looking very solemn at that moment. But they saw the news on Mrs. McLean's good-natured face, and when I spoke to my lady, the old-time happy look came back again, as she came to my bedside and kissed me, while the great voice of the ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... wain—rejoicing—in a simple honest fashion. A little simple drunkenness, a little frank love-making, to conclude ... poor dear Lady Wondershoot—she didn't like these Innovations. Very conservative, poor dear lady! A touch of the eighteenth century about her, I always Said. Her language for example ... Bluff vigour ... ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... upon the sorry choice of arousing a search by hiding where he was or going back to bluff ...
— The Talkative Tree • Horace Brown Fyfe
... Verschiedenes, Logis, Feuerung, Bediente. I must be allowed to add, that the head waiter of the Waldhorn, or Hunting Horn, was one of the most respectably looking, and well-mannered, of his species. He spoke French fluently, but with the usual German accent. The master of the inn was coarse and bluff, but bustling and civil. He frequently devoted one of the best rooms in his house to large, roaring, singing, parties—in which he took a decided lead, and kept it up till ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... has been in charge of five different sextons during its existence. Mr. McFarlane was its caretaker in its early years. Owing to his bluff manner he was never very popular with the young people, and one instance I shall never forget. One evening Charles Dickens was to lecture in the church. As the price of the tickets was from one to two dollars, there were not many of the boys at that time who could afford to pay it. ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold
... a pity! WHAT a pity! (Dropping his sarcastic tone and facing him suddenly and seriously) Do you at all realize, sir, that we have nothing standing between us and destruction but our own bluff and the sheepishness of these colonists? They are men of the same English stock as ourselves: six to one of us (repeating it emphatically), six to one, sir; and nearly half our troops are Hessians, Brunswickers, German dragoons, and ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... accompany him to land, I refuse to walk beside him and stand before King Mark, unless he have before, as is fit and becoming, sued for forgiveness and forgetfulness of an unexpiated fault. Let him hope these from my grace!"—"Be quite sure that I shall tell him!" the bluff serving-man replies, turning to go: "Now wait and see ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... all spirit of fun in the contest, even to Slivers, who strove, however, to see it through in a bluff, rough-hearted way. ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... "It's all bluff. I know nothing," said Mrs. Jasher, releasing his arm and throwing herself on the couch. "I only ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... which is an expansion of the Illinois. The site is one of the first in our land. The ground rises with a delightful slope from the water's edge for the distance of half a mile—then there is table land for another half mile back to a high bluff. The town began to be built about two years since; it has now a population of eight hundred ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... belt of Orion as a company of Greenlanders placed there because they could not find the way to their own country. Black Bird, the redoubtable chief of the O Ma Haws, when dying, said to his people, "Bury me on yonder lofty bluff on the banks of the Missouri, where I can see the men and boats passing by on the river." 43 Accordingly, as ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... gillie?" It was a shaggy-browed, bluff Scotchman, who evidently took me in my tartan disguise for a Highland lad. Whether he meant, "How are you," or "Who are you," I was not certain. Afraid my tongue might betray me, I muttered back an indistinct response. The Scot was either ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... your way through ticklish situations; that I know. You are looking back on troubles past and gone; Now, turn the tables, and as you have fought and won before, Just BLUFF YOURSELF to keep on holding on! (Try it once.) Just bluff YOURSELF ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... alluding to the gamblers, "are mighty sharp in the eye, and like as not they'd see through my little game, and then where'd my reputation be? Speaking of the boys reminds me of Harry Genang, that cleaned out that rich Kentucky planter at bluff one night, and then swore off gambling for life, and gave a good-by supper aboard the boat. 'Twas just at the time when Prince Imperial Champagne came out, and the whole supper was made of that splendid stuff. I guess ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... you, and—" Miss Adair agreed, with the tears dried by the anger and a degree of sanity returning at Mr. Vandeford's skilful appeal to her generosity, which he made when he saw that his attempt to bluff her about calling off the play had failed. Mr. William Rooney came into the box. His hat was tilted on the back of his head and in the corner of his mouth was a large cigar, which he was chewing ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... preparing the designs and superintending the construction of the new parish church of St. Mary Magdalen at Bridgenorth. It stands at the end of Castle Street, near to the old ruined fortress perched upon the bold red sandstone bluff on which the upper part of the town is built. The situation of the church is very fine, and an extensive view of the beautiful vale of the Severn is obtained from it. Telford's design is by no means striking; "being," as he said, "a regular ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... church was damp and chill. It was rainin. The only persons there when I entered was a fine bluff old gentleman who was talking in a excited manner to a fashnibly ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 5 • Charles Farrar Browne
