"Bland" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pink, silk, and conservatively V, she was a careful management's last bland ingredient to an evening that might leave too Cayenne ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... a happy connection with which Mr. Pitman aspired and which had thus sailed, with placid majesty, into their troubled waters. She was clearly not shy, Mrs. David E. Drack, yet neither was she ominously bold; she was bland and "good," Julia made sure at a glance, and of a large complacency, as the good and the bland are apt to be—a large complacency, a large sentimentality, a large innocent, elephantine archness: she fairly rioted in that dimension of size. Habited in an extraordinary quantity of stiff ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... be changed. All the pleasing illusions, which made power gentle, and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of life is ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... a bland, blue-eyed bystander who had just joined the charmed circle, he murmured, invitingly: "Better try your luck, Olaf. It's Danish dice—three chances to win and ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... right, looking down, where the "Autocrat" used to sit. At the further end sits the Landlady. At the head of the table, just now, the Koh-i-noor, or the gentleman with the diamond. Opposite me is a Venerable Gentleman with a bland countenance, who as yet has spoken little. The Divinity Student is my neighbor on the right,—and further down, that Young Fellow of whom I have repeatedly spoken. The Landlady's Daughter sits near the Koh-i-noor, as I said. The Poor Relation near the Landlady. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... tell you, my charming friend," resumed M. Baleinier, in a bland tone, "that if I remind you of this circumstance, it is only to offer you my services, in case they should be required. If not—and there is the shadow of impropriety in letting me know more—forget that I have said ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... heart. A fly there is, not ignominious, or of cowdab origin, neither gross and heavy-bodied, from cradlehood of slimy stones, nor yet of menacing aspect and suggesting deeds of poison, but elegant, bland, and of sunny nature, and obviously good to eat. Him or her—why quest we which?—the shepherd of the dale, contemptuous of gender, except in his own species, has called, and as long as they two coexist will call, the "Yellow Sally." A fly that does not waste the day in giddy dances and the fervid ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... lady took it very coolly, reminding him of how often he had grown tired of a hot concert-room. Then he resolved to go and made arrangements accordingly, his mother smiling sweetly all the time. When all was settled, and he had quitted the room, my lady laughed quietly. It was wonderful with what bland sweetness and fine tact she managed men. She could lead her son as though he were deaf, blind, and dumb, yet of all men he believed himself most firm and secure in ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... back, swaying and moving his thick eyebrows. It was a sad song, full of autumnal atmosphere, a delicate and sensual caress of sorrow. The handsome composer and the lusty musical critic listened to it, watched the singer with a sort of bland contempt. But when he threw away his cigarette and sang Le Retour de Madame Blague, an outrageous trifle, full of biting esprit and insolent wit, with a refrain like the hum of Paris by night, and a long bouche fermee effect at the end, even they joined in the laughter and the applause, though ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... the house of Clarke was engaged in breaking stained-glass windows in Calvary Alley, his mother was at home entertaining the bishop with a recital of his virtues and accomplishments. Considering the fact that Bishop Bland's dislike for children was notorious, he was bearing the present ordeal ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... what way it justified its reputation for supremacy over the East End of London and the Montmartre of Paris; and although pockets usually were picked, no violence was offered if the detectives maintained a bland air of detachment. They did not even resent the cologne-drenched handkerchiefs the visitors invariably held to their noses. As evil odors meant nothing to them, they probably mistook the gesture ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... heart, a martial pride, As if a baron's crest he wore, And sheathed in armor bode the shore. Slighting the petty need he showed, He told of his benighted road; His ready speech flowed fair and free, In phrase of gentlest courtesy, Yet seemed that tone and gesture bland Less used ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... was in October, and a lovely day it was, warm and bland as June. There was something in the fine, elusive air, that recalled beautiful, forgotten things and suggested delicate future hopes. The woods had wrapped fine-woven gossamers about them and the westering hill ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... outlay. The parish must do its part, and it was called on to do so in modes that did not add to the Rector's popularity. Moreover, the arrangements were on the principle of getting as much as possible out of everybody, and no official failed to feel the pinch. The Rector was as bland, gentle, and obliging as ever; but he seldom transacted any affairs that he could help; and in the six years that had elapsed since the marriage, every person connected with the church ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with President Eliot which seemed to him almost as American as the talk about diplomacy with his father ten years before. "But, Mr. President," urged Adams, "I know nothing about Mediaeval History." With the courteous manner and bland smile so familiar for the next generation of Americans Mr. Eliot mildly but firmly replied, "If you will point out to me any one who knows more, Mr. Adams, I will appoint him." The answer was neither logical nor convincing, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... descended to the breakfast room on the morning following her arrival in Sequoia, the first glance at her uncle's stately countenance informed her that during the night something had occurred to irritate Colonel Seth Pennington and startle him out of his customary bland composure. He greeted her politely but coldly, and without even the perfunctory formality of inquiring how she had passed the night, he came ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... soon with its bloom will the earth be gay, For the air is bland as the breath of May; Sunshine and buds and all glorious things Will give to ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... people as I think no other folk on earth understand them. That's your great strength," he said, addressing himself entirely to Frank. "Now, in a business matter I might, though I'm by no means sure of it, get the better of you." His eyes were bland and frank as he spoke. "But where you would always have the advantage is in knowing the people you may trust. It's a great gift that. The greatest knowledge of all is to know people, and it seems to be an instinct with ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... the foreign representative of Miss Decima at the Criterion, is uncommonly childlike and bland; moreover, she sings charmingly; while of Mr. DAVID JAMES as the pastor Jackson it may be said, "Sure such a pere was never seen!" The Irishman, Mr. CHAUNCEY OLCOTT, has a mighty purty voice, and gains a hearty encore for a ditty of which the music is not particularly ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... few days after Hycy's rejection by Miss Clinton, they were all at breakfast, "the accomplished" being in one of his musical and polite moods, his father bland but sarcastic, and Edward in a state of actual pain on witnessing the wilful disrespect or rather contempt that was implied by Hycy towards his parents. "Well, Ned," said his father, "didn't we