"Bluff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Uncle Chris in the bluff, genial way which, in his younger days, had charmed many a five-pound note out of the pockets of his fellow-men and many a soft glance out of the eyes of their sisters, their cousins, and ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... row-boat and started back. He knew nothing about boats; but the bay was very smooth, it was yet early, and he got across in due time. As he neared the island he saw her, in her white dress, standing on the bluff, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... The flat as featly as the edge he plies, Of that good faulchion forged of stubborn grain; And, at strange blindman's bluff, in weary wise, Hammers on Dudon with such might and main, He often dazzles so the warrior's eyes, That hardly he his saddle can maintain. But to win better audience for my rhyme, My canto I ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... The short, bluff-looking man pacing the quarter-deck was Captain Price Bottom; and a more honest-hearted old salt never sailed the sea. His great skill in killing whales had made him famous among whalemen throughout the Pacific. He had made three successful voyages, bringing home cargoes that had enriched ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... morning a large Concord coach filled with passengers and a small guard of the United States soldiers, which had previously passed us, were awaiting our arrival before daring to proceed. On reaching the crest of the bluff leading to the valley of the river we saw hundreds of Sioux Indians, in war paint and feathers, camped on the opposite side in the underbrush and woods, and in the main ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... "It's all a bluff, too. Just as if we didn't know that as soon as the rest of us innocents are quiet and dreaming of blueberries, your window will fly open and off you'll ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... matter, Melchior," said the broad-shouldered, bluff, sturdy-looking Englishman. "I don't want to ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... politicians and lawyers. Not infrequently, however, did it happen that some charters and grants were obtained by politicians and lawyers who, at best, were impecunious sharpers. Their greatest asset was a devious knowledge of how to get something for nothing. With a grandiloquent front and a superb bluff they would organize a company to build a railroad from this to that point; an undertaking costing millions, while perhaps they could not pay their board bill. An arrangement with a printer to turn out stock issues on credit was ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... and rather rocky with a rough plateau reaching back from either side. The western being the more elevated, gave the enemy the advantage in artillery practice. In fact, the banks on the western side at some points came up to the stream in a bluff—especially so at Blackburn's Ford. In the rear and in the direction of the railroad was the now famous Manassas Plains. The Confederate line extended five miles, from Union Mills Ford to Stone Bridge. At the latter place was General Evans, of ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... gave him several interviews, the Lutheran prayer-book for ever in her hand. "Why does the dear girl not come to me?" she would say, weeping, but she refused to hear a word against her precious nephew, the personification of bluff frankness. As if to make crushing him impossible, young Kranich had now withdrawn to America, leaving his reputation in that best possible protection, the chivalry that is extended toward the absent. Fortnoye was baffled. "I will ask the baby at its ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... leaped of a sudden the sun, And against him the cattle stood black every one, 20 To stare through the mist at us galloping past, And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray; ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... like you in prison, so we're going to get you out on parole and make an honest, upright citizen of you. We're going to get you a nice job',—and so on and so forth. Well, before he knows it, he's out and has to put up a bluff of workin' for a livin'. Course, he just has to go to stealin' again. It makes him sore when he thinks of the good, honest life he was leadin' up there in the pen, with nothin' to worry about, satisfactory hours, plenty to eat, and practically ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... unmistakable evidences of a plundered camp both white man's and Indian's hair. A great ash heap containing calcined bones was undoubtedly the funeral pyre of white men and red men alike, and some yelling savages upon the upper bluff confirmed the tragedy which Captain Merritt's party had been too late ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... Gladly did the bluff captain and the jovial planter row ashore from their sea-tossed berths. Many were the friendly greetings extended them, both prime favorites among the settlers, who came hurrying down to Enfield when the news of the "Carolina's" arrival spread through the community. Eager questions assailed ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... with a Sir Dixie Hickson, a stiff, bluff, beef-eating sort of man, who was under some obligation to me, or I to him, I don't know which. Well, I forgot name, residence all but the day—came home in a hurry, looked into the Court Guide, found a Sir Hicks Dixon, drove to his house, found a party assembled, bowed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... am directed by the General Com'dg to say that he deems it advisable that you should move your Hd. Qrs. higher up the river, say in the vicinity of Webber's Falls or Pheasant Bluff. He is desirous that you should be somewhere near the Council when that body meets, so that any attempt of the enemy to interfere with their deliberations may be thwarted by you."—DUVAL to Cooper, April 22, 1863, Confederate Records, chap. 2, ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... him a club," said Lyman. "A man could snatch out a hundred dollar debt and run me off the bluff. 'Lover's Leap,'" he added to himself, smiling. Warren looked up and saw the smile, but he had not caught ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... a dozen being entangled with it. But it was Scott's soldiers that I was talking of, and I was saying that there is nothing theatrical, no posing, no heroics (the thing of all others which the hero abominates), but just the short bluff word and the simple manly ways, with every expression and metaphor drawn from within his natural range of thought. What a pity it is that he, with his keen appreciation of the soldier, gave us so little of those soldiers who were his own contemporaries—the finest, perhaps, that ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... believe personally that the main object of the Yuen-nan provincial government in employing two American engineers, who at the present moment (August, 1910) are surveying a route from Yuen-nan-fu to the Yangtze, is merely official bluff. It is preferable to pay two men a monthly stipend if the official "face" can be preserved and the Chinese dogged official procrastination be maintained, rather than to allow foreigners to come in ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... her have her voice tried. I was out to dinner with the same crowd that she was with the other evening. Arthur and I were sitting at the table in the restaurant waiting for the rest of the crowd when in she canters, dressed up regardless like a queen in a book, in a low-neck gag. She run a bluff as if she just had it made, but if a certain K. & E. wardrobe mistress ever catches her with it on this party is due to get pinched for petty larceny. As soon as she spotted me she rushed over and yelped, 'Oh, Sabrina, I'm charmed to see you.' And kissed me—the cat. Then ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... to have nothing in this world to do but to come down to her meals, and another a physician who had not been able, in embracing the medical profession, to deny herself the girlish pleasure of her pet name, and was lettered in the list of guests in the entry as Dr. Cissie Bluff. In the attic, which had a north-light favourable to their work, were two girls, who were studying art at the Museum; one of them looked delicate at first sight, and afterwards seemed merely very gentle, with a clear-eyed pallor which was not unhealth. A student in the Law School sat ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... fault," she continued, "that he joined the Rebellion. You don't think they'll refuse to let me take his bones to Baltimore, do you, sir? He was my oldest boy, and his brother, my second son, was killed at Ball's Bluff: He was in the Federal service. I hardly think they will refuse me the poor favor of laying ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... him to the edge and then slipped aside just in time to let the force of Ongyatasse's running carry him over. Without waiting to plan, I began to climb down the steep side of the ravine. About halfway down I was startled by a rustling below, and, creeping along the bottom of the bluff, I saw the Lenni-Lenape with his knife between his teeth, within an arm's length of my friend. I cried out, and in a foolish effort to save him, I must have let go of the ledge to which I clung. ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... yellow flood of the river, still swollen by melting mountain snow, was a hundred feet from the stockade gate, and on its bank stood the log cavalry stables. Below, a scant half mile away, were the only trees visible, a scraggly grove of cottonwoods, while down the face of the bluff and across the flat ran the slender ribbon of trail. Monotonous, unchanging, it was a desolate picture to watch day after day in ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... teachers and men might attend. The president soon went to Europe and the work passed into the capable hands of Mrs. Hutton. One of the most valuable helpers was Rabbi L. Witt, who always attended and helped out many a program. Leagues were formed in Hot Springs and Pine Bluff and these were the only three prior to 1913 when ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... fell long before Richmond was taken. We passed Burmuda Hundred and City Point, upon which stood General Grant's headquarters. Next came Harrison's Landing, near President Harrison's birth-place, an ancient appearing building situated upon a high bluff. ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... his likable personality, made a hero of Schley, but his fellow naval officers felt differently. A court of inquiry held in 1901 found Schley to be at fault, but despite this decision he retained his public popularity, a tribute to his affability and bluff, ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... came from Bluff, as chipper as a bird's song, and without the least sign of halt or break; "if we go on much more, we'll walk off the end ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... ruins on that bluff," he exclaimed; "those steep sides must have been washed by a great river in the prehistoric times. That was the fortress. Farther down lay the city. There are the dismantled ramparts; why, there's the very coping of a portico still intact! Don't you see three broken pillars lying beside their ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... the Go Ahead boys to the post at Sacket's Harbor. On a bluff above the lake the barracks and other buildings of the place were plainly visible. Even the soldiers stationed there could be plainly seen as ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... the position of attention is "chest lifted; and arched." There should be a stretch upward at the waist. The position should give the impression of a man as proud of himself as he can be. This is a bluff which works, not only by making a good first impression on others, but by causing the man himself to live ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... and young. Unlike the natives she was tall and fair; masses of golden hair encircled her oval face and clustered over her blue eyes. Who was she? Whence came she? None could answer. By degrees some of the boldest of the youths approached, but their bluff manners seemed to displease her; though unaccustomed to rebuffs they retired. One, however, among them fared differently. Jean Letocq, a member of the family to which the hero belonged who near this very spot discovered the sleeping troops of the Grand Sarrazin, ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... for? That force has been ten days at least turning the east of the Mar Mountains, a week at least on our own side of the frontier. Where were Osbourne's wits? Will it be believed, the column at Lone Bluff is again short of ammunition? This old man of the sea, whom all the world knows to be an ass and whom we can prove to be a coward, is apparently a peculator also. If we were to die to-morrow, the word Osbourne would be found engraven ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Parliament at Ottawa are a splendid pile of buildings, and though they may owe a great deal to the wonderful site they occupy on a semicircular wooded bluff projecting into the river, I should consider them one of the most successful group of buildings erected anywhere during the nineteenth century. All the details might not bear close examination, but the general effect was admirable, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... 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 Indians with scalping knives. These are the ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... bluff?" asked the secretary of state, speaking quietly. "I know it wouldn't stick, but at least ...
— Project Mastodon • Clifford Donald Simak
... and died away along the dreary downs. No! There it boomed out again, thundering full against Siabod on the left; and Siabod tossed it on to Moel Meirch, who answered from all her clefts and peaks with a long confused battle-growl, and then tossed it across to Aran; and Aran, with one dull, bluff report from her flat cliff, to nearer Lliwedd; till, worn out with the long bufferings of that giant ring, it sank and died on Gwynnant far below—but ere it died, another and another thunder-crash burst, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... of merit or there will be a ridiculous crash. It is all very well for the "spellbinder" to claim all the precincts—the official count is just ahead. The reaction against over-confidence and over-suggestion ought to warn those whose chief asset is mere bluff. ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... declared Biff. "By the way, Bobby, I saw a certain party before I left town and she gave me this letter for you. Certain party is as cheerful as a chunk of lead about your trip, Bobby, but she makes the swellest bluff I ever saw that she's tickled to ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... delightfully cool; the wind was very strong from the eastward. I sent Mr. Roper forward to look for water, of which he found a sufficient supply. He stated that the country to the westward opened into fine plains, of a rich black soil; but it was very dry. The bluff terminations of the left range bore E. by S., and ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... abstract the necessary enlightenment from the questioner himself (while appearing to be perfectly conversant with what he is talking about), and, if possible, get him to suggest the answer to his own conundrum. In other words, bluff as in poker (which I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... sorely taken aback, too, by the dutiful behaviour of his nephew and has a woeful consciousness upon him of being a scapegrace. However, there is great rejoicing and a very hearty company and infinite enjoyment, and Mr. George comes bluff and martial through it all, and his pledge to be present at the marriage and give away the bride is received with universal favour. A whirling head has Mr. George that night when he lies down in the state-bed of his brother's house to think of all these things ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... hurling stones and endeavoring to get at the Indians, in which they partly succeeded. On the 10th we arrived at Blue Earth River bridge, and camped a little beyond it, on the townsite of Le Hillier (L'Huillier) and immediately south of the isolated bluff at the mouth of the river,—the camp being called ...
— History of Company E of the Sixth Minnesota Regiment of Volunteer Infantry • Alfred J. Hill
... seem to promise wooded slopes, and maybe leaping streams, but a half-day's journey dispels the illusion, for when the traveller comes near enough to see the elevation as it is, it is only a rugged bluff, bald and bare, and blotched with clumps of mangy grass, with a fringe of ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... reach the colonel, for just before it was dispatched an Italian ship had cut the cable between Lissa and Lesina, and seized the telegraph office of the latter island. Tegethoff's message thus fell into Persano's hands. He persuaded himself that it was mere bluff, intended to encourage the commandant of Lissa to hold out as long as possible. He thought Tegethoff would remain in the Northern Adriatic to protect or to ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... Nicholas Higgins at the funeral? He was there, and Mary too. Poor fellow! it was his way of showing sympathy. He has a good warm heart under his bluff abrupt ways.' ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... south-south-west from the camp remarkable hills on both sides of the Gregory River, about half a mile above the junction with the O'Shanassy, which I have named the Prior Ranges. At 4.48 we returned to a point opposite Mount Kay. At 5.26 made two miles up the river to where there are remarkable bluff hills on both sides of the river (the lower hills of the gorge). At 5.50 we observed that we had passed the camp and, as the river is difficult to cross even at its best fords, we went to the camp ford, which ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... it now," agreed the other girl, shortly. "But we always have had to make a bluff at our house. Since I can remember, at least. Grandfather was wealthy; but our generation is ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... 21st of July the Union forces were routed at Bull Run with terrific loss of life and many wounded. Two months later the battle of Ball's Bluff occurred, in which there were three Massachusetts regiments engaged, with many of Clara Barton's lifelong friends among them. By this time the hospitals and commissaries in Washington had been well organized, and ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... my wife talking about?" said a bluff and friendly voice. Doris looked up to see a handsome ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... midshipman in the British navy, he was for some time on the coast of the North American colonies, then in a state of revolution, and passed the winter of 1782 in the city of New York. He is still borne in lively recollection by many of the elder inhabitants of that city, as a fine bluff boy of sixteen: frank, cheery, and affable; and there are anecdotes still told of his frolicsome pranks on shipboard. Among these, is the story of a rough, though favourite, nautical joke, which he played off upon a sailor boy, in cutting down his hammock while asleep. The sturdy ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... trap him. I placed two large trout, with a steel trap between them, in a shallow spot on the river that I could watch from my camp on a bluff, half a mile below. Next day Gillie, who was more eager than I, set up a shout; and running out I saw Old Whitehead standing in the shallows and flopping about the trap. We jumped into a canoe and pushed up ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... sensible Englishmen, was a bluff, hearty sort of man, with a keen eye for the practical side of life and an equally keen enjoyment of every other, and it was not five minutes before he had located in his round head the precise standing and qualifications of ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... seaside resort, somewhat similar to Penzance. It is situated on the harbor at the foot of a high bluff, and its principal feature is the long row of hotels fronting on the ocean. Though mostly modern, it is by no means without history, as evidenced by its ruined castle overlooking the sea and vouching for the antiquity ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... resignation of himself to the will of God, and thoughtful consideration down to the smallest particulars, for the interests and feelings of others, both public and private." When at his own request, Lady Elgin chose a spot for his grave in the little cemetery which stands on the bluff above the house where he died, "he gently expressed pleasure when told of the quiet and beautiful aspect of the place chosen, with the glorious view of the snowy range towering above, and the wide prospect of hill and plain below." During ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... of anxiety and toil thus passed away. The boatmen, who had come with Lieutenant Tonti, increased his number to over thirty men. At the point of land where the river entered the lake, there was a bluff, of considerable elevation and of triangular form, containing an acre or more of pretty level land. It was at that time covered with trees. This commanding position was chosen for the fort. Two sides were bounded by water. On the third or land side of the triangle ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... was bluffing; still it was possible he wasnt. In such a delicate situation there was nothing I could do but bluff in turn. If you are a good salesman, I always say, you must have psychology at your fingertips. "Very well, Mr Gootes; perhaps I shall ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... also insisted on counting. In order to have a second count on the herd, Lovell ordered The Rebel to count opposite the government's man. We strung the cattle out, now logy with water, and after making quite a circle, brought the herd around where there was quite a bluff bank of the river. The herd handled well, and for a quarter of an hour we lined them between our four mounted counters. The only difference in the manner of counting between Flood and the Mexican corporal was that the American used a tally string tied to ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... 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 flashed across his bronzed cheek, and his heart ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... 'Bluff them!' said Ryder quickly. 'If they insist on searching, swear the boy was hurt at a blast. Cover his shoulders. Show no surprise in any alteration in my appearance. I am a customer.' 'He snatched his coat and revolver, and ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... Lover's Leap, a white bluff at the southern end of their island, the Leucadians used annually to hurl a criminal into the sea as a scapegoat. But to lighten his fall they fastened live birds and feathers to him, and a flotilla of small boats waited below ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... consciences. They were Christians, and thought it necessary to justify themselves before the High Court of Christian Europe. Consequently the clerks had to write up the record in quite a different fashion. They discovered that their bluff, hard-bitten, rather likeable employers, scarcely one of whom could read or write, had really invaded Anywhere as the trustees of civilisation. Now it may be said in general—and the observation extends to our own time—that the moment an invader discovers that he is the trustee ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... had now succeeded in regaining command of himself to a certain extent, and once more he tried to bluff ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... her, and were forced to rely wholly upon the plan formed before the beautiful Manuela had entered into their calculations. On reaching Samoa it was to be, as George Trent expressed it, a "game of bluff." One hope of saving Max lay in the fact that no photograph of him could have arrived from New Caledonia; there were a hundred chances to one that there would be no one at Samoa who had ever seen him; he could not, therefore, be positively identified, ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... ground ran up sharply in a minute bluff, with the soft outline of underlying chalk, covered with small thorn-thickets; and it was all encircled with small, close woods, where we heard the pheasants scamper. We found an old, slow, bovine man, with a cheerful face, who readily threw aside some fumbling ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Wilsons 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 of the wind in the pine-tops. The broad ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... course, he's a bloody fool to write in that strain—our rations aren't so bad, considering. Thompson was up for the same sort of thing. He wrote he'd seen a thing or two out here and when he got back home he'd open people's eyes a bit about the war and the army. All bluff, of course, for the truth about the war and the army could never be published. He got five days for his trouble. I nearly got into hot water myself. Luckily for me I was the first one to be on the peg for writing things in my letters, else I'd have got a stiff sentence. I wrote: 'Being ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... the Canadians Generals Burstall, Watson and Lipsett, also Major O'Connor. Poor Lipsett was killed by a shell later. He was a thoughtful, clever, quiet man, and was greatly respected. Burstall was a great, bluff, big, hearty fellow, and Watson was a fine chap, a real "sport." O'Connor was A.D.C. to General Currie, ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen
... negroes all suspended operations, and stared at him till he was out of sight. He soon reached the Gap; but he had advanced only a short distance before he discovered a battery of light artillery stationed on a kind of bluff, and whose guns commanded the approaches in ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... Alida," he said, assuming the bluff rough-diamond front which the alarm in his eyes made foolish, "I want to settle this little difference and be friends with you again. I was wrong; I admit it.... Of course I might very easily defend such ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... gunpowder on the stairs, where she would be sure to find it when she went the rounds with her candle to close up. That was a gang of the kind I have reference to, headed straight for Albany. And what is more, it will get there, unless things change greatly. The gunpowder was just a "bluff" to frighten the housekeeper, an instalment of the kind of politics it meant to play when it ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... hysterical. It was the tension that space-travel—then, at its beginning—produced. It was meaningless savagery due to terror. But, of course, Pop was helpless to resent it. There were no weapons on the Moon and the mention of Sattell's name showed the uselessness of bluff. He'd pictured the complete set-up by the edge of the Big Crack. Pop could ...
— Scrimshaw • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... dragoons, bound to Black Creek. As we left the dock, another large boat came out in a pompous manner, and gave us chase; and as the day had been intensely hot, a large line of clouds rolled over the bluff at the same time, probably from the gulf en route to the Atlantic, and moving slowly across the river, gathered their black folds around the pine-tops, shutting all up, river and forest, every thing but our ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... strain? If Father Beret heard it he gave no sign of recognition; very likely he was thinking about the cargo of liquor and how he could best counteract its baleful influence. He looked toward the "river house," as the inhabitants had named a large shanty, which stood on a bluff of the Wabash not far from where the road-bridge at present crosses, and ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... And he was just going out, when the henchman rushed after him, calling, "Hold on! We accept. Send in your nomination. The Senator is very sorry, but will make no further opposition."* Roosevelt adds that the bluff was carried through to the limit, but that after it failed, Platt did not renew his ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... home was in a high corner of the Alaska building, where the western windows, overtopping other stone and brick blocks of the business center, commanded the harbor, caught like a faceted jewel between Duwamish Head and Magnolia Bluff, and a far sweep of the outer Sound set in wooded islands and the lofty snow peaks of the Olympic peninsula. Next to his summer camp in the open he liked this eyrie, and particularly he liked it at this hour of the night tide. He drew his chair forward ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... you put it across old Rumbold?" Laughter and sheer admiration of her audacity were mingled in his voice. With a baby it was a good bluff; without one, the girl's ingenuity seemed to him to ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... derisively. "I guess there is—another mistake—another bluff that don't go. Get out o' here; and I tell you now, blast yer hide, that if you make me any more trouble 'board my ship yer liable to go over the side feet first, with a shackle to yer heels. And you, young ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... with their heads in soft, oozy spots, and the burrowing of that sharp and watchful little animal the prairie dog, cause both horse and horseman to run considerable risk when taking a spin over the flat. Hill and dale, bluff and level, the landscape broke upon the eye in one of those infinite and fruitful wastes, which strikes the mind with awe at ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... anchoring, but the weather being so bad, did not think it safe to stand into it. From the Friars the land trenches away about N. by E. four leagues: We had smooth water, and kept in shore, having regular soundings from twenty to fifteen fathoms water. At half-past six we hauled round a high bluff point, the rocks whereof were like so many fluted pillars, and had ten fathoms water, fine sand, within half a mile of the shore. At seven, being abreast of a fine bay, and having little wind, we came-to, with the small bower, in twenty-four ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... I have said was superficial; her knowledge of languages as little accurate. The King, with a bluff Westphalian accent, spoke English correctly. The Queen's chief study was divinity, and she had rather weakened her faith than enlightened it. She was at least not orthodox; and her confidante, Lady Sundon, an absurd and pompous simpleton, swayed her countenance towards the less-believing ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... "That was only bluff, though," said Martin. "The real truth is that you would cease to be Lady Raa and that would be a blow to his pride. Then there would no longer be any possibility of establishing a family and that would disturb his plans. No matter! We can set ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... boy's name, and Cornelius and I walked along with him till we got off the street—Cornel' was sharp enough not to tackle him near the school. As soon as the crowd thinned out, he asked him if he had that locket, and at first Burt put up a bluff. Finally he admitted that he got it from Greg. Simpson; said he swapped a lot of tops ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... 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
... on the first day of August. Cape York is the bold, bluff headland which marks the southern point of the stretch of arctic coast inhabited by my Eskimos, the most northerly human beings in the world. It is the headland whose snowy cap I have seen so many times rising in the distance above the horizon line of Melville Bay as ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... before sunset, that our small scout of ten were halted by a burnt log bridge over a sluggish inlet to a lake. The miry trail to the Chinisee Castle led over it, swung westward along the lake, rising to a steep bluff which was gashed with a number of deep and ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... several hundred horses in sight. But we never varied our course a fraction, passing within a quarter mile of their camp, apparently indifferent as to whether they showed fight or allowed us to pass in peace. Our bluff had the desired effect; but we made it an object to reach Fort Griffin near midnight before camping. The Comanche and his ally were great respecters, not only of their own physical welfare, but of the Henri and Spencer rifle with which the white man killed the buffalo at the distance of twice ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... talk as a sort of bluff, for a bluff is often as good as a fight if it's properly backed up. As Quantrell and his men rode away in the direction of Dave Daily's neighborhood, I told Elkins to hit out West until he came to the Kansas City and Harrisonville ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... cut in crisply, "in spite of your friend's talk and in spite of the bluff he is putting up he is pretty badly hurt. You give me some sort of a light, I don't care if they see it down at San Juan, or you shoulder the responsibility. ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... prove to you, if you will, that it is not bluff. I can prove to you that I really know something of ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... She walked aimlessly up street after street without any idea where she was going, entirely oblivious to her surroundings. Wandering thus, she discovered that she was in the park, and had come out on the high bluff of the lake. She stood moodily looking down at the vast field of ice that such a short time before had been tossing waves. The lake, to all appearances, was frozen solid out as far as the one-mile crib. There was ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... to watch for Posy, as her mother described her; and whenever the form of a grown-up girl darkened the doorway, she held her breath to listen if Mrs Blossom called her by that pet name. Mr George also was very good to Meg in his bluff way, and bought her a pair of nearly new shoes with his first week's wages, over and above the threepence a day which he paid her. With Mrs Blossom she held many a conversation about the lost girl, who had grown up wicked, ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton
... Just as the bluff of a democratic crusade must be called, so must the knight-leader of the crusade be exposed to the critical eyes of the world. Here was the President, suddenly elevated to the position of a world leader with the almost pathetic trust of the ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... way I like to hear you talk. And don't you let Sim Dobley, or either of the Lascalla Brothers, bluff you. I'm running this show, not them! If they make any ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... the Piasa creek, on the bluff, there is a smooth rock in a cavernous cleft, under an overhanging cliff, on whose face 50 feet from the base, are painted some ancient pictures or hieroglyphics, of great interest to the curious. They are placed in a horizontal ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... 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, time-blackened fort which frowned protectingly ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... "I have thought all his loud talk has been bluff to beat up a bigger price. But, after what he did to-day! Oh no! He is out to fight and he grabbed his chance to show us! I do not believe a lot of this regular fight talk. But when a man comes up and smashes me between the eyes I ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... attempt. No notice was taken of the request. His command was, however, continually reinforced by new regiments, and he found occupation in organizing and disciplining them. General Polk meanwhile was busy fortifying Columbus, where the river-bank rises to a high bluff, until the bluff was faced and crowned with massive earthworks, armed with one hundred and forty-two pieces of artillery, mostly thirty-two and sixty-four pounders. At the same time heavy defensive works commanding the river were erected below ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force
... held their breath as they skirted the straining boom that inclosed the raft. Presently the high, sharp bow turned shoreward, steam was cut off and the tug made fast to the sheer side of a little bluff that rose steeply out ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... every moment seemed to bring them closer upon their heels. At every bend of the tortuous trail the leader's eye was strained to see the dust-cloud rising ahead. But jutting point and rolling shoulder of bluff or hill-side ever interposed. Drummond had just glanced at his watch for perhaps the twentieth time since daybreak and was replacing it in his pocket when an exclamation from Sergeant Meinecke ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... third day the river narrowed and became swifter. With luck the voyagers reached Gorgona on a high bluff. This was usually the end of the river journey. Most people bargained for Cruces six miles beyond, but on arrival decided that the Gorgona trail would be less crowded, and with unanimity went ashore there. Here the bargaining had ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... I hid in the woods all day, then climbed a tall pine tree and got the lay of their camp—the number of their guns—the disposition of forces and their lines of attack. Yesterday I had the wires at Drury's Bluff and started trouble. I'm on my way now to join my command, but I had a good excuse for coming home to hold you in in my arms again, if only for a moment. You see, poor old Roger got a wound in his flank—from a ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... white face of that boy at the door. But I did see that he went pretty nearly purple for a minute, and I heard him gurgle, too, he was that surprised, before he caught his breath. Then he stuck out one hand and tried to bluff it out. ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... still found and practised in Nippon. On the beach at Kamakura at times can be found straw chaplets with gaudy cloth attached to the centre; a copper coin, and rice offering are accompaniments. Or such will be found at the crossroads of town or village, or on the Yokohama Bluff. Or in times of epidemic in numbers they are laid on the wayside shrine of the god of measles or other disease. The latter disposition conveys its own warning; the others are majinai or charms by which it is ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... dream of going themselves, were busy in talking it up to others, who, they thought, might be tempted to accept it; and, at length, a Boston boy, a harum-scarum lad, a great favorite, Harry May, whom we called Harry Bluff, and who did not care what country or ship he was in, if he had clothes enough and money enough,— partly from pity for Ben, and partly from the thought he should have "cruising money'' for the rest of his stay,— came forward, and offered to go and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... a fat and flourishing rejuvenated land, stopping at the towns of Willows, Red Bluff and Redding, crossing the counties of Colusa, Glenn, Tehama, and Shasta, went the spruce wagon drawn by the dappled chestnuts with cream-colored manes and tails. Billy picked up only three horses for shipment, although he ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... 1744, this expedition visited the upper Missouri, and planted on an eminence, probably in the near region of Great Falls, a leaden plate bearing the arms of France, and raised a monument above it, which the Verendryes named Beauharnois. It is stated that this monument was erected on a river-bluff, between bowlders, and that it was twenty ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... "By Jupiter! Talk about bluff now!" he thought. "Thank goodness they're coming from the right direction!" And drawing himself stiffly up, he saluted as ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... is a hotel known chiefly to wise travelers—a hotel of old wines, old silver, old traditions, handed down from father to son, and from the son to the son's son. Standing on the edge of the bluff which the city crowns, it dominates from its windows and terraces the valley of the Aar. Swift and unruffled, the river glides through the meadows like a sinuous ice-green serpent. Beyond the river and behind the pastoral slopes ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... they will demolish a score of potatoes, if there be nothing else; but offer them caviare, canvas-back duck, quail, and nesselrode pudding, and they will look askance at food that is plain and wholesome. The "plain and wholesome" liver is a snare and a delusion, like the "bluff and genial" visitor whose geniality veils all sorts of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... the night of the 1st instant, with the avowed purpose of lynching them. But fortunately, the objects of their vengeance had escaped from town. Foiled in their purpose, the rioters repaired to the shantee where the murder was committed, and precipitated it over the bluff. The military of the city were ordered out to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... toward woods in the distance. Scarcely had our line reached this point, when the enemy "came down like the wolf on the fold." Judging from the promptness and vigor with which they assailed us, they evidently counted on making our enterprise another Ball's Bluff affair. ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... electrical instruments; William Still, of Philadelphia, the coal dealer; Henry Tanner, the artist; John W. Terry, foreman of the iron and fitting department of the Chicago West Division Street Car Company; J. D. Baltimore, engineer, machinist, and inventor, of Washington, D. C.; Wiley Jones, of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the owner of a street car railroad, race track and park; Richard Hancock, foreman of the pattern shops of the Eagle Works and Manufacturing Company, and draughtsman; John Beack, the inventor, whose inventions are worth tens of thousands of dollars; ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... republic! I should like to see the Hague and the village of Brock, where they have such primitive habits. Yet, I don't know,—their canals would cut a poor figure by the memory of the Bosphorus; and the Zuyder Zee look awkwardly after "Ak-Denizi" [2]. No matter,—the bluff burghers, puffing freedom out of their short tobacco-pipes, might be worth seeing; though I prefer a cigar or a hooka, with the rose-leaf mixed with the milder herb of the Levant. I don't know what liberty means,—never having seen it,—but wealth is power all over the world; and as a shilling performs ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... he, in bluff, hearty tones, as he took a chew of navy plug, and scanned the outlaw with his solitary eye. "Wot kin I do fer ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... is, par excellence, the country of bluff, of quackery in patent medicines, and of the booming of unworthy ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... I too regret that time!" the bluff, squinting King replied. He stared at Richard for a while wherein each understood. "Dear fool," Sire Henry said, "there is no man in all the world but hates me saving only you." Then the proud King clapped spurs to his proud horse and ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... of their history, the resemblance ceases. Their characters afford scarcely a point of contact. Elizabeth, inheriting a large share of the bold and bluff King Harry's temperament, was haughty, arrogant, coarse, and irascible; while with these fiercer qualities she mingled deep dissimulation and strange irresolution. Isabella, on the other hand, tempered the dignity of royal station with the most bland and courteous manners. ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... be worth while to illustrate our meaning by an instance or two, to show that, far from being hypercritical, our canon of criticism is extremely indulgent, and that we never take the bluff and surly objection—it cannot be!—until the improbability has reached the core of the matter. In the first story, "The Birth Mark," we raise no objection to the author, because he invents a chemistry of his own, and supposes his hero in possession of marvellous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... her true colours. Furthermore, you may be hep to her little scheme; I don't believe it, but I know that, if you are, you won't let me suffer for it. And finally, in the senility of my dotage I conned myself into believing I could bluff it out; at the worst, I could prove my innocence easily enough. But what I didn't take into consideration was that I was laying myself open to arrest for impersonating an agent of the Government. When I woke up to that fact, ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... reverse. She was a nonentity. It was easy to see that she was passionately devoted both to her husband and to her little son. Her light grey eyes wandered continually from one to the other, noting every little want and forestalling it if possible. He was kind to her also in his bluff, boisterous fashion, and on the whole they seemed to be a happy couple. And yet she had some secret sorrow, this woman. She would often be lost in deep thought, with the saddest look upon her face. More than once I have surprised her in tears. I have thought sometimes ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... we were useful to each other. We often, too, went up to Town by the same train. His occupation was one which gave him opportunity of prominence in public life, but until the war he took little advantage of this, sunk in a kind of bluff indifferentism which was almost cynical. I used to look on him as a typically good-natured blunt Englishman, rather enjoying his cynicism, and appreciating his open-air tendencies—for he was a devotee ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... "if he's pretty cute he may p'rhaps bluff a skipper or two; but I guess he'll very soon be euchred—a man-o'-war'll nab him afore he can say 'Jack Robinson'. And now," he continued, "about you 'uns. From things said while you was spinnin' that yarn of the mutiny I seemed to get a ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... the politician remarked, with unwitting veracity. "Did the dern Dago bluff me, does he want more, er did he reely didn't un'erstand fer honest?" Then, as he took up his way, crossing the street at the warning of some red and green smallpox lanterns, "I'll git those seven ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... and with more repulsive faces still. They were the women of Albufera, a strange concentration of poverty and degradation, housing in wretched shanties a people that lives among the reeds and mud of the lake marshes, fishing in the murky, shallow waters from black, bluff-bowed boats that look like coffins. On these ashen, weather-beaten features indigence was drawn in its most ghastly outlines. Every eye was aglow with the wild gleam of fever; and the odors that came from clothes, here, had not the vigorous pungency of the open seashore, but the subtle ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... glanced at his watch. "A quarter to nine!" he said. "He has fifteen minutes in which to make good his bluff. But ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... friends to be in the shadow of madness. They kept a close watch over him; and at last Bowling Green, one of the most devoted friends Lincoln then had, took him home to his little log cabin, half a mile north of New Salem, under the brow of a big bluff. Here, under the loving care of Green and his good wife Nancy, Lincoln remained until he was once more master ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... have nerve to put himself ahead if he wants to keep in the game. I have seen lots of inferior individuals get a start on those with ability simply because they had the gall to sail right in and make their bluff. I believe there are two kinds of modesty, and one kind is closely allied to cowardice. The fellow who has confidence in himself, thinks he can do a thing, says he can do it, and does his level best to do it, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... air-shaft—that's about all there is to it. Twenty minutes before time for him to come home from work she straightens up the house, fixes her rat so it won't show, and gets out a lot of sewing for a ten-minute bluff. ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... if he's on to the game, it's just what he'll expect. But I've been thinking how we may be able to bluff—make him think it was his guilty conscience tricked him to imagine our interest in his movements. You know I'm giving a dinner to-morrow night to ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Memphis graveyard is buried a young fellow who perished at the wheel a great many years ago, in White River, to save the lives of other men. He said to the captain that if the fire would give him time to reach a sand bar, some distance away, all could be saved, but that to land against the bluff bank of the river would be to insure the loss of many lives. He reached the bar and grounded the boat in shallow water; but by that time the flames had closed around him, and in escaping through them he was fatally burned. He had been urged ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence, And number'd bead, and shrift, Bluff Harry broke into the spence, [1] And ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... which confine the valley, at least those which are obvious outliers of the Patkaye range, are characterised by conical peaks, and there is a bluff rock of good elevation to ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... 'Christian,' which had by no means come into general employment when he spoke; and in itself indicates that he knew a good deal about the people who were so named. Mark the contrast, for instance, between him and the bluff Roman official at his side. To Festus, Paul's talking about a dead man's having risen, and a risen Jew becoming a light to all nations, was such utter nonsense that, with characteristic Roman contempt for men with ideas, he breaks in, with his rough, strident voice, 'Much ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... "remember you are Canadians." The line advanced with great spirit, less than two thousand Canadians against a hundred thousand Germans. It was the biggest bluff in history but it won. On and on went the Canadians, 10th and Highlanders, one moment with the bayonet the next moment firing. The Germans, who were busy digging in south of the wood, saw the Canadians coming ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... Mary read Miss Mason's letter for the third time, and again the cold touch of fear assailed her. She took a camp stool and sat by the edge of the bluff for a long time, watching the water. Then she went indoors again to ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... on his other side, looking at the shores that were both familiar and unfamiliar. Familiar when he saw Mount Vernon on its imposing bluff; unfamiliar because no domes or obelisks were to be seen; no airfield, and no Pentagon. But the sweet green land itself was there, holding out its welcoming and individual scent of fields and rich ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... of Hearts how gruff The monarch stands, how square, how bluff! When our eighth Harry rul'd this land, Just like this King did Harry stand; And just so amorous, sweet, and willing, As this ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... die while there's life!" exclaimed the bluff old governor. "Ye have no positive proof that any one ye care for is dead or lost to ye. I tell ye, the mate of the Mary Jane found no one dead on board the vessel; and, as she had no boats remaining, it is just a plausible supposition that the survivors of the crew and the passengers ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the Pelasgian wanderers must have bounded when their exploring prows pushed into this nook, which offered them shelter from all winds that blow! It was a site to gladden the eyes of those builders of cities. Up above them, the bluff rock waiting for the layers of huge stones,—the eastern nook of the port more perfectly protected than the southern, which receives more or less the swell from the northerly winds, and whose inner shore of hard sand tempted the weary keels,—while all around stretched a wide, fertile, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... places,—for the bird that most frequents the surrounding woods or fields? How pleasant to have one's hamlet called Nightingale, or Whippoorwill, or Goldfinch, or Oriole! The home of Zosephine and Bonaventure's childhood was in the district known as Carancro; in bluff English, ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... picture it is which we thus obtain of merrie England in the good old times of bluff King Hal, wanting altogether in the couleur de rose with which it is tinted by its latest historian Mr Froude, who is ably taken to task on this subject by a recent writer in the Westminster Review, ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... the bluff he took a survey of the great bay, a couple of figures crossing the strand in the distance arrested his attention; he reined in his horse behind a clump ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... colored officers, was the storming of Port Hudson, May 27, 1863. For months the Confederates had had uninterrupted opportunity to strengthen their works at Port Hudson at a time when an abundance of slave labor was at their disposal. They had constructed defenses of remarkable strength. On a bluff, eighty feet above the river, was a series of batteries mounting in all twenty siege guns. For land defenses they had a continuous line of parapet of strong profile, beginning at a point on the river a mile from Port Hudson and extending ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... in a cloudless summer sky, drowning the stars. To the right, far below, the lamps of Weymouth curved about the shore; and in front the great bay shimmered like a jewel. Seven miles across it the massive bluff of Portland pushed into the sea; and even those rugged cliffs were subdued to the beauty of the night. Beneath them the riding-lights shone steady upon the masts of the battle ships. Sylvia looked out upon the scene ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... is, Violet!" answered Peony, in his bluff tone, but a very sweet tone, too,—as he came floundering through the half-trodden drifts. "Here is the snow for her little bosom. O, Violet, how beau-ti-ful ...
— The Snow-Image - A Childish Miracle • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... can't destroy Merlin. If we did, the same people who went crazy over the Travis statement would go crazy all over again, worse than ever. We'd be destroying everything we planned for, and we'd be destroying ourselves. That bluff young Macquarte and Luther Chen-Wong and Bill Nichols made wouldn't work twice. And if ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... particular notice of a point of land that looked like Flamborough Head, when we were either to the east or west of it; and near the shore it appeared like an island. Four or five leagues to the east of this point is another very remarkable bluff point which is on the west side of the bay that my boat was in. See two sights of this land, Table 6 Numbers 2 and 3. We could not stem the tide till about 3 o'clock in the afternoon; when, the tide running with us, we soon got abreast of the bay, and then saw a small ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... occurrence I had directed my party to proceed to the village, as I had discovered a smoke ascending from a hollow in the bluff, and wished to go alone to the place from whence the smoke proceeded, to see who was there. I approached the spot, and when I came in view of the fire, I saw an old man sitting in sorrow beneath a mat which he had stretched ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... all went well. The French had played a game of bluff which they could not sustain. On all sides they were worsted in a way which suggests how decisive the campaign might have been had the Allies heartily seconded the salutary plans of Pitt. Unfortunately, despite his efforts, no compact came about between ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... to the sentry to fall back. Gideon placed himself before the prisoner so that in the faint light of the camp-fire the man's figure was partly hidden by his own. "You meant well with your little bluff, pardner," said the prisoner, not unkindly, "but they've got the ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... conspicuous "bluff" trench may cause the enemy to waste much ammunition, and draw fire ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... art indeed—art in the mind and soul, infinitely deeper, surely, than the construction of crockery, jugs for the mantelpiece, dados, or even of paintings. The lover of nature has the highest art in his soul. So, I think, the bluff English farmer who takes such pride and delight in his dogs and horses, is a much greater man of art than any Frenchman preparing with cynical dexterity of hand some coloured presentment of flashy beauty for the salon. The English girl who loves her horse—and English girls ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... military critic of the Gaulois, taking a very optimistic view of the situation, thinks the movement may be to assure a retreat by some route other than by a return through Belgium. General Cherfils says: "This rush of the German right wing upon Paris is the last bluff of terrorism of the last German Emperor! The Kaiser thought that he could frighten us and induce France to make peace. After which he would be free to return with his ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... north of Natchez, and below the third Chickasaw bluff, near the bank of one of the bayous, which seem to run from rather than toward the Mississippi, a band of desperadoes had established a temporary abode, sometime in the year 1805. They were an organized league of robbers, bandits of stream and shore, preying ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... the Royal James made good speed up the Bay aided by a strong tide. A little while before light she came close enough to the west shore for Job to see the outlines of trees on a bluff. He figured the distance to be not above a mile at most. There was some question in his mind whether he should cut the painter and use the boat in getting away or swim for it. He decided that it would be better for him in most ways if the ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... ensign at the gaff-end. Many were the admiring glances bestowed upon her from the craft which were passed either going up or down the river—for, being only in deep ballast trim, she towed light, and passed ahead of nearly all the inward-bound craft—and at length a great bluff-bowed, deeply-laden barque was overtaken, the quarter-deck occupants of which appeared to manifest not only admiration but quite a surprising amount of curiosity as the two vessels closed. For a little group of men and women had gathered aft on board this barque for the evidently express purpose ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... Easter they go out toget'er. Colina Gaviller ride on the sledge and Michel he break trail ahead. Come to the bench, leave the dogs in a shelter Michel build in a poplar bluff. Michel go to see his traps, and Colina walk away on her snowshoes wit' her ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... straight out of the blue heaving water: passes slowly round an open-hearted, good-tempered looking pulley, five feet diameter; aft past a vicious nipper, to bring all up should anything go wrong; through a gentle guide; on to a huge bluff drum, who wraps him round his body and says "Come you must," as plain as drum can speak: the chattering pauls say "I've got him, I've got him, he can't get back:" whilst black cable, much slacker and easier in ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... picture gallery where a long row of Kings and Queens, in their full-length portraits, stand like Banquo's descendants. The portraits begin with that of bluff King Hal, very bluff and strident. According to Mr. Hare's account, which he has taken from Holinshed, Henry VIII. got St. James's when it was an hospital for "fourteen maidens that were leprous," and having pensioned off the sisters, "reared ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... steam. An' he ain't got much nerve. Now every feller who goes up to bat wants to talk to Muck. Call him a big swelled stiff. Tell him he can't break a pane of glass—tell him he can't put one over the pan—tell him it he does you'll slam it down in the sand bank. Bluff the whole team. Keep scrappy all the time. See! That's my game today. This Natchez bunch needs to be gone after. Holler at the umpire. Act like ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... 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 wonderfully shewn. ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... strait, to which afterward the name of HURD'S CHANNEL was given, and landed on a steep point called by him CAPE MONTAGU. From hence his party proceeded to a high and remarkable hill called BROOKS'S BLUFF: following the strait to the northward, they passed the remains of many Esquimaux habitations; and, though their short journey had been unsatisfactory on account of the badness of the weather, there was still sufficient to cause the most lively interest, and give strong hopes of ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... chance against the boy who swept the office." He is to be found, this victim of an intellectual ambition, in the salaried class, from which the aspiring millionaire is bidden to escape as quickly as possible by the customary methods of bluff and bounce. Why, then, if Mr Carnegie thinks so ill of colleges and universities does he inflict his millions upon them? He has known "few young men intended for business who were not injured by a collegiate education." ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... over the table in ungovernable excitement; in listening to this extraordinary duel half a thought had come into my head. "Your Grace," I cried, "I call your bluff. Take off that wig or I ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... whom I have mentioned more than once, is an odd figure, with his bluff, red face,—coarsely red,—set in silver hair,— his clumsy legs, which he moves in a strange straddle, using, I believe, a broomstick for a staff. The breadth of back of these fat men is ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... kept the halyards in their hands, ready to lower the sails at a moment's notice; the oars were got out, prepared for any emergency. The boats glided on. Instead of the tumbling, hissing waters through which they had lately passed, all was calm and smooth. On the right was a high bluff, with a reef running out from it. On the left the land was more level, but everywhere covered with low, stunted trees; while the shores on either hand were fringed with black, rugged rocks, and ahead rose ranges ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... and 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 ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