... Mississippi which enters that stream below the Des Moyens, and intended to take his son with him. As Black Hawk was approaching his village on Rock river, after his campaign on the lakes with Dixon, he observed a smoke rising from a hollow in the bluff of the stream. He went to see who was there. Upon drawing near to the fire, he discovered a mat stretched, and an old man of sorrowful aspect sitting under it, alone, and evidently humbling himself before the Great Spirit, by fasting and prayer. ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... Rose, how shall I tell it? Freddie is dead, and Ritchie sorely wounded—both in that dreadful, dreadful battle of Ball's Bluff; both shot while trying to swim the river. Freddie killed instantly by a bullet in his brain, but Ritchie swam to shore, dragging Fred's body with him; then fainted from fatigue, ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... the boat by name, knowing her voice: "It's the Bessie May Brown!" They started on a run to the bluff overlooking the river, their short legs making a full mile ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... force. One man power. Same principle in training lions. Same principle. If a lion-tamer went into a cage of ten lions with ten men, he'd have trouble on his hands from the jump; but he can go alone and bluff 'em. Same principle here. If I could get into the middle of that bunch over there without their seeing me until I was there, I'd scare them out of ten years' growth. How to ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... 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 ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... he knows—where'er it be, On low Cape Cod or bluff Cape Ann— With straining eyes that search the sea A watching woman waits her man: He knows it, and his love is deep, But work is work, and bread is bread, And though men drown and women weep The hungry ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... shall turn in any yard in all Chicago with the morrow's sun," said Elmendorf, slyly and jeeringly exultant in the presence and hearing of officers and clerks at the Pullman building late that night. "The managers have played their last card, made their last bluff. The State and the city virtually tell them that it is their own fight, with their own men, men whom they have systematically browbeaten, bullied, swindled, and starved until now the worm has turned. At last you see the beginning of the end, ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... the virtuous person, "all this is as little to the purpose as the peacock. I believe because I see the right is great and must prevail; and this Fakeer might carry on with his conjuring tricks till doomsday, and it would not play bluff upon a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as he can crawl in the grass or brushwood, and steal silently upon him by surprise, or send a shaft from his bow from behind a tree, or a bullet from his rifle from the brow of a bluff, he has an advantage; but, when he comes face to face with the white man, he is superstitiously afraid of him. The power of the white man, in war, is that of bravery and skill; the power of the red man consists much in stratagem and surprise. ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... exacerbate, convulse, infuriate, madden, lash into fury; fan the flame; add fuel to the flame, pour oil on the fire, oleum addere camino[Lat]. explode; let fly, fly off; discharge, detonate, set off, detonize[obs3], fulminate. Adj. violent, vehement; warm; acute, sharp; rough, rude, ungentle, bluff, boisterous, wild; brusque, abrupt, waspish; impetuous; rampant. turbulent; disorderly; blustering, raging &c. v.; troublous[obs3], riotous; tumultuary[obs3], tumultuous; obstreperous, uproarious; extravagant; unmitigated; ravening, inextinguishable, tameless; frenzied &c. (insane) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... leaped of a sudden the sun, And against him the cattle stood black every one, 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 headland its spray; ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... shall never feel again:—Khartoumn, Gallipoli, Shallufa, Suez, Ashton-in-Sinai, Coxyde, Nieuport, Aire, Bethune, Ypres, Bucquoy, Havrincourt. When we are very old, many of us will still conjure up the tune of "Keep the Home Fires Burning" on the lips of tired men beneath the stars on Geoghegan's Bluff; the thud of the shovel falling upon the sand ridges of Sinai while a blazing sun rose over Asia; the refrain of "Annie Laurie" sung by candle-light in some high roofed barn behind ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... left him. We know he was fond of quoting those incomparable poets, Homer, at great length, and that he was prominent in the 'papyrus-craze.' Indeed, he inspired Society with a love of something more than mere pleasure, a love of the 'humaner delights.' He was a giver of tone. At his coming, the bluff, disgusting ways of the Tom and Jerry period gave way to those florid graces that ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... the time I mention, gathered up like a ball opposite a small, low window that looked upon the bluff headlands now fast becoming dim and misty as the night approached. He was apparently in low spirits, and hummed in a species of low, droning voice, the following ballad, at the end of each verse of which came an Irish chorus which, to the erudite in such matters, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... replied Tom, boldly, and in that peculiarly bluff manner which is almost always good evidence ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... 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 it ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... of the barque Fernandina. They made valuable suggestions in regard to the different rivers along the coast, and gave vivid descriptions of the last previous trip up the St. Mary's undertaken by Captain Stevens, U.S.N., in the gunboat Ottawa, when he had to fight his way past batteries at every bluff in descending the narrow and rapid stream. I was warned that no resistance would be offered to the ascent, but only to our return; and was further cautioned against the mistake, then common, of underrating the courage of the Rebels. "It proved impossible to dislodge ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... 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 that its size was such as not ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... (contrary to McClellan's orders) across the Potomac, was repulsed by General Evans at Ball's Bluff with heavy loss; and mismanagement and misconduct were so evident that the defeat did ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... chief was seated, and had an excellent opportunity of observing him. I have seldom seen any man who was less like my idea of a brigand, and especially of a brigand with such a reputation that in a land of cruelty he had earned so dark a nickname. His face was bluff and broad and bland, with ruddy cheeks and comfortable little tufts of side-whiskers, which gave him the appearance of a well-to-do grocer of the Rue St Antoine. He had not any of those flaring sashes or gleaming weapons which distinguished his followers, but on the contrary ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and simple, where the animal's colour, form, or attitude becomes like that of its habitat. In which case the animal becomes one with its environment and thus is enabled to go about unnoticed by its enemies or by its prey. The other way is that of bluff, and it includes all inoffensive animals which are capable of assuming attitudes and colours that terrify and frighten. The colours in some cases are really of warning pattern, yet they cannot be considered mimetic unless they ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... what he felt. He rolled it over luxuriously as the next of delights to having her beside him.—She wrote of; 'Thoughts that are bare dark outlines, coloured by some odd passion of the soul, like towers of a distant city seen in the funeral waste of day.'—His bluff English anti-poetic training would have caused him to shrug at the stuff coming from another pen: he might condescendingly have criticized it, with a sneer embalmed in humour. The words were hers; she had written them; almost by a sort of anticipation, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a bluff overhanging the majestic, slow-winding Ohio, the colonel's cabin afforded a commanding position from which to view the picturesque valley. Sheppard's eye first caught the outline of the huge, bold, ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... of the tops, and to observe the figure of the brig springing black and trembling out of the head of a surge that had broken over and smothered her as in a cauldron, and to note the shapes of the nearer liquid acclivities as they bore down upon our weather bow, catching the brig fair under the bluff, and so sloping her that she seemed to stand end on, and so heeling her that the sea would wash to the height of the main hatch. Indeed, had she been loaded, and therefore deep, she could not have lived an hour in that hollow and frightful ocean; but having nothing in her but ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... about nine leagues distance, and it appeared like a cape or head of land. The sea breeze this day was not so strong as the day before, and it veered out more, so that we had a fair wind to run in with to the shore, and at sunset anchored in twenty fathom, clean sand, about five leagues from the Bluff point, which was not a cape (as it appeared at a great distance), but the easternmost end of an island about five or six leagues in length, and one in breadth. There were three or four rocky islands about a league from us, between us ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... This unexpected proceeding had the intended effect; for Ssu-ma I, suspecting an ambush, actually drew off his army and retreated. What Sun Tzu is advocating here, therefore, is nothing more nor less than the timely use of "bluff."] ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... 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
... needs dry up; the cows had not a drop of water to slake their thirst and they almost stopped giving milk. So when I was hard at it in the woods the mother went off to the river with a pail in either hand, and climbed the steep bluff eight or ten times together with these brimming, and her feet that slipped back in the running sand, till she had filled a barrel; and when the barrel was full she got it on a wheelbarrow, and wheeled it off herself to empty it into the ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... very act of obedience she straightened again. "It's bluff," she said. "I'm going through that door!" Straight for the door she went, and Ronicky Doone set ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... here, Mary, about five times as large as anywhere else," answered the bluff colonel. "But what say, young man, to going up on the frontier with me, and seeing a bit of soldier life? You'd get to see the whole elephant ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... bounds brought him to the shore. There was no beach at the spot. The bank—a limestone bluff—rose steeply from the water's edge to a height of eight feet, and the lake under it was several fathoms in depth. The buck did not hesitate, but sprang outward and downwards. A heavy plash followed, and ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... Pay; to be called Captain, noble Captain, to show, to cock and look big, and bluff as I do: to be bow'd to thus as we pass, to domineer and beat our Soldiers: Fight, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... bluff Captain himself, with his unfathomable sea-craft and his autocratic power, a regular old Viking such as you might read of in your history books, but would hardly expect to meet with in the flesh? And was there not a real Italian ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... piece of bluff. Boy Woodburn, in spite of her anger, marked it down to the credit side of the lad's account. When he was collared, Albert Edward kept his head. That would help him one day when he was caught in a squeeze in a big race and had to jockey ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... scared," she said in a quick undertone. "It's forty years since he served the Diva, and he only stayed a month. I merely exploited him musically to bluff off the Class Beauty. Hush! here they are, large as life. Now, warble your prettiest, for Mrs. Eitel really knows good stuff when ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... armed; the "Pawnee," the heaviest of the fleet, 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
... feet that amazing chair behaved in a manner wholly unusual and startling; relieved of strain, the springs snapped and whined, there was a violent oscillation of the back, a shudder convulsed the thing, and it sprang after him, much as a tame rabbit thumps its feet upon the ground in an effort to bluff a kitten. ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... his breath. Presently he asked: "Where does that branch take you to?" He nodded toward the bayou at the foot of the terraced bluff. ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... breakfast in spite of the protests and entreaties of every one, including her grandfather, down whose wrinkled cheeks the tears had fallen unashamed. With a high head and her best wilful manner she had presented to them all in that old house the bluff of easy-mindedness only to burst like a bubble as soon as the car had turned the corner into the main road. She had gone to the little house in New York, and with a numbed heart and a constant pain in her soul, ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... poor heart into as many pieces as the man in the front of the almanac—will but desist for a moment from such butcher's work and do their proper duty, you will have little trouble in finding the bluff soldier you seek." ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... at Beverly Farms was on a bluff overlooking the sea. It was reached by a long avenue winding through pines mingled with birches and rowan trees; and stood in a clearing where all the day and all the night the sound of the waves on the cliff answered the whispering ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... 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 and ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... and Bunco, having cut off the best parts of the animals they had killed, made their encampment on the highest bluff they could find near the lake, and prepared supper; looking out now and then for their absent comrades. As the evening wore on they became anxious, and went out to search for them, but it was not till the following morning that they were discovered, almost ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... Some may ask why I committed such a rash act. There was no particular reason for doing such a thing except I happened to be looking out into the yard from the second floor of the newly-built school house, when one of my classmates, joking, shouted at me; "Say, you big bluff, I'll bet you can't jump down from there! O, you chicken-heart, ha, ha!" So I jumped down. The janitor of the school had to carry me home on his back, and when my father saw me, he yelled derisively, "What a fellow you are to go and get your bones dislocated ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... that is most frequently described is that known as the Basket trick, which is in my opinion the chef d'oeuvre of the Indian Jadoo-wallah. It is a wonderful bluff usually ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... 