spend a pleasant evenin' in Gerald Cavanagh's ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... with her hands. Several physicians who had been interested in the case had found the symptoms strongly suggestive of brain-tumor. There were, however, certain unmistakable earmarks of hysteria, such as childlike bland indifference to the awkwardness of the gait which was a grotesque caricature of several brain and spinal-cord diseases, with no accurate picture of any single one. This was evidently a case, not of actual loss ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... dressed in mourning. He is a man of sixty-three, of commanding presence, with a head resembling that of Alexandre Dumas Fils in the portrait by Meissonier, and a bland, florid manner. He seems to derive much satisfaction from listening to the ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... rousing himself from his apathy; he whispered to his lawyer, who nodded with a bland smile of encouragement. The employes of the Hotel Cecil gave evidence as to the arrival of Mr. Smethurst at about 9.30 p.m. on Wednesday, December the 10th, in a cab, with a quantity of luggage; and this closed the ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... St. Omer's into Latin, and played by their pupils. Of this version a copy was sent to Mr. Addison: it is to be wished that it could be found, for the sake of comparing their version of the soliloquy with that of Bland. ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... the veil was drawn. Was it last night only that Falbe had played the Variations, and that they had acted charades? Francis proceeded in bland unconsciousness. ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... in that season of the year when fields smell of young grass, the Duke of Gloucester sent for Edward Maudelain. The court was then at Windsor. The priest came quickly to his patron. He found the Duke in company with the King's other uncle Edmund of York and bland Harry of Derby, who was John of Gaunt's oldest son, and in consequence the King's cousin. Each was a proud and handsome man: Derby alone (who was afterward King of England) had inherited the squint that distinguished this family. To-day Gloucester was gnawing at his finger nails, ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... moor. The white riband of road disappeared over Grey's Bridge a quarter of a mile off, to plunge into innumerable rustic windings, shy shades, and solitary undulations up hill and down dale for one hundred and twenty miles till it exhibited itself at Hyde Park Corner as a smooth bland surface in touch with a ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... above-mentioned hotel, where they had previously engaged apartments. During the afternoon Knight had been to his lodgings at Richmond to make a little change in the nature of his baggage; and on coming up again there was never ushered by a bland waiter into a comfortable room a happier man than Knight when shown to where Elfride and her step-mother were sitting after ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... for lobster and squabs weekly, came to Pardee's when he wanted a real meal. From the first they charged one dollar and fifty cents for their dinners. Okoochee, made mellow by the steaming soup, the savoury meats, the bland sauces and rich dessert, paid it ungrudgingly. They served only eighteen—no more, though Okoochee could never understand why. On each dinner Mrs. Pardee made a minimum of seventy-five cents. Eighteen times seventy-five ... naught and carry ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... sand; but a bag filled with saffron, it was irresistible! Though my father had two to one against him, they could not stand such a deuce of a weapon. And after tats and pishes innumerable from Mr. Trevanion, and sundry bland grimaces from Sir Sedley Beaudesert, they fairly gave in, though they would not own ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... A bland old man with clean-shaven mouth seemed to be the proper source of information, and to him Harold ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... to attract his attention and his voice trailed off. He inspected this for some time with bland interest, then turned to Adams ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... point of view," said Bland, "it's most interesting. The usual thing is for one army to clear out of a town before the other comes in or else to surrender after a regular ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... first Norwegian translation of Shakespeare. Hauge and Lassen, to say nothing of the translator of 1818, are curtly dismissed from Norwegian literature. They belong to Denmark. This might be true if it were not for the bland assumption that nothing is really Norwegian except what is written in the dialect of a particular group of Norwegians. The fundamental error of the "Maalstraevere" is the inability to comprehend the simple fact that language has no natural, instinctive ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... was packed. Sarakoff and I got seats in the front row of the gallery. Sir Jeremy Jones, a large bland man, with beautiful silver grey hair, wearing evening dress, and pince-nez, stood up on the platform amid a buzz of talk. The short outburst of clapping soon ceased and ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... freely let our hearts expand, 25 Freely as in youth's season bland, When side by side, his Book in hand, We wont to stray, Our pleasure varying at command Of each ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... Chancellor Bland referred often to the "largehearted Christian gentlemen who gave of their substance to promote the moral and educational life of the state." But Jeff knew that many believed Frome and Merrill to be no better than robbers on a large scale. ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... time. Not long afterwards a third-class railway mail clerk, with a salary of $500 a year, got into similar trouble. 'What shall be done with this man?' asked Macdonald at the Council Board. There was a moment's pause, which was broken by the bland {148} suggestion from Thompson that, 'following precedent, he ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... principle, the trisyllabic Tin-tun-ling must have been without much honour in his own country. In Paris, however, he has learned Parisian aplomb, and when confronted with his judges and his accusers, his air, we learn, "was very calm." "His smile it was pensive and bland," like the Heathen Chinee's, and his calm confidence was justified by events. It remains to tell the short, though not very simple, tale of Tin-tun-ling. Mr. Ling was born in 1831, in the province of Chan-li. At the interesting age of eighteen, ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... able to converse upon the matter in a calm and rational manner. We finally decided that my father should read the letter to Mr. Almont upon his return, and see what effect it would produce upon him. Three days later he came. He entered our dwelling and accosted us with his usual bland and smiling manner. In a short time, my father turned and said,—'During your absence, Mr. Almont, my daughter has received a most unaccountable letter which I wish to read to you, hoping you may be able to explain it.' The paleness which overspread his countenance on hearing my father's ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... crossed Mrs. Peyton's indignant flight; and an hour later Kate, in the bland candle-light of the dinner-hour, sat listening with practised fortitude to her father's comments ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... and Disease, by J. Bland Sutton, to whom and to our mutual friend Dr. D. Thurston I am indebted ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... clear Of mouths as lorn as is the rose That under water doth disclose, Amid her crimson petals torn, A heart as golden as the morn; And here are tresses languorous As the weeds wander over us, And brows as holy and as bland As the honey-coloured sand Lying sun-entranced below The lazy water's limpid flow: Come, ye sorrowful, and steep Your tired brows ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... things! He invites the streams of Five Watersheds to witness his su-su-su-pernal incompetence, and then he talks as though there were untold reserves of knowledge behind him that he is too modest to bring forward. For a bland, circular, absolutely sincere impostor, you're a ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... now over the fallen Saint, planting the short dagger in his heart. The other Dominican is being chased by Cavina's comrade, his face wreathed in a bland smile, his hands stretched childishly before him. Evidently he is quite unconscious how grave his situation is. He seems to think that this pursuit is merely a game, and that if he touch the wood of the olive-trees first, he will have ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... set in, with a chilliness unusual to that bland season, and I asked for and obtained permission to have a fire kindled in the wide and gloomy grate of my chamber, hitherto ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... bland smile, and then observed to Alizon that it was time for them to retire, and that she had stayed on her account far later than she intended—a mark of consideration duly appreciated by Alizon. Farewells for the night were then exchanged between the two girls, and Alizon looked ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... he's the other thing," said a voice as brusque as the first was bland. "I believe it's all bunkum. I wish I ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... anew. For some time he stood regarding it with the same expression of lofty and complacent approbation which we see in these modern days illuminating the countenance of a connoisseur before one of his own old pictures which he has bought as a great bargain, or dawning over the bland features of a linen-draper as he surveys from the pavement his morning's arrangement of the window of the shop. All things, however, have their limits, even a man's approval of an effort of his own skill. Accordingly, ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... going to a sanatorium as soon as she was able to move; but for three weeks Marian was on Harwood's hands. Her bland airs of proprietorship amused him when they did not annoy him, and when he ventured to remonstrate with her for her unnecessary abandonment of school to take care of her mother, her pretty moue had mitigated his impatience. She knew the ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... the doorway. Breathing hard and perspiring, the judge entered the shanty, but his eagerness, together with his shortness of breath, kept him silent until he had established himself in his chair beside the table, with the jug and a cracked glass at his elbow. Then, bland and smiling, he turned toward ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... whose ruling passion, in one exclusive channel, it thus becomes. It ruins, or is fearfully apt to ruin, the heart, the rich juices of which God never meant should be pressed violently out and distilled into alcoholic liquor by an unnatural process, but should render life sweet, bland, and gently beneficent, and insensibly influence other hearts and other lives to the same blessed end. I see in Hollingsworth an exemplification of the most awful truth in Bunyan's book of such, from the very gate of heaven there is a by-way to ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... itself Where greenest grass was spread, And where the bland and warm south-wind, Soft-footed, loved to tread, And here the white-robed fugitive Made for itself ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... rustling corn and wheat. And, having overcome his primary disgust, as the blood began to circulate more briskly in his veins, Maitland became aware that he was actually enjoying the enforced exercise. It could have been hardly otherwise, with a night so sweet, with airs so bland and fragrant of the woods and fresh-turned earth, with so clear a light to ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... incapable in the ordinary affairs of life to a degree not adequately compensated for by such a grasp as he was able to get on the realities that underlie them; and with an imposing aspect which corresponded wonderfully well with his interior traits. That, in his prime, his persuasive accents and bland self-confidence, backed by the admiration felt and expressed for him by men such as Emerson, and some of the community at Brook Farm, should have induced an open-minded youth like Isaac Hecker to take him for a time at his own valuation, is not strange. The truth is, that it was one of ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... with a bland smile; "oh, my dear fellow, what can you mean? Why, the stage is a mirror of the world, and to show virtue her own image is ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... parlour with Papa; and, as he went away, I heard Papa say to him 'What is the matter with you? You seem in very low spirits to-night.' 'Oh, I don't know. I've been to see a poor young girl, who, I'm afraid, is dying.' 'Indeed; what is her name?' 'Susan Bland, the daughter of John Bland, the superintendent.' Now Susan Bland is my oldest and best scholar in the Sunday-school; and, when I heard that, I thought I would go as soon as I could to see her. I did go on Monday afternoon, and found her on her way to that 'bourn whence no ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... and Dick would continue to love her. By some special interposition of Providence all the hazards of existence over which she might have fallen had been swept aside. What broader road could a woman hope to walk in than the one that lay before her in all its clear and bland serenity? God had been good to her! and He was going to be good to her. What a tie the child would be, what an influence, what a source of future happiness! They would work for their child; a boy or girl, which? Would it not give them courage to work? Would it not give them strength to live? It ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... at Mr. Tape, as if he suspected some lurking irony beneath the bland innocence of his words. Perceiving, as usual, nothing in the speaker's countenance, Mr. Smith—blowing at the same time a tremendous cloud to conceal a faint blush which, to my extreme astonishment, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... "Sergeant Bland, the captain orders you to take four men and station them along the north shore of the pond. The rascals are in the cypress swamp, and are making their way out toward Moccasin Creek. One man can watch the block-house, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... was the miracle predicted by Mrs. Jenkins that came to pass and delivered the cow. Early one morning, when Gus went as usual with fond pride to view his sole asset, he found installed therein a young, corpulent cow, bland and Texas-horned, busily engaged in partaking of the proceeds of Gus's last week's wages. She turned inquiring, meditative eyes toward the delighted lad, who promptly locked the door and rushed into the house to inform the family of the ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... to the well-known coast, Aids with a liberal hand the patriot cause, Reforms their policy, designs their laws; Till o'er Virginia's plains they spread their sway, And push their hamlets tow'rd the setting day. He comes, my Delaware! how mild and bland My zephyrs greet him from the long-sought land! From fluvial glades that thro my cantons run, From those rich mounds that mask the ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... the House of Lords, and a remonstrance to the Commons;[64] the writers being a committee composed of gentlemen prominent in the legislature, and of high social standing in the colony, including Landon Carter, Richard Henry Lee, George Wythe, Edmund Pendleton, Benjamin Harrison, Richard Bland, and even Peyton Randolph, the ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... rest The robin unmolested builds its nest. 'T was here, when hope, presiding o'er my breast, In vivid colours every prospect dress'd: 'T was here, reclining, I indulged her dreams, And lost the hour in visionary schemes. Here, as I press once more the ancient seat, Why, bland deceiver! not renew the cheat! Say, can a few short years this change achieve, That thy illusions can no more deceive! Time's sombrous tints have every view o'erspread, And thou too, gay ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... the way eastward. The sun went down unclouded, and a glorious starry night brooded over us. Its clearness and brightness were to me indications of America. I longed to be on shore. The forests about home were then clothed in the delicate green of their first leaves, and that bland weather embraced the sweet earth like a blessing of heaven. The gentle breath from out the west seemed made for the odor of violets, and as it came to me over the slightly-ruflled deep, I thought how much sweeter it were to feel it, while "wasting in wood-paths ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... other young misses who, at sight of them, raised their chins considerably above their natural level, and swept in without condescending to bestow even an accidental glance upon them. From where I sat I observed all this quietly, and with an effort to suppress a smile of bland amusement, I arose and greeted my new-comers—the Merivales! Alice glided towards me with an air of imposing consciousness, and thrust a tiny, gloved hand into mine, and then with a graceful gesture she turned towards ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... and Lady Poynter would answer easily: "I haven't seen him for a long time. I must find out whether he's in London and get him to lunch one day." And then young Forbes Standish would begin to criticize "The Bomb-Shell" or the "Divorce" with bland patronage. And every one at the Thespian ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... which was the political part of the drama,—that which regarded the scenes played upon the public stage,—had its instantaneous reflex, as we have already said in the commencement of these pages, in the salons, which were the green-rooms and coulisses. Urbanity, amenity of language, the bland demeanor hitherto characterized as la grace Francaise, all these were at an end. Society in France, such as it had been once, the far-famed model for all Europe, had ceased to exist. The ambition which had once been identified ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... And Dirkovitch—bland, supple, and always genial—went away too by a night train. Little Mildred and another saw him off, for he was the guest of the mess, and even had he smitten the colonel with the open hand the law of the mess allowed ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... corresponding quantity of the fresh ones, in a pint of milk; to boil for ten minutes, and then to strain. This strained fluid is given warm to the patient, with or without a little sugar. It is administered twice a day; and the taste of the mixture is bland, mucilaginous, comforting to the praecordia, and not disagreeable. I resolved to try this method, and also the watery infusion; and, moreover, the natural expressed juice fortified with glycerin. This ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... ever retained the ascendency over the mind and heart of James, as well as of his son Charles I. George Villiers owed his fortune, not to his birth or talents, but to his fine clothes, his Parisian manners, smooth face, tall figure, and bland smiles. He became cup-bearer, then knight, then gentleman of the privy council, then earl, then marquis, and finally duke of Buckingham, lord high admiral, warden of the Cinque Ports, high steward of Westminster, constable of Windsor Castle, and chief justice in eyre of the parks and forests. "The ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... "This is a Bland's .577 axite express," said he. "I got that big fellow with it." He glanced up at the white rhinoceros. "Ten more yards, and he'd would have added me to ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... forced himself to lie awake, while he waited eagerly for the hour of midnight. Meanwhile, Richard Dewey and Ki Sing lay down at nine o'clock and sought refreshment in sleep. Both were fatigued, but it was the Chinaman who first lost consciousness. Dewey scanned with curiosity the bland face of his guest, looking childlike and peaceful, as he lay by ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... waved his hand towards the lagoon, the country flanking it and the considerable city standing back from the beach. "If it is not a presumption in me to offer a suggestion...." He paused. M. de Rivarol looked at him sharply, suspecting irony. But the swarthy face was bland, the ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... remote, made no answer, as if he hadn't heard the question: a form of intercourse that appeared to suit the cheerful Mr. Morrow as well as any other. Imperturbably bland, he was a man of resources—he only needed to be on the spot. He had pocketed the whole poor place while Paraday and I were wool- gathering, and I could imagine that he had already got his "heads." His system, at any rate, was justified by ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James
... listened with a patient smile, which indicated that for many years she had accepted such eccentricities in her sister-in-law with bland philosophy. Katharine took up her position at some distance, standing with her foot on the fender, as though by so doing she could get a better view of the matter. But, in spite of her aunt's presence, ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... and while chatting with padre, cura, or alcalde, his eye wanders to the faces of the pretty poblanas that are passing the spot. These regard his splendid uniform with astonishment, which he, fancying himself "Don Juan Tenorio," mistakes for admiration, and repays with a bland smile. ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... two such fine birds from such an extraordinary nest; but before they had extricated themselves from the branches his face had assumed the stolid, cow-like, unintelligent look which had so often baffled judges and Crown Prosecutors. He was bland and ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... consequent degradation from being a part of the family to become a piece of mere formal furniture. And truly in cold weather, which (thanks to the climate, for we love our country) is all the weather we get in England, the fire is a most important individual in a house: one who exercises a bland authority over the tempers of all the other inmates—for who could quarrel with his feet on the fender? one with whom everybody is anxious to be well—for who would fall out with its genial glow? one who submits with a graceful resignation to the caprices of every casual elbow—and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... no observation whatever about their grave bland visitor; he listened in genial unprejudiced silence. It was a sign of his prospective son-in-law's perfect comprehension of him that Gaston knew this silence not to be in any degree restrictive: it didn't at all mean he hadn't been pleased. Mr. Dosson had ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... himself to be almost persuaded against his better judgment that the man was honest, so absolutely child-like and bland was his manner; "get away to your own quarters and secure as much sleep as you possibly can, for we have a long march before us to-morrow." And he turned away, to show Ling that his ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... in the Bermudas, came early in life to Virginia, where he married in 1778 Mrs. Frances Bland Randolph, and thus became stepfather to John Randolph of Roanoke. He was a distinguished jurist, professor of law at William and Mary College, president-judge of the Virginia Court of Appeals, and judge of the United ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... yet too long, industrious train, Your solid good with sorrow nursed in vain: For has the heart no interest yet as bland As that which binds us to our native land? The deep-drawn wish, when children crown our hearth, To hear the cherub-chorus of their mirth. Undamp'd by dread that want may e'er unhouse, Or servile misery knit those smiling brows: The pride to rear an independent shed, And give the lips ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... when dissertation or discovery on the subject shall be brought to a satisfactory conclusion. Scarcely a year passes that does not add something to our knowledge of the history of the royal game; and among the latest additions, the able paper by Mr Bland, published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, is not the least deserving of notice. It contains many curious particulars and remarks, interspersed in its dry and technical narrative, sufficient to form a page or two of pleasant reading for those—and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... always had the policy of free coinage with respect to gold. This was also the policy in the coinage of our silver dollars until 1873. At that time the coinage of the silver dollar was discontinued until a law was passed in 1878 (the Bland Act) renewing its coinage, but in limited quantities. The government purchased silver bullion under this law, and under the Sherman Act (1890), but since 1893 no silver bullion has been purchased for the coinage of silver dollars, but the bullion ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James
... wrote a farewell letter to his mother. With him as servant, however, he had brought away a morose but attentive and good-hearted native named Allahdad, and thanks in part to Allahdad's good nursing, and in part to the bland and health-giving breezes of the ocean, he gradually regained his former health, strength, and vitality. At the time he regarded these seven years spent in Sind as simply seven years wasted, and certainly his rewards were incommensurate with his exertions. Still, it was in Sind that ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... bland condescension at their journey's start and found her gratifyingly amenable, but they had scarcely crossed the border, before he found to his stupefaction that he was confronted by a will as serenely implacable ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... Agnes would particularly enjoy having shreds of dirty flannel and linen flung into her lap, with a tittering remark that they would enrich her trousseau; nor feeling, when she sat at needlework, a rotten egg gently broken over her head, with the bland intimation that it was to dress her hair for the wedding; nor the presentation, in solemn form, of torn and faded ribbons, accompanied by the information that they would become her sweetly on her bridal. Of all approach to wedding attire poor Agnes was devoid. She had but two gowns ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... by no means a gloomy, soggy period of constant cloudiness and rain. Perhaps nowhere else in North America, perhaps in the world, are the months of December, January, February, and March so full of bland, plant-building sunshine. Referring to my notes of the winter and spring of 1868-69, every day of which I spent out of doors, on that section of the plain lying between the Tuolumne and Merced rivers, I find that the first rain of the season fell ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... resourcefulness in the manifestation of emotional light and shadow was encouraged by the character of the full-page illustration which he had to supply. A signed full page appears in Part XVI., page 541. It is a scene in which the four martyrs, Bland, Frankesh, Sheterden, and Middleton, condemned by the Bishop of Dover, 25th June 1555, are shown being burned at the stakes. One of the martyrs certainly looks intensely smug with his hands folded as if he were at grace before a favourite dinner. Yes, du Maurier certainly failed to attain ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... intelligence, and although his complexion was also highly florid, if was softened down by the general vivacity of expression that pervaded his frank and smiling countenance. The features, regular and still youthful, wore a bland and pleasing character; while neither, in look, nor bearing, nor word could there be traced any of that haughty reserve usually ascribed to the "lords of the sea." There needed no other herald to proclaim him for one who had already seen honorable service, than the ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... greater men than themselves, and by witticisms directed against them, than by their own actual work, which is sometimes not wholly contemptible. He concerns us here only as the author of a philosophical-heroic romance, rather agreeably entitled Macarise ou La Reine des Iles Fortunees, where the bland naivete of the pedantry would almost disarm the present members of that Critical Regiment, of which the Abbe, in his turn, was not so much a chaplain as a most combatant officer. The very title goes on to neutralise ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... flying, gowns torn, heads broken, well-fed faces in the hot September weather steaming with anger and exertion, and every voice in loudest outcry. At length the clamour was partially subdued, and the bishop, beautifully equal to the emergency, arose bland and persuasive. ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... after this, a deal of brave talk about scaling the mountains; but nothing further was done until 1650, when Edward Bland and Edward Pennant again tried the Roanoke, though without penetrating the wilderness far beyond Lane's turning point. It is recorded that, in 1669, John Lederer, an adventurous German surgeon, commissioned as an explorer ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... forgotten to say his prayers that morning, and was he in such a hurry to remedy the fault that he had no time to spare for consulting appearances? The doubt had hardly suggested itself, before it was set at rest in a most unexpected manner. Mr. Zant looked at his visitor with a bland smile, and said: ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... talking of those things now?' said the man of utility. 'I don't know,' replied the other, quaffing another glass of sparkling ale, and with a lambent fire playing in his eye and round his bald forehead—(he had a head that Sir Joshua would have made something bland and genial of)—'I don't know, but they were delightful to me at the time, and are still pleasant to talk and think of.'—Such a one, in Touchstone's phrase, is a natural philosopher; and in nine cases ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... was a sturdy, middle-sized fellow, some thirty years of age, clean-shaven, and sallow-skinned, with a bland, insinuating manner, and a pair of wonderfully sharp and penetrating grey eyes. He shot a questioning glance at each of us, placed his shiny top-hat upon the sideboard, and with a slight bow sidled down into ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... married the ensuing autumn. To this the judge gave his approval and determined as soon as Robert was gone to enlighten Nellie as to who her guardian was. This, then, was the history of Nellie Ashton, whom we will leave for a time, and as our readers are probably anxious to return to the bland climate of Kentucky, we will follow young Stanton and Raymond on their journey. Having arrived at Buffalo, they took passage in the steamboat Saratoga, which landed them safely in Sandusky after a trip of about twenty-four hours. At Sandusky they ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... temple, and a pleasure-ground, graded and graced and pathed like a cemetery, wherein nymphs trod daintily in elaborate morning-costume. Everything took pattern and was elaborate. Nothing was left to the imagination, the taste, the curiosity. A bland, smooth, smiling surface baffled and blinded you, and threatened profanity. Now profanity is wicked and vulgar; but if you listen to the reeds next summer, I am not sure that you will ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... reckon that weighs?" he said, with critical nicety estimating its ounces in his swaying hand. Sandy had never done it better. There was a look of perfect innocence on his bland, unsophisticated countenance, and the crowd looked on in ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... in armor trod the shore. Slighting the petty need he showed, 425 He told of his benighted road; His ready speech flowed fair and free, In phrase of gentlest courtesy; Yet seemed that tone, and gesture bland, Less used to ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... think of nothing better calculated to reassure anyone whose dreams are haunted by apprehensions of wild-cat legislative schemes, or the imminence of a Radical millennium, than five minutes' contemplation of our champions of progress as they recline together, dignified and whiskered and bland, upon the ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... bland and assiduous in his solicitude for my health and comfort. I am almost positive he knows that I fished up something from Cove No. 37 under the theoretical guns of theoretical Fort Osman, both long ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... sensation of fatigue. He had not liked himself for accepting the orders that had brought him here. They had been issued in bland confidence that he had no personal affairs which could not be abandoned to obey cryptic orders from the secretary of a boss he had actually never seen. He felt a sort of self-contempt which it would have been restful to forget in three-gravity sleep. But he grimaced and ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... eyes fell finally upon the foreman, that individual's whole expression was instantly transformed to one of confusion. And Tresler could not help calling to mind the schoolboy detected in some misdemeanor. At first the confusion, then the attempt at bland innocence, followed by dogged sullenness. It was evident that Jake's conscience blinded him to the fact of the ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... him with an air of bland candor, while thus appealing to his "common sense." Everett's aspect remained unchanged, however, in its ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... climate is best; and in some cases, too, as where bronchitis exists in great disproportion to the amount of tubercular deposit and inflammation of the lungs, the climate of Florida during the winter would be more bland and agreeable than that of Minnesota, but each individual varies so much in constitutional character, that no positive rule can be laid down by which any one case can be judged. This comes within the province ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... a scowl on the Armenian's face. The man hesitated; then walked towards the door: stopped as if at a sudden recollection; and turned to Desmond with a bland smile. ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... at breakfast. His wife did not. With smiling lips and bland brow, he had to cover a mind full of intolerable suspense, an aching heart. A minor puzzle—though nothing compared to the puzzle touching the movements of Frederick Massingbird—was working within him, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... months gone by, but, with the restored beams of his natural brightness, fell upon the smoking earth with the genial warmth of summer. A new atmosphere, indeed, seemed to have been suddenly created, so warm and bland was the whole air; while, occasionally, a breeze came over the face of the traveller, which seemed like the breath of a heated oven. As the day advanced, the sky gradually became overcast—a strong south wind sprung up, before whose warm puffs the drifted snow-banks seemed ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... with a bland, forgiving smile and a slight lowering of his voice, "is, I fear, suffering from an accident of hospitality, and keeps his state-room. The captain is a good fellow," continued Perkins, with gentle enthusiasm; "a good sailor and careful navigator, and exceedingly attentive to his passengers. ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... he was no older in appearance than when he was forty- three. If anything, he seemed younger, for the harassed, care-worn expression had disappeared, leaving him bland, benign of countenance, although the same imperishable wrinkles lined his pinched cheeks. He was just as careless about his sparse hair as in the days of old. It was never by any chance sleek and orderly. The habit of running his fingers through his thatch still clung to him, ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... coign of strategic advantage, the comfortable elevation of his box, Kirkwood's cabby, whose huge enjoyment of the adventurers' discomfiture had throughout been noisily demonstrative, entreated Calendar with lifted forefinger, bland affability, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... in which she reclined alone on a pile of soft cushions, might well have been the shrine of that bland queen of love and pleasure, of whom its fair tenant was indeed an assiduous votaress. For there was nothing, which could charm the senses, or lap the soul in luxurious and effeminate ease, that ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... to the very quick. It seems to them that the writer is taking that opportunity to speak a word of eulogy for himself. As for the true soldier, he never asks for words of flattery; he is not to be gulled with bland words and braggadocio. The letter for the soldier is the long, pithy one, full of little things, even down to gossip. Gossip is better than eulogy, especially when ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... Thomas Johnson, the grasp of a statesman; in Samuel Chase, activity and boldness; in the Rutledges, wealth and accomplishment; in Christopher Gadsden, the genuine American; and in the Virginia delegation—an illustrious group—in Richard Bland, wisdom; in Edmund Pendleton, practical talent; in Peyton Randolph, experience in legislation; in Richard Henry Lee, statesmanship in union with high culture; in Patrick Henry, genius and eloquence; in Washington, justice and patriotism. 'If,' said Patrick Henry, 'you ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... unwholesome fruit of the flood, in wisps of hay and straw, rakes and pitchforks, or pathetically sheltering some shivering and forgotten household pet. But everywhere the same dull, expressionless, placid tranquillity of destruction,—a horrible leveling of all things in one bland smiling equality of surface, beneath which agony, despair, and ruin were deeply buried and forgotten; a catastrophe without convulsion,—a devastation ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... of the disaster; in the second place, philanthropy of this type attempts to sweep back the tide of miseries created by unrestricted propagation, with the feeble broom of sentiment. As one of the most observant and impartial of authorities on the Far East, J. O. P. Bland, has pointed out: "So long as China maintains a birth-rate that is estimated at fifty-five per thousand or more, the only possible alternative to these visitations would be emigration and this would have to be on such a scale as would speedily overrun and overfill the habitable globe. ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... a little at a loss to fathom this bland friendliness, and presently the widening space cut off their talk. As the boat drew offshore, she saw two women in white come down toward the float, meet Abbey, and turn back. And a little farther out through an opening in the woods, she saw a white and green bungalow, low and rambling, ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... dawn the clouds are shedding jewels o'er the rosy land, And the breath of morning zephyr, fraught with Tatar musk, is bland; Whilst the world's fair time is present, do not thou unheeding stand: Gaily live! for soon will vanish, biding not, the ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... comparing Thackeray and Dickens, quite cheerfully. But the fashion of comparing Maltby and Braxton went out so long ago as 1795. No, I am wrong. But anything that happened in the bland old days before the war does seem to be a hundred more years ago than actually it is. The year I mean is the one in whose spring-time we all went bicycling (O thrill!) in Battersea Park, and ladies wore sleeves that billowed enormously out from ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... that, murmuring bland As music, wafts the lover's sigh, And bids the yielding heart expand In ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... impressive law of compensation, material prosperity had come. What Ralph understood and appreciated was Mrs. Spragg's unaffected frankness in talking of her early life. Here was no retrospective pretense of an opulent past, such as the other Invaders were given to parading before the bland but undeceived subject race. The Spraggs had been "plain people" and had not yet learned to be ashamed of it. The fact drew them much closer to the Dagonet ideals than any sham elegance in the past tense. Ralph felt that his mother, who shuddered away from ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... was shining down the Cathedral square and street, and Farina saw the stranger standing solid and ruddy before him. He was at first prompted to resent such familiar handling, but the stranger's face was of that bland honest nature which, like the sun, wins everywhere back a reflection ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... massacre; with Chaumette, Anaxagoras, so-called, once a cabin-boy, then a clerk, always in debt, a windbag, and given to drink; Hebert, called "Pere Duchesne," which states about all that is necessary for him; Pache, a subaltern busy-body, a bland, smooth-faced intriguer, who, with his simple air and seeming worth, pushes himself up to the head of the War Department, where he used all its resources for pillaging, and who, born in a door-keeper's lodgings, returns there, either through craft or inclination, to take his dinner.—The ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... innocent and unsuspecting young lady in a Black Maria, imprisoned an officer of the law, deceived his agents, reduced two of the members of our company to walking the streets, forced us to consort with thieves and criminals," pointing to the bland form of the Quaker, who had just appeared in the doorway, "laid us all under the imputation of plotting against our country, exiled us from our native land, brought me away from New York in my declining years, with only the clothes I stand up in, and deposited me in a small ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... Bedford thinks of nothing but his own personal enjoyments, and it has long been a part of his system not to allow himself to be disturbed by the necessities of others, or be ruffled by the slightest self- denial. He is affable, bland, and of easy intercourse, making rather a favourable impression on superficial observers; caring little, if at all, for the wants or wishes of others, but grudging nobody anything that does not interfere with his own pursuits, and seeing with complacency those ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... morning, and the happenings throughout the long, sad day, I think I can never forget—from the breaking of tow-lines to frequent stranding on the rocks and sticking on sandbanks, the orders wrongly given, the narrow escape of fire on board, the bland thick-headedness of the ass of a captain, the collisions, and all the most profound examples of savage ignorance displayed when one has foolish Chinese to deal with. We reached half-way at 4:30 p.m., with sixty li to do against a ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... his various generals, the Prince employed his army of eight thousand men extensively and usefully. The siege of Fort William was carried on by Brigadier Stapleton; Lord George Murray had invested Blair Castle; Lord John Drummond was making head against General Bland; the Duke of Perth was in pursuit of Lord Loudon. This portion of the operations was attended with so much difficulty and danger, that Charles must have entertained a high opinion of him ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... Garfunkel had been a particularly strong customer of Sammet Brothers, and since Abe assumed that M. Garfunkel had dropped Sammet Brothers in favor of Potash & Perlmutter his manner toward Leon was bland and apologetic. ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... in February, 1903, elected Hon. G.W. Koiner, president, and appointed Hon. George E. Murrell, of Fontella, Va., superintendent, treasurer, and secretary; Hon. W.W. Baker, alternate and second assistant, and later appointed O.W. Stone, Martinsville, Va., B.C. Banks, Bland, Va., Lyman Babcock, of Bay Shore, Va., and J.C. Mercer, of Williamsburg, to complete the executive force. Mr. Murrell immediately took charge of the work and assisted by J.C. Mercer as his secretary and stenographer, with the aid of Mr. Baker, planned the scope and took steps toward the collection ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... the head was now slit open lengthwise, disclosing an oblong cistern or "case" full of liquid spermaceti, clear as water. This was baled out with buckets into a tank, concreting as it cooled into a wax-like substance, bland and tasteless. There being now nothing more remaining about the skull of any value, the lashings were loosed, and the first leeward roll sent the great mass plunging overboard with a mighty splash. It sank like a ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... I could get by the scruff of the neck that sophomoric old philosopher who once said nothing survives being thought of. For I've been learning, this last two or three days, just how wide of the mark he shot. And it's all arisen out of Dinky-Dunk's bland intimation that I am "a withered beauty." Those words have held like a fish-hook in the gills of my memory. If they'd come from somebody else they mightn't have meant so much. But from one's own husband—Wow!—they go in like a harpoon. And they have given me ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... example of a small Pomeranian of this colour. He was bred by Mr. Hirst, by Little Nipper ex Laurel Fluffie, and scales only 4-1/4 lb. Mention should also be made of Miss Ives' Dragon Fly, Mrs. Boutcher's Lady Wolfino, Miss Bland's Marland Topaz, Mr. Walter Winans' Morning Light, and Mr. ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... went about with more than one increase from the Honorable William Jones, whose eyes apparently were seeing large. At last the "call" came from Carlisle, who smilingly moved the bulk of his remaining fortune toward the center of the table. Thereupon, with a bland and sane smile, the Honorable William Jones shook his head and folded his cards together. The judge displayed queens and tens, the gentleman opposite queens and deuces. Dunwody laid down his own hand, which showed aces and fours. They ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... right this time," I reflected, as I scaled the 'bus. "He seldom is! And haven't I triumphantly interviewed all the most unmanageable celebrities of the last ten years, from Lord Tennyson to the Royal baby? I suppose it's my bland appearance. It lulls suspicion and excites curiosity. People want to see whether it is possible for any man to be such a fool as I look. Anyhow, I must go through with it now, as I've let it ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... pretty kind to us poor wanderers already," he said. "I got one more favor to ask. I come up here to see Mr. Bland. We got some business to transact, and we'd consider it a great kindness if you was to leave us alone ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... were so wonderful; and after that, in spite of his constantly prized sense of knowing his enchanted city and his way about, he ceased to follow or measure their course, content as he was with the particular exquisite assurance it gave him. That was knowing Paris, of a wondrous bland April night; that was hanging over it from vague consecrated lamp-studded heights and taking in, spread below and afar, the great scroll of all its irresistible story, pricked out, across river and bridge and radiant place, and along quays and boulevards ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... himself to your satisfaction," said Mr Wentworth, with a bland but somewhat grim aspect, from the window; "but I can't wait for tea. I have still got some of my work to ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... she groped around— The night was black as soot— She ran against Long Island Sound, Out where the codfish toot. And when the moon rose o'er the scene So smiling, sweet and bland, She poked her nose so sharp and keen— 'Twas freshly painted olive green— Deep in a bar ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... be four o'clock again," he said, in despair, finally; and once more had out his watch. It was half-past three. He scowled at the instrument's bland white face. "You have no bowels, no sensibilities—nothing but dry little methodical jog-trot wheels and pivots!" he exclaimed, flying to insult for relief. "You're as inhuman as a French functionary. Do you call ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... Affecting all the unconcern I could, I told him that it contained only a few commonplace jottings of my journey. He opened the book; took one other leisurely survey of it; then looked at me, and back again at the book; and, after a considerable pause, big with the fate of my book, he made me a bland bow, and handed me the volume. I was equally polite on my part, inly resolving, that henceforward Austrian douanier should not ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... of thing is so common that I seldom notice it, unless it is varied in some way that attracts attention. For instance, I could not help listening to a woman who was pushing her baby in a perambulator down the hill. The baby sat facing her, as bland as a little image of Buddha, and as unresponsive, but she was chaffing it. "Well, you be a funny little gal, ben't ye? Why, you be goin' back'ards into the town! Whoever heared tell o' such a thing—goin' to the town back'ards. You be a funny little ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... his shoulders and spread his hands in a gesture of bland denial. "Lies! All lies, general. Have I not already told you ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... vantage-ground from which to view the joke of existence. She would test the dictum; now, if ever, she would write humorously. The material was at hand, seething and crowding in her mind, in fact—the monumental dullness and complacent narrowness of the villagers, the egoism, the conceit, the bland shepherd-of-his-flock pomposity of John Graham. What more could a humorist ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... Petit-Chapeau, the drinkers accosted each other with a grave air. They were heard to say: "Have you your pistol?" "Under my blouse." "And you?" "Under my shirt." In the Rue Traversiere, in front of the Bland workshop, and in the yard of the Maison-Brulee, in front of tool-maker Bernier's, groups whispered together. Among them was observed a certain Mavot, who never remained more than a week in one shop, as the masters always discharged him "because ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... of its antennae even to the avenue Victor Hugo. It was a silent war in which the enemy, bland, shapeless and gelatinous, seemed constantly to be escaping from the hands only to renew hostilities ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the other States nearby favored. But on the whole it was deemed very important during the First Congress to give the National Capital a central location along the Atlantic coast. Southern members led by Richard Bland Lee and James Madison, of Virginia, argued for consideration for the question by Congress before adjournment, and recommended the Potomac River site ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... black tea is a convenient and excellent application of this kind. When the skin and hair are dry, and the latter also stiff and untractable, a little glycerine is an appropriate addition to each of the preceding washes or lotions. The occasional use of a little bland oil, strongly scented with oil of rosemary or of origanum, or with both of them, or with oil of mace, or very slightly tinctured with cantharides, is also generally very serviceable when there is poorness ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... not! Not a-tall!" Ted could be maddeningly bland. "You just want to grab it off, right after dinner, and leave it in front of some skirt's house all evening while you sit and gas about lite'ature and the highbrows you're going to marry—if they ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... were his Gertrude's lips; but still their bland And beautiful expression seemed to melt With love that could not die! and still his hand She presses to the heart no more ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... a proclamation of war, could have assumed a more formidable mien than Mrs. Yellett, squatting erect on the prairie, crowned by her rabbit-skin cap. Mary and Judith, with bland, impassive expressions, noted the effect of the mandate. There was not the faintest symptom of rebellion; each Brobdingnag accepted the matriarch's ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... of her husband disturbed the self-satisfaction of Mrs. Tompkins. Her reply was not in so bland a voice. ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... saw thee first, Too beautiful, and gay, and bland, Gathering with thy little hand The flow'r of May, Oh! from that day My passion I have nurst— 'Twas ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... the struggle that emancipated their sister colonies on the other side of the continent to them had no suggestiveness. In short, it was that glorious Indian summer of Californian history around which so much poetical haze still lingers,—that bland, indolent autumn of Spanish rule, so soon to be followed by the wintry storms of Mexican independence and the reviving spring ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... round"; to be open, sincere, candid. "Maister Bland answered flatly and roundly"-(Fox's Book ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... mentioned the woman he was seeking when Signor Giardini, with a grotesque shrug, looked knowingly at his customer, a bland smile on ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... given to the pleasures of the table, but if anything could move me to enthusiasm in dietary matters, the sight of your sideboard, my dear sister-in-law, would do so. I commend the bacon and eggs to you, Quest, or if you prefer sausages, those long, thin ones are home-made and delicious. Does Mrs. Bland ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... you haven't been to sea at all yet?" observed the first who had spoken, in a bland tone, winking at his shipmates, with the intention of trotting ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... beheld a countenance not at all either commanding or heroic, but one to which smiles and good-nature would have been most congenial, though a shade of anxiety was now thrown over the natural expression of her features. Her eye seemed to have forgotten its bland and benevolent aspect, and was fixed sharply upon him. For a moment his spiritual pride was daunted, and that natural and inherent principle, not extinct though often dormant,—a deference to superiority, whether of intellect or station—rendered him for ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... by herself as by him; he had had to break down barriers, but though they were the barriers of her very soul, her longing heart had pressed, had beaten against them, crying out for deliverance. She did not judge him, but, alone with him in the forest, alone with him in the bland, sunny hotel, alone with him through the long nights when she lay awake and wondered, in a stupor of despair, she saw that he was different. So different; there was the horror. She was the sinner; not he. He belonged to the bright, ardent life, the life without social bond or scruple, ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick |
