"Blunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very inaccurate view of England's former industrial glory? If I felt inclined to adopt his language towards myself I might be tempted to say that his choice of years was "artful" and "ingenious," for to say, with blunt frankness, "I will take the last decade and stick to it all through," is an admirable way to score with the unsuspecting public. The pose of impartiality is excellent. Your correspondent's figures are doubtless as correct as they are interesting, but (in the light of the explanation I have ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox
... 435, has, "and as word of a palm-tree board which is very hard and very heavy, not sharp but blunt, about two fingers thick everywhere, with which as it is hard and heavy like iron, although a man has a helmet on his head they will crush his skull to the ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... the spokesman's left, leaned forward as if to speak, but then sat back again. Menesee thought that Rainbolt's blunt admission had angered him. Bradshaw, white-haired and huge in build, had been for many years the nominal head of the Machine; but in practice the powers of the administrator were less than those of the spokesman, and it would have ...
— Oneness • James H. Schmitz
... pound one thrown into the puddle, To listen to Fiddle, Faddle, and Fuddle! Not to forget the sounds we buy From those who sell their sounds so high, That, unless the Managers pitch it strong, To get a Signora to warble a song, You must fork out the blunt ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... species are apt to be confused with certain species of Omphalia in which the gills are but slightly decurrent, but in Omphalia the pileus is umbilicate in such species, while in Mycena it is blunt or umbonate. The spores are white. A large number of the plants grow on leaves and wood, few on the ground. Some of those which grow on leaves might be mistaken for species of Marasmius, but in Marasmius the plants are of a tough consistency, and ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... have done this deed are honorable! What private griefs they have, alas, I know not, That made them do it! They are wise and honorable, And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you. I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts: I am no orator, as Brutus is; But as you all know me, a plain, blunt man, That love my friend; and that they know full well That gave me public leave to speak of him. For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, To stir men's blood:—I only speak right on; I tell you that which you yourselves do know; Show you sweet ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... them," said Master Jonson, in his blunt, outspoken way, "I'll think thee a thought offhand to serve the turn. What? Why, this tanner calls us vagabonds. Vagabonds, forsooth! Yet vagabonds are gallows-birds, and gallows-birds are ravens. And ravens, men say, do foster forlorn children. Take my point? ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... study of the law; and whatever his real ability, the jealousy of the Cecils no doubt prompted the opinion of the queen, that he was not very profound in the branch he had chosen, an opinion which was fully shared by the blunt and outspoken Lord Coke, who was his rival in love, law, and preferment. Prompted no doubt by the coldness of Burleigh, he joined the opposition headed by the Earl of Essex, and he found in that nobleman a powerful friend and generous patron, who used ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... blunt, perhaps all the more so for the unwonted touch of fiery feeling which Olga was quick to detect in their utterance. They moved her strangely. It was almost as if he had flung open his soul to her, challenging her to enter and satisfy herself. And something very deep within her awoke and made ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... still we have to do that. And surely this is no great sin. But the danger lies in the writer becoming the victim of his own exaggeration, losing the exact notion of sincerity, and in the end coming to despise truth itself as something too cold, too blunt for his purpose—as, in fact, not good enough for his insistent emotion. From laughter and tears the descent is easy ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... surely, the Old Man began to grow old. The thin spot on top of his head grew shiny, so that the Kid noticed it and made blunt comments upon the subject. His rheumatism was not his worst foe, now. He had to pet his digestive apparatus and cut out strong coffee with three heaping teaspoons of sugar in each cup, because the Little Doctor told him his liver was torpid. He had to stop giving ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... person in the rendezvous had come up, and waited with breathless anxiety. We stood face to face, more like two men about to engage in deadly duel than a pair of amateurs with blunt foils. My antagonist was evidently a practised swordsman. I could see that as he came to guard. As for myself, the small-sword exercise had been a foible of my college days, and for years I had not met my match at it; but just then I ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... sergeant, with a thick blunt nose, and a broken row of tobacco-stained teeth; "we're off for the ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... actions), and of Prince Arthur with Leicester, and sometimes more or less problematical, as that of Artegall with Lord Grey, of Timias the Squire with Raleigh, and so forth. To those who are perplexed by these double meanings the best remark is Hazlitt's blunt one that "the allegory won't bite them." In other words, it is always perfectly possible to enjoy the poem without troubling oneself about the allegory at all, except in its broad ethical features, which are quite unmistakable. On the other hand, I am inclined ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... her keenly. "Why don't you march up and read the name, if you want to so much?" was her blunt question. ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... least in his eyes; while Sir Christopher, having done as much mischief as a good heart well can do in a walk of an hour, returned home to write a long letter to his mother, against 'learning and all such nonsense, which only served to blunt the affections and harden the heart.' 'Admirable young man!' cried the mother, with tears in her eyes; 'a good heart is better than all the heads in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... kept house for him; she was married to a German from Cologne, Schulz by name, who was a painter on glass. The pair lived apart. Madame Schulz was pretty, caustic, spiteful, and blunt. Her daughter, the fourteen-year-old Nanni, was enchantingly lovely, as developed and mischievous as a girl of eighteen. Everyone who came to the house was charmed with her, and it was always full of guests, young students from Alsace and Provence, young negroes from Hayti, young ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... her voice and manner. This was the only part of the character in which it had been possible, with her physical peculiarities, to produce an imitation of Miss Garth; and here the resemblance was perfect. The harsh voice, the blunt manner, the habit of accompanying certain phrases by an emphatic nod of the head, the Northumbrian burr expressing itself in every word which contained the letter "r"—all these personal peculiarities of the old North-country governess were reproduced ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... The blunt club of the lumberman's speech was scarcely a match for the sharp rapier of Raffer's tongue. As the crowd laughed it was evident that the fox-faced man was getting the ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... Riley, and "One-ear" Mike, well and unfavorably known in the tough shoestring district that blackened the left bank of the river. They passed a newspaper back and forth among themselves. The item that each solid and blunt forefinger pointed out was an advertisement headed "One Hundred Dollars Reward." To earn it one must return the rag-doll lost, strayed, or stolen from the Millionaire's mansion. It seemed that grief still ravaged, unchecked, in the bosom of the too faithful ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... elongated beak and great wattles, the Barb with its short broad beak and eye-wattles, the short- faced Tumbler with its small conical beak, the Pouter with its great crop, long legs and body, the Fantail with its upraised, widely-expanded, well- feathered tail, the Turbit with its frill and short blunt beak, and the Jacobin with his hood. Now, if this same person could have viewed the pigeons kept before 1600 by Akber Khan in India and by Aldrovandi in Europe, he would have seen the Jacobin with a less perfect ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... the bottom of the soul, more necessary in the clerical than in any other calling. "A prime virtue in the pulpit is mental integrity. The absence of it is a subtle source of moral impotence. It concerns other things than the blunt antipodes represented by a truth and a lie. Argument which does not satisfy a preacher's logical instinct; illustration which does not commend itself to his aesthetic taste; a perspective of doctrine which ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... without rising, and bade him take a chair. Henry spoke not at all, and bent his dim eyes again over his knitting without a smile. Henry Judd had the lank height of his father, and his blunt elongation of face and features, informed by his mother's spirit. The result in his expression was an absolute ferocity instead of severity of gloom, a fury of resentment against his fate, instead of that bitter leaning towards it which is ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... in a similar manner—this being considered a great honour to a guest; and no sooner had we accepted the offer than an old woman made her appearance armed with the necessary implements, and with the aid of a pair of very blunt needles, and a peculiar species of dye obtained from a tree, succeeded, after a good hour's work, in embellishing us—L. with a ring on each shoulder (the sign manual of the tribe), and myself with a bird, whose genus it would ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... say one cutting thing after another.—You have been as noted, all round our town, for being a kind man, as being a blunt one. ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... Crow! Here, sithee! Just grind me these scissors. Our Ralph's been scraping the boiler lid with 'em, till they're nearly as blunt as a ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... busy from morning till night chopping down trees for house-logs. It was a work of time and labour, as the axe was blunt and the oaks hard to cut; but they laboured on without grumbling, and Kate watched the fall of each tree with lively joy. They were no longer dull; there was something to look forward to from day to day—they ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... cordate or reniform, wider than long, scarcely ever lobed, smooth, glabrous on both surfaces at maturity; petiolar sinus wide, shallow; margin coarsely toothed, frequently a sharp, abrupt point at terminal. Cluster small. Berries small, black or purple-black. Seeds small, not notched; beak short, blunt; raphe distinct to indistinct, usually showing as a narrow groove; chalaza pear-shaped, sometimes distinct, but usually a depression only. Leafing, blossoming ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... kingdom to be exhibited on gateways, towers, and bridges. This practice served to provide the public with convincing proof that a traitor was actually dead, and was very necessary in an age when Rumour, "stuffing the ears of men with false reports" held sway over "the blunt monster with uncounted heads, the still discordant wavering multitude." Micklegate Bar was so used. In Shakespeare's Henry VI. Queen Margaret makes, with reference to the Duke of York, this bitter play ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... was called up-stairs, and made acquainted with the mitigation of his fate; upon which he said, he would down on his marrow-bones to his own master, but would be d—d before he would ask pardon of e'er a Frenchman in Christendom. Pickle, exasperated at this blunt declaration, ordered him out of his presence, and charged him never to appear before his face again; while the officer in vain employed all his influence and address to appease his resentment, and about ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the doctor, in his blunt way, which nevertheless expressed more sympathy than a lot of fine phrases. Then he said to the mother: 'You're all worn out, and yet she'll need close watching ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... my act, I thrust the blunt-sharp end of my squid-stick into the side of the shark, much as one would attract a passing acquaintance with a thumb-nudge in the ribs. And the man-eater turned on me. You know the South Seas, and you know that the tiger shark, like the bald-face grizzly of Alaska, never gives trail. The combat, ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... hostile and irresponsive camp of motor lorry drivers, who much resented the use of "their" Y.M.C.A. hut for such religious purposes. A Wesleyan minister had charge of it, and got far more of their blunt language than I the visitor did; but he worked undismayed and unreservedly for all he was worth, for the National Mission and for me. The alliance was natural, real, inevitable. He and I, and some five or six men of that camp, were clearly on one side, and the rest ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... was exceedingly cordial, and in a blunt way he plunged right into the business in hand. "We are very glad to see you; we have some ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... gone, and she prepares to write, First hovering o'er the paper with her quill: Conceit and grief an eager combat fight; What wit sets down is blotted straight with will; This is too curious-good, this blunt and ill: Much like a press of people at a door, Throng her inventions, which shall ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... Bogle's there was almost a heart tragedy. Tildy with the blunt nose, the hay-coloured hair, the freckled skin, the bag-o'-meal figure, had never had an admirer. Not a man followed her with his eyes when she went to and fro in the restaurant save now and then when they glared with the beast-hunger for food. None of them bantered her gaily to coquettish ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... for the boys to find out that I was not one of themselves, and they began to look at me askance and leave me out of their conversations. I was made to feel once more that I had been born under a malignant star that did not allow me to speak or act as they did. I had not their common sense, their blunt cheerfulness, their complete lack of sensibility, and while they resented my queerness they could not know how anxious I was to be an ordinary boy. When I saw that they mistrusted me I was too proud to accept the crumbs of their society like poor mother F——, and I withdrew ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... steel, but fond of dress, reckless, dissipated, and extravagant. Yet his faults were those of his age, and belonged to the circumstances by which he was surrounded. The Baron de Clairville, while he left his daughter free to make her election, yet, as a plain, blunt soldier, rather than a courtier, secretly inclined to favor the pretensions of Henri. Still, his treatment of the two young guardsmen was the same, for they gave equal promise ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... yellow tawny color. At the time of the discovery of the lake, Messrs. Oswell and Wilson shot two specimens of another variety. One was an old lion, whose teeth were mere stumps, and his claws worn quite blunt; the other was full grown, in the prime of life, with white, perfect teeth; both were entirely destitute of mane. The lions in the country near the lake give tongue less than those further south. We scarcely ever heard them roar ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... never allows that any fulness of inward life can dispense with the duties of every-day life, with mercy, truth, industry, generosity, self-control. The unworthy man who is excluded from the kingdom is not the man of blunt, homely feeling, incapable of ecstatic rapture and exalted emotion, but the man who locks up for himself the gold God gave him for the general good, who shuts his ear to the cry of the poor, who entrenches his heart behind a cold inhumanity, who permits the naked to shiver ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... personal violence could intimidate, and who would cheerfully have risked his life for his cause, yet still a man who could never forget that he was a Tory and a gentleman, who had no grit before lords and ladies, whose Abolitionism was not sufficiently blunt and downright in the good company of cabinet ministers, whose sensitive nature flinched at the thought of being conscientiously impolite and heroically ill-natured, and whose manners were thus frequently in the way of the full efficiency ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... blunt, and will taunt bitterly. Harvest, when all is done, thou art the man: Thou dost me the best service of them all. Rest from thy labours, till the year renews, And let the husbandmen [all] sing ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... Caleb's blunt expression of resentment again awakened the mirth of the company, which, by the way, he regarded not only as an aggression upon the dignity of the family, but a special contempt of the eloquence with which he himself had summed up the extent ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... wherein he is received, is treated with, and carries back offers of accommodation from the King, the King's attendants upon the occasion are the Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster, the Earl of Westmorland, Sir Walter Blunt, and Sir John Falstaff.—What shall be said to this? Falstaff is not surely introduced here in vicious indulgence to a mob audience;—he utters but one word, a buffoon one indeed, but aside, and to the Prince only. ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... great comfort," declaimed Evangeline with emphasis. She might have been the mother of six comforts. Tenderness crept into her eyes, and her freckles seemed to fade out, and even the small blunt nose of her take on middle-agedness and motherliness. '"Specially when you undress 'em. They're so darlin' an' soft! You ever undressed one—a reg'lar baby one? Of course not one o' your own when you never had ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... his becoming that of other animals: those organs, on the contrary, which softness and sensuality can alone improve, must remain in a state of rudeness, utterly incompatible with all manner of delicacy; and as his senses are divided on this point, his touch and his taste must be extremely coarse and blunt; his sight, his hearing, and his smelling equally subtle: such is the animal state in general, and accordingly if we may believe travellers, it is that of most savage nations. We must not therefore be surprised, that the Hottentots of the Cape of Good ...
— A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of - The Inequality Among Mankind • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... scaly fish; a rough, blunt tar. To have other fish to fry; to have other matters to mind, ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... I have been deeply interested in for forty years past. Let me quote to the reader from one of many letters I have received from Sir Wilfrid Seawen Blunt during the past seven years. His practical knowledge of the English thoroughbred race horse and his blood cause, the Arabian, is the equal if not superior to any other one man of this ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... The girl's eyes passed observantly over him now and then; she was critical of appearances, no doubt. That his aspect and demeanour might be in keeping, he bore himself somewhat bluffly, threw out brief, blunt phrases, and met Miss Elvan's glance with a confident smile. No resentment of this behaviour appeared in her look or speech; as the meal went on, she talked more freely, and something of frank curiosity began to reveal ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... opossums from a tree or sugar bag (wild honey) by means of a tomahawk of green stone; the handle is formed of a vine, and fixed in its place with gum. It is astonishing what a quantity of work is got through in the day with these blunt tomahawks." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... dropped everything. But—had he hesitated long enough to pick up a Maxim silencer and a blunt-nosed automatic? And was the "row" which Sprague had been so glibly explaining away an ancient one—a row so deadly that, when Nita Selim had refused to heed his written warning, her murder had ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... just a bit drowsy. I managed to make away with the second without inhaling much of the smoke, for my head was in a whirl by this time. It wasn't so much that I was afraid I couldn't take care of myself as it was that I was afraid that it would blunt the keenness of my observation ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... and peeved all the same, for she dearly wanted to talk to Gay and Spiller. At last the modish gadflies got tired of having their smart talk turned against them, and one by one fell off, especially as Huddy, whose blunt speech was not much to their taste, came up and intruded without ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... Caledonians in the first century were, according to Tacitus, long, large, and blunt at the point, and hence in all probability made of iron, whence came the sharp-pointed leaf-shaped bronze swords so often found in Scotland, and what is the place and date of their manufacture? Were they ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... you an excellent appetite. Wish me the same, for I am coming to see you soon—sooner than I had intended—and shall eat for three. I simply must get away from home, if only for a fortnight. From morning till night I am unpleasantly irritable, I feel as though someone were drawing a blunt knife over my soul, and this irritability finds external expression in my hurrying off to bed early and avoiding conversation. Nothing I do succeeds. I began a story for the Sbornik; I wrote half and threw it up, and then began another; I have been struggling ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... the rock of Sardonix; The steel but grinds, it breaks not, nor grows blunt; Then seeing that he cannot break his sword, Thus to himself he mourns for Durendal: "O good my sword, how bright and pure! Against The sun what flashing light thy blade reflects! When Carle passed through the valley ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... Kempis, "that heareth the Lord speaking in him and taketh from His mouth the word of consolation. Blessed be those ears that receive of God's whisper and take no heed of the whisper of this world."[96] Though St. John of the Cross has reminded us with blunt candour that such persons are for the most part only talking to themselves, we need not deny the value of such a talking as a means of expressing the deeply known and intimate presence of Spirit. ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... them till his own light, wee structure is as securely placed as the cement bungalow of the bigger bird. So, too, the tyrant flycatcher loves to build his larger nest, often interwoven with waste string till it looks as if he had tied it on. He seeks the very tip of the level limb and the blunt, sturdy, spreading twigs invite his confidence as they do that of the chipping sparrow. This bold exposure of eggs and nestlings invites thieving jays and murderous crows, hawks and owls, but the king-bird's dinner flies by while he waits, ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... old man, emphatically. Another general, and far less equivocal laugh, at the expense of Desire, succeeded this blunt declaration Nothing intimidated by such a manifest assent to the opinion of the hardy seaman, the undaunted ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... sit like a giant above all human affairs for the next two decades, and the speech of Mars is blunt and plain. He will say to us all: "Get your houses in order. If you squabble among yourselves, waste time, litigate, muddle, snatch profits and shirk obligations, I will certainly come down upon you again. I have taken all your men between eighteen and fifty, and killed and maimed ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... prey, and a portion of the under side of the rock became alive! Two ink-black eyes appeared, bulging, oval, implacable; and between them opened a great, hooked beak, like a giant parrot's. There was no separate head behind this gaping beak, but eyes and beak merely marked the blunt end of a ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... very little of either,' was the blunt reply. 'There's no more comparison between them than between settling in Normandy and in ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... One grafted tree and four seedlings were planted on the Station grounds. They grew well and showed very little killing back and for several years gave quite nice crops of nuts, but of recent years the yield has been rather small. The nut is blunt-oval in shape and of good size with a fairly hard shell which is well sealed but not any too easy to open. The quality is fairly good but the pellicle is rather ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... prime of life, and had been one of the handsomest beavers in the woods, with fur of the thickest and softest and silkiest, and a weight of probably sixty pounds. Now he was thin and lean, his hair was falling out, his teeth were losing their sharp edges and becoming blunt and almost useless, and even his flat tail was growing thicker and more rounded, and its whack was not as startling as of old when he brought it down with all his might on ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... into which he had declined (or, in another sense, to which he had advanced)—denaturalized him. He would often weigh and consider for hours together the meaning of such and such a deed or phrase of hers, when a blunt settling question would formerly have been his first instinct. And now, uneasy at the thought of a passion for Farfrae which should entirely displace her mild filial sympathy with himself, he observed her going and ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes. A craven hung along the battle's edge, And thought, "Had I a sword of keener steel— That blue blade that the king's son bears,—but this Blunt thing—!" he snapt and flung it from his hand, And lowering crept away and left the field. Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead, And weaponless, and saw the broken sword, Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand, And ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... which he rolled on his belly and began whittling in the hard clay, for Tom had the carving habit—like many a younger boy. Alfred carefully extracted a short pipe from beneath his chaparajos, pushed down with his blunt forefinger the charge with which it was already loaded, and struck a match. He poised this for a moment above the bowl ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... concealing Bismarck was past master. While usually figured as a blunt, bold, tyrannical man, there was also a side of ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... "War and civilization," said one of the great English ministers, "are contradictory terms, even as Christ and Mars." Particularly damaging is the effect of war upon citizens. For does it not blunt the sensibilities, harden the heart, inflame the mind with passions, and deaden the consciences of men? Said the same great English preacher, "The sword that smites the enemy abroad, also lays bare the primeval savage within the citizen at home." ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... began walking about the room, and talking with considerable vehemence, but no more in anger. He would tell her what cause there was for this silly gossip. He would tell her who this girl was who had been lightly mentioned. And in his blunt, frank, matter-of-fact way, which did not quite conceal his emotion, he revealed to his cousin all that he thought of Wenna Rosewarne, and what he hoped for her in the future, and what their present relations were, and then plainly asked her if she ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... of his arrival at Buyukderer that he did not fear her. No woman perhaps ever lived who worried a man less in friendship, or who gave, without any insistence upon it, a stronger impression of loyalty, of tenacity in affection to those for whom she cared. Although often almost delicately blunt in words, in action she was full of tact. She was one of those rare women who absolutely understand men, and who know how to convey to men instantly the fact of their understanding. Such women are always attractive to men. Even if they are plain, and not otherwise ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... so. Let a man have one of these blades, with a hand to wield it and skill to use it, and he may venture upon an angel with it. He need not fear its holding, if he can but tell how to lay on. Its edges will never blunt. It will cut flesh and bones, and soul and spirit, and all ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... he desired, and he was not to hesitate in the expression of any fancy his sickly state might prompt him to make. R—— told him, also, to join the yacht at Cowes when he returned to England. King lived to see the English shores again, and gratefully, in the blunt, pathetic language of a sailor, to thank his amiable benefactor. He fills, at this moment, his ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... takes the spear on the flat of both his hands. The shaft is all black, but the head is of white ivory. It is blunt and ...
— Plays of Near & Far • Lord Dunsany
... Irish Parliamentary Party indeed represent Ireland in this, Mr. Wilfred Blunt's noble protest in his recent work, The Land War in Ireland, would stand for the contemptuous impeachment, not of a political party but ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... mem," he said, giving one look at her pale face, and then turning away in a flurry. "I beg to refer you to Blunt, Hone, and Sharpus, my lawyers, mem," ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... stuck out close to your face, winking and grinning at you in a friendly way. You poked it till it left off and turned grey and went back into the railing. Then you had to feel for it with your finger. It fitted the hollow of your hand, cool and hard, with a blunt nose that pushed agreeably ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... "Blunt enough," admitted Mr. Hammond, but without excitement. "Let's see: You have a paper of some kind, I suppose, to serve ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... with his reputation of being the largest trader in Orkney, and a very wealthy man. Physically he was of towering stature. His hair was light brown, and rather curly; his eyes large and bright blue, his face broad and rosy. He had great bodily and mental vigor, he was blunt in speech, careless about his dress, and simple in all his ways. His Protestantism was of the most decided character, but he was not a Presbyterian. Presbyterianism was a new thing on the face of the earth; he had been "authoritatively ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... is the prettiest woman you can dream of; a real beauty; springtime! A flower!' 'You must excuse me, but if your mistress is really like springtime and a flower, you (pray excuse me for being so blunt) are not exactly that, and perhaps I should not exactly be in a mood to humor you, my dear lady, in the same way ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... believed in his protestations of friendship, and in his blunt sincerity. She allowed him to conduct her to his wife, the queen, and was received by her and Madame Adelaide with the same cordiality the king had shown. Once only in the course of the conversation did Madame Adelaide forget her cordial disposition. She asked ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... that my absence had passed unnoticed. Nor did my good friend the captain utter a word to them of what he knew. But afterwards he called me to him and set me upon his knee. How big, and kind, and strong he was, and how I loved his bluff soldier's face and blunt ways. And when at last he spoke, his words burnt deep in my memory, so that even ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... parts of Europe, involving the use of a fluid which must often be yellow and sometimes salt, possibly indicate the earlier use of urine. (The Greek water of aspersion, according to Theocritus, was mixed with salt, as is sometimes the modern Italian holy water. J.J. Blunt, Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs, p. 173.) Among the Hottentots, as Kolbein and others have recorded, the medicine man urinated alternately on bride and bridegroom, and a successful young warrior was sprinkled in the same way. Mungo Park mentions that in Africa on ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... be blunt," said Baker. "There is no conceivable way in which Clearwater College can be issued a research grant for anything—and especially not for basic research in any ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... a wooden box, made the size of the canvas bale, which is suspended therein by hooks from the open top; the box has a movable side, which is loosened out to give exit to the bale when pressed. The pressing is done by the feet, assisted by a blunt spade, and the bales are generally very creditably turned out, the sheep-farmer priding himself on a neatly pressed bale. When pressed the end is sewn up and the bale rolled over to a convenient place for branding, when it is ready for ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... in the same frantic way. Time will blunt his grief; but it will bring him I fear no other or better comfort. He hopes for oblivion of his loss; but that can never be. He may cease to grieve as he grieves now; but he can never cease to remember. I trust to see him again ere long, and turn ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... without the aid of a repeller applied against the shoulder, space may be obtained to draw the head into a vertical position, and even to slip the hand down so as to seize the nose. Should it prove impossible to draw the head up with the unassisted fingers, a blunt hook (Pl. XXI, fig. 6) may be inserted into the orbit, on which an assistant may drag while another pushes upon the limbs or repeller. Meanwhile the operator may secure an opportunity of reaching and seizing the nose or of passing a blunt hook into the angle of the mouth. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... kind had ceased to alarm Cytherea. Miss Aldclyffe's blunt mood was not her worst. Cytherea thought of another man, whose name, in spite of resolves, tears, renunciations and injured pride, lingered in her ears like an old familiar strain. That man was qualified for ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... a calm evening in the autumn 1756 when Teddy Maroon, smoking a little black pipe, sauntered towards the residence of old John Potter. On reaching the door he extinguished the little pipe by the summary process of thrusting the point of his blunt forefinger into the bowl, and deposited it hot in his vest pocket. His tap was answered by a small servant girl, with a very red and ragged head of hair, who ushered him into the presence of the aged ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... said he. 'You see if I don't. When I say a thing I mean it. I will be your brother.' And he took her hand, caressing it, and showing her that he was not in the least afraid of her. He was blunt in his bearing, saying things which her father would have called indelicate and heartless, as though they gave him no effort, and placing himself at once almost in a position of ascendency. This Clara had not intended. She had ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... endeavour to produce or enlarge this capability is one of the best services in which, at any period, a Writer can be engaged; but this service, excellent at all times, is especially so at the present day. For a multitude of causes unknown to former times are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor. The most effective of these causes are the great national events which are daily taking place, and the encreasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... with an open visor, and without feathers; on his legs was bull's hide. On their left shoulders, they carried shields with coat of arms; on the Teuton's at the top was a chessboard, at the bottom, three lions rampant; on Zbyszko's, a blunt horseshoe. In the right hand they carried broad, huge, terrible axes, set in oaken, blackened helves, longer than the arm of a grown man. The warriors who seconded them were: Hlawa, called by Zbyszko, Glowacz, and van Krist, both dressed in dark iron ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... say that, and help me do my duty." And all the coldness melted out of Phebe's manner as she hugged her little mistress close, feeling the comfort of sympathy even through the blunt sincerity of ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... caution that might have enabled him to shelter himself against these blasts. With all his experience of Courts, Hyde never learned the arts of a courtier. He was naively unconscious how little the steadfast honesty of his purpose could render his blunt plainness of diction palatable to a master, the chief feature of whose character was callous selfishness, and whose self-love might for the moment allow him to overlook, but never permitted him to ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... and close as when the fight begun, Their huge unwieldy navy wastes away; So sicken waning moons too near the sun, And blunt their crescents on the edge ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... of cozey fuss Was changed to prospects queering The blunt ran shy, and Bobby brush'd, [6] To get more rag not fearing; [7] To Islington he quickly hied, A traveller there he dropped on; The traps were fly, his rig they spied [8] And ruffles soon they popped on. [9] When evening came, he sought not home, While she, poor stupid woman, Got ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... feelings of an overwhelming interest. Quang, however, maintained with every manifestation of inspired assurance that Yat Huang was to be commended down to the smallest detail, inasmuch as proficiency in the use of both blunt and sharp-edged weapons, and a faculty for passing undetected through the midst of an encamped body of foemen, fitted a person for the every-day affairs of ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... North America in the Oligocene, and are still very primitive in structure, combining features of the hog and the ruminants. Primitive deer and oxen begin in the Miocene, and seem to have an earlier representative in certain American animals (Protoceras), of which the male has a pair of blunt outgrowths between the ears. The first true deer are hornless (like the primitive muskdeer of Asia to-day), but by the middle of the Miocene the males have small two-pronged antlers, and as the period proceeds three or four more ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... of family, no binding tie of marriage, none of the fine felicities and the endearing affections of home. Few of these things were the lot of the Southern black woman. Instead, thereof, a gross barbarism, which tended to blunt the tender sensibilities, to obliterate feminine delicacy and womanly shame, came down as her heritage from generation to generation; and it seems a miracle of providence and grace that, notwithstanding these terrible circumstances, so much struggling virtue lingered ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. XLII. April, 1888. No. 4. • Various
... people—Irene, who was staring at Rilla's feet as if she had never seen feet before! And once she had thought Irene's manner perfection! Everything that Rilla had prepared to say vanished from her memory. Vainly trying to tuck her unlucky foot under her chair, she blurted out a blunt statement. ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... before she took his meaning, so much did his blunt proposal seem a part of the staccato chat of politics ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... feel as you do about it, Evelyn," was her blunt rejoinder. "It shows that you are on the right road. I don't believe it is necessary for you to tell the Southards anything. Still there is another person who ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... as though all the nerve ends in every human body were burnt blunt in the first hot gush of war. Even the casual eyewitness gets it. We got it ourselves; and not until we had quit the zone of hostilities did we shake it off. Indeed, we did not try. It made for subsequent sanity to carry for the time a drugged ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb |