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 ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... she assented. "I'm perfectly certain all this cocksure Johnny-head-in-air business, 'sail to-day and see you again at tea tomorrow, so it's not worth while saying good-by'—you know the style?—is fatuous and idiotic. It is not bluff, because the English officer-man doesn't bluff. He hasn't the brains, to begin with, and then he is a very sound sort of an animal. He doesn't need to hide his fright for the simple reason that he's not frightened. A friend of mine ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... sufficiently complex in color, passion and character to furnish material for an exciting spectacular representation. The tragic element is strong, but supported and shaded by the company of roysterers, a jester, whose foolery is a compound of bluff of that period and bluff of modern politics and athletics. The jester, the black company and the penitents, together with the roysterers, form now the foreground, now the background, of action, which in itself is never ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... compliments, each apparently able to move off under his own steam, "Beat it for all you're worth while the goin' is good. There, he's lifted his crate in one big pull an' I kinder guess he ain't hurt much either, else he couldn't show so much steam. Wall, here Perk's been left in possession, after all that bluff he put up. But it sure was a dandy jig while ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... gathering under a cottonwood somehow ceased when Mr. Bulger was seen gravely approaching, and his casual stopping before a poker party in the gulch actually caused one of the most reckless gamblers to weakly recede from "a bluff" and allow his adversary to sweep the board. After this it was felt that matters were becoming serious. There was no subsequent patrolling of the camp before the stranger's cabin. Their curiosity was singularly abated. A general feeling of repulsion, kept within bounds partly by the absence of any ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... in June, 1769, the figure of a stalwart, broad shouldered man could have been seen standing on the wild and rugged promontory which rears its rocky bluff high above the Ohio river, at a point near the mouth of Wheeling Creek. He was alone save for the companionship of a deerhound that crouched at his feet. As he leaned on a long rifle, contemplating the glorious scene that stretched before him, a smile ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... to the north of west from the hills near our depot. Crossing the sandy ridge bounding the basin of the lake, I was surprised to see its bed apparently much contracted, and the opposite shore distinctly visible, high, rocky and bluff to the edge of the water, seemingly only seven or eight miles distant, and with several small islands or rocks scattered over its surface. This was however only deceptive, and caused by the very refractive state of the atmosphere at the time, for upon dismounting and leading the horses ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... with portentous deliberation—"Or no, first I must explain something. You see, in bringing out a company, you can't put up too stout a bluff. I mean, you've got to behave as if you were rolling in wealth—as if everything was coming your way, and fortunes were to be made by fastening to you. I don't know that it often fools anybody very much, ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... had circulated round the table that he was X. Y., he was listened to with a profound respect, which greatly elevated his spirits. Nay, when the wit tried once to show him up or mystify him, Dick answered with a bluff spirit, that, though very coarse, was found so humorous by Lord Spendquick and other gentlemen similarly situated in the money-market that they turned the laugh against the wit, and silenced him ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... him savagely back into his seat. "Yes—you cur!" he said again. "You got your first fright when you found those evidences of suicide were gone—you even lost your nerve a little in your bluff with the bank examiners—and you hurried here the moment you could get away from the preliminary police investigation that followed—I was even afraid you might get here a little sooner than you did. Shall I give you the details of this afternoon and ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... the buck would wait where he was, even if not alarmed, for the time necessary to afford a good shot for his enemy. It was some whim that had led him out upon the top of the towering bluff, where he was in view of the young hunters. It is not to be supposed that his kind appreciate such a thing as beauty in a landscape or scene spread before them, and yet the action of the buck almost indicated something of that nature; for he stood motionless, minute after minute, as if absorbed, ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis |
