"Abrupt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brought his horse to an abrupt standstill. Had he heard a faint sound off there in the path? With a sudden spring, he dismounted. Over near the fence, he thought he had seen through the streak of light a human hand move upward and then sink into the snow. ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... said I. 'I had not meant to be abrupt. As you may see, I have had a long and wearisome journey and am—what you call—fagged. I must rest, ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... after tune until his breath failed him, and an exhausted grunt of the drone—in the middle of a coronach, followed by an abrupt pause, revealed the emptiness of both lungs and bag. Then first he remembered his object, forgotten the moment he had filled ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Abrupt, with eagle-speed she cut the sky; Instant invisible to mortal eye. Then first he recognized the ethereal guest; Wonder and joy alternate fire his breast; Heroic thoughts, infused, his heart dilate; ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... Katherine does not do herself justice; her manners are so abrupt. You do not mind my ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... deeds of blood, and never dealt death to his fellow man as he ploughed the deep, under the black flag of piracy, with the motto of "Rob, Kill, and Burn." After adjusting the rope, a signal was given. The body dropped heavily, and the harsh abrupt shock must have instantly deprived him of sensation, as there was no voluntary action of the hands afterwards. Thus terminated his career of crime in a foreign land without one friend to recognize or cheer him, or a single being to regret ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... Ferguson's abrupt departure and retrograde movement from Gilberttown, like that of Cornwallis from Charlotte two weeks later, clearly betrayed his apprehensions of formidable opposition by the enraged "hornets" of the mountains. Pursuit ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... face, and made a few solemn allusions to Methuselah. She had a peculiarly quick, even abrupt manner of speaking, saying a dozen words in the time most young ladies would take to drawl out three; and possessing, likewise, the rare feminine quality of never saying a word more ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... was nervous and abrupt in his movements, and that Mrs. Spillane seemed laboring under some strong anxiety. She was a thin, washed-out, worked-out woman, whose life of dreary and unending toil had stamped itself harshly upon her face. It was the same life that had bowed her husband's shoulders ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... that she took this view of his abrupt utterances. He thought the incident was ended. He was mistaken; Elsie was able to recall each word subsequently. At the moment she was recording impressions with uncomprehending accuracy, but her mind was quite incapable of analyzing ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... which seemed always to say to her son that she was preoccupied with her own affairs, and that her affairs were vastly more important than his youthful interests and problems, swam vaguely before his consciousness, veiled by the swift passing of events and the abrupt change from city ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... do not proceed with this abrupt logic: they love to bargain with necessity. M. Dupin (session of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, June 10, 1843) expresses the opinion that, "though competition may be useful within the nation, it must be prevented ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... the way was quite open and clear, and they were drawing near to the dwelling when Woot the Wanderer, who was then in the lead of the little party, halted with such an abrupt jerk that he stumbled over backward and lay flat on his back in the meadow. The Scarecrow stopped ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... him if he had ever seen Miss Havisham's adopted daughter, Mrs. Bentley Drummle. He said no. To avoid being too abrupt, I then spoke of the Aged and of Miss Skiffins. He looked rather sly when I mentioned Miss Skiffins, and stopped in the street to blow his nose, with a roll of the head, and a flourish not quite free from ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... world, with no other weapon than the knowledge of the people one should know, transfix me, silence me, transform me into a dull, bucolic boor. Penelope was annoyed. I knew that she was chagrined at my lack of savoir faire, for in one of the long pauses following an abrupt response of mine I caught a glance of mute despair. She seemed to accuse me of falling short of her expectations by my lamentable lack ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... Rickie, and wondered a little why the reply seemed not abrupt. "Would we see the Rings in the daytime ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... conscience, that Javert had but just gone through some great interior struggle. Javert had nothing in his soul which he had not also in his countenance. Like violent people in general, he was subject to abrupt changes of opinion. His physiognomy had never been more peculiar and startling. On entering he bowed to M. Madeleine with a look in which there was neither rancor, anger, nor distrust; he halted a few paces in the rear of the mayor's arm-chair, and there he stood, perfectly erect, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... blow may bring back a lost identity to the victim of amnesia the discovery electrified the man and he straightened into an abrupt erectness. His features lost their sleep-walking indefiniteness and his ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... returned, laughing: "I don't want your intercession. I only want you to find out from Miss Clare whether she knows how she has so mortally offended my husband. I believe she knows nothing about it. She has a rather abrupt manner sometimes, you know; but then my husband is not so silly as to have taken such deep offence at that. Help ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... have been particularly unpleasant to a high-minded nation like the French—at the very moment when the Egyptian affair and the balance of Europe had been settled in this abrupt way—to find out all of a sudden that the Pasha of Egypt was their dearest friend and ally. They had suffered in the person of their friend; and though, seeing that the dispute was ended, and the ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... abrupt answer was as distinct a snub as saying: "If you want to discuss her you can do it with ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... am abrupt," he went on, "but the matter concerns me intimately. I am informed that you are engaged to my friend ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... point of application of the force. Such a twisting the rock appears to have suffered; but instead of the twist fading gradually and uniformly off, in passing from south to north, the want of uniformity in the material has produced lines of dislocation where there are abrupt changes in the amount of twist. Thus, at the northern end of the rock the dip to the west is nineteen degrees; in the Middle Hill, it is thirty-eight degrees; in the centre of the South hill, or Sugar Loaf, it is fifty-seven degrees. At the southern extremity of the Sugar ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... hat on his head with a certain abrupt fierceness, and strode angrily away, before she could answer or even grasp the full significance of what ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... grovelled most industriously during all his waking hours, until such time as his podgy legs had hardened sufficiently to bear his weight—with many falls, of course—and then he began to scurry about on his feet. His usual style of progression at this period was to take from two to four abrupt, jerky strides, rather with the air of a fussy and corpulent old gentleman who had to catch a train, and then to subside in a confused lump, on chest and nose, with tail waggling angrily in mid-air. ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... her as she arranged the table. Her abrupt entry into the room, while he was in bed, startled him. No woman, except his mother, had ever been in his bedroom before, and it horrified him to think that this strange young woman could see him sitting in his nightshirt in bed. He had never in his ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... Hallelujah Armies and small holdings and such-like. In ten years it'll be a scare-crow of a countryside. I wish one could clear them up and burn them in heaps as one does the dead leaves in autumn." Fatigue fell upon her. She seemed exhausted by the manufacture of so much malice. With an abrupt and listless gesture she pointed her stick at the Castle. "It isn't much, you see," she said apologetically. And indeed there was little enough. There were just the two towers on the summit and the two on the slope of the hill ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... abrupt angle of the road Mary's heart leaped into her throat to find herself and her companion suddenly face to face with two horsemen in gray, journeying leisurely toward them on particularly good horses. One wore a slouched hat, the other a Federal officer's cap. They were ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... archaic assemblage of Basque houses, the little square of the village with its kalsomined porches and its old plane-trees, then the old, massive belfry of the church, and, higher than everything, dominating everything, crushing everything, the abrupt mass of the Gizune from which comes so much shade, from which descends on this distant village so hasty an impression of night—Truly it encloses too much, that mountain, it imprisons, it impresses—And Ramuntcho, in his juvenile triumph, is troubled by the sentiment of this, by this ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... were characterised by their abrupt violence. Once dining with Lord Halifax he became so impatient of contradiction, that he rushed out of the room, overthrowing the sideboard. Inquiring on the next day how he had behaved, Moyle observed, "You went away like the devil, taking one corner ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... written for the people, and is therefore in a more popular tone than usual: portions strike as abrupt and unpolished, but many stanzas are all his own. I heard him repeat, and admired, ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... foreign countries with their correspondence, our Bretons did not run away on Thursday. It is true that when they saw the Saxons emerging from their holes and shouting hurrah, our Bretons were a little troubled by this abrupt and savage joke, but"—then follows the statement of several of the heroes themselves that they fought like lions. The fact is, as I have already stated in my letter of yesterday, the Mobiles fought only tolerably well, and some of their battalions ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... one in which she rode after those black ponies for many a day. The Doctor seemed more at leisure than usual, and in a much more talkative mood; so it was quite a merry ride, until he broke a moment's silence by an abrupt question: ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... my eyes went wandering up and down the rocky slope abrupt above me, reading on its face the record that down there, ages ago, rushed a cataract, filling the channels that had led me to its foot. My heart swelled at the thought of the splendid tumult, where the waves danced revelling in helpless fall, ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... his paper and put it into an envelope which he licked copiously, and closed the letter with a great deal of display. But then his industry coming to an abrupt end, as it often did, he tossed it to me saying, "You can address it, Mary;" so I enclosed it in my own letter to thank Mother for the book, and I fancy she did write to our gardener, for he gave us a good lot of things, and was much more good-natured ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... what I beheld was Robert's apparition, I determined to see the strange affair through to the bitter end, and entering the gate, I also went down into the area. The phantom had come to an abrupt halt by the side of a low wooden box, and as I foolishly made an abortive attempt to reach it with my hand, it vanished instantaneously. I searched the area thoroughly, and was assured that there was no outlet, save by the steps I had just descended, and no hole, nor nook, nor ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... Vancouver steered south-wards, sighted St. Paul's Island, and sailed towards New Holland, between the routes taken by Dampier and Marion, and through latitudes which had not yet been traversed. On the 27th September was sighted part of the coast of New Holland, ending in abrupt and precipitous cliffs, to which the name of Cape Chatham was given. As many of his crew were down with dysentery, Vancouver decided to anchor in the first harbour he came to, to get water, wood, and above all provisions, of which he stood sorely in need. Port George III. was the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... reading, lifted the Curtains of the Impossible that blind the mind, and looked out into the unknown. Amid stiff, abrupt sentences I wandered; and, presently, I had no fault to charge against their abrupt tellings; for, better far than my own ambitious phrasing, is this mutilated story capable of bringing home all that the old Recluse, of the vanished ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... this passage, there was an abrupt turn to the left, which brought the boy unexpectedly to a partially open door, where a scene so strange met his eyes that he ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... the bell would jam or a brake fail to act on a hill; or the seat-pillar would get loose, and the saddle drop three or four inches with a disconcerting bump; or the loose and rattling chain would jump the cogs of the chain-wheel as the machine ran downhill, and so bring the mechanism to an abrupt and disastrous stop without at the same time arresting the forward momentum of the rider; or a tyre would bang, or sigh quietly, and give up ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... told him. She described the coming of the messenger, her journey to the Pension Malfait, and she repeated, as far as was possible, the exact words of her friend's curiously-worded, abrupt letter ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... historic value mark the career of Loudoun since the days of Reconstruction, and the seemingly abrupt conclusion to which the reader has now arrived is not thought incompatible with the plan of this work, which in no single instance has contemplated the inclusion of any but the most momentous events. Besides, existing conditions ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... Mr. Tollmidge's formidable assertions relating to herself for the second time, Lady Lydiard's meditations came to an abrupt end. She rose, took the letters in both hands to tear them up, hesitated, and threw them back in the cabinet drawer in which she had discovered them, among other papers that had not been arranged ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... did it matter to me—what did anything matter to me?—Lord Robert had met us in the hall again, as we were coming out of the opera; he looked very pale, and he apologized to Lady Ver for his abrupt departure. He had got a chill, he said, and had gone to have a glass of brandy, and was all right now, and would we not come to supper, and various other empresse things, looking at her with the greatest devotion. I ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... ravenously hungry; but food there was none, so I had made up my mind to lie down, famished as I was. Just then I came across some sleeping men, who to my joy turned out to be Dighton Probyn and the officers of the 2nd Punjab Cavalry, who were magnanimous enough to forgive the abrupt interruption to their slumbers, and to supply me with some cold mutton, bread, and a bottle of beer. Never was man more grateful for a meal, and never was a meal more thoroughly enjoyed. I lay down beside my friends and was soon fast asleep, in spite of the bitter cold and being ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... the course of this vehement and angry declamation, he spoke of publishing his correspondence with the officers of government, together with a narrative of his proceedings; and said that, although the existing causes would warrant an abrupt departure, his regard for the people of America would induce him to remain here, amidst the insults and disgusts that he daily suffered in his official character from the public officers, until the meeting of congress; and if that body should agree in the opinions and support ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... of filling the vacancy in his affections caused by the abrupt departure of Lola Montez, Fraeulein Schroder, a young actress at the Hof Theatre, endeavoured to comfort Ludwig in his retirement. He, however, was beyond ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... the spot. To reach the edge of the stream was by no means an easy undertaking, so many abrupt points and gloomy hollows were interposed. I had frequently skirted and penetrated this tract, but had never been so completely entangled in the maze as now: hence I had remained unacquainted with a narrow pass, which, at the distance of an hundred yards from the river, would conduct ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... case is that in which the decline in prices is abrupt—at the beginning at all events—and is precipitated by much forced liquidation of a character disastrous to the enterprises forced to undertake it. In short, when it is brought about by an industrial crisis or when an industrial crisis is actively threatened. ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... was the abrupt remark of the small person as her plate of drum-sticks was removed and the pudding appeared, ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... Petrovitch, with exaggerated courtesy. He was beginning to feel a secret irritation. His aristocratic nature was revolted by Bazarov's absolute nonchalance. This surgeon's son was not only not overawed, he even gave abrupt and indifferent answers, and in the tone of his voice there was something ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... uncomfortable in ordinary company. The man, Val sometimes thought privately, lived, ate, slept books. Save when they were the subject of conversation, he was as out of his element as a coal-miner at the ballet. "We should explain the reason for this—this rather abrupt call." He fingered his brief-case, which he ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... Gentiles of every description. Think of his dealing with the Syrophoenician woman. She was a Canaanite of the old race, and, though at first he seemed to turn her away, yet ultimately he gave her all she asked and more: and even his apparently abrupt treatment of her in the beginning, if I read the history aright, was meant to be an exposure and condemnation of the feelings commonly cherished toward those of her nation by the Jews of his day. No doubt it tested and strengthened her own faith. But ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... that he had not been too abrupt with the waiter, "poor cuss." But he lay awake to think of Theresa's hair and hand-clasp; of polished desks and florid gentlemen who curtly summoned bank-presidents and who had—he tossed the bedclothes about in his struggle to get the ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... Thirlwater, and Windermere. The principal phenomena are rounded hummocks of rock on the skirts of the hills, and in the middle of the valleys; and as these hummocks, whatever may be the direction of the valleys, invariably present a smoothed side up, and an abrupt side downwards (stoss-seite and lee-seite of the Scandinavian geologists), it becomes certain that the glaciers proceeding from the mountains at the upper extremities were local to the several valleys. The smoothed hummocks are very noticeable in Derwentwater or Borrowdale, the celebrated ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... heed of passing hours. Even her father, the abstracted man of affairs, nodded to dusty people along the road; to a jolly old man whose bulk rolled and shook in a tiny, rhythmically creaking buggy, to women in the small abrupt towns with their huge red elevators ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... and the abrupt announcement of the second marriage. The anguish and despair of the repudiated wife were portrayed with a vividness, a marvellous eloquence and passionate fervour that surpassed all former exhibitions of her genius, and the people rose, and applauded, as audiences ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... remorse without any intermediate stage of feeling, changing abruptly and decisively." The closing words of the first scene: "My salvation lies in Mary!" are the real turning point of the drama. As abrupt as his desertion of Venus for Mary, is his return to her in the third act. By the side of Mary is placed the more human, the more earthly but yet idealised form of Elizabeth, a figure closely resembling Beatrice ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... into the foothills, one of our equestriennes narrowly escaped a fall. Her horse dropped a foot into a prairie-dog's hole, and came to an abrupt stop. The foot was extricated, and I was instructed in the dangers that beset the prairie voyager in these blind ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... this cast of features, you might as well attempt to soften or convince a brick wall. Margaret Van Eyck tried, but all in vain. So then, not being herself used to be thwarted, she got provoked, and at last went out hastily with an abrupt and mutilated curtsey, which Catherine, returned with an air rather of defiance than obeisance. Outside the door Margaret Van Eyck found Reicht conversing with a pale girl on crutches. Margaret Van Eyck was pushing by them with heightened colour, and a scornful toss intended for the whole family, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Milvain's name in conversation, and he wished to have an end of this. Hitherto he had felt a troublesome uncertainty regarding his position in the matter. From what his wife had told him it seemed pretty certain that Marian was disappointed by the abrupt closing of her brief acquaintance with the young man, and Yule's affection for his daughter caused him to feel uneasy in the thought that perhaps he had deprived her of a chance of happiness. His conscience ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... upon a bald face of rock, which stood out storm-battered where a rift went through the backbone of the ridge. This point of vantage commanded the other valley. From its edge, a white oak, dwarfed, but patriarchal, leaned out over an abrupt drop. No more sweeping or splendid view could be had within miles, but it was not for any reason so general that Sally had made her pilgrimage. Down below, across the treetops, were a roof and a chimney from which a thread of smoke rose in an ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... is something very impressive in the abrupt bursting in of this second voice, all unnamed. It is the reverberation, as it were, of the former, giving the preparation on the side of man for the coming of Jehovah. Israel in bondage in Egypt had ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... took out his watch with an abrupt movement. "When did you say the British Museum ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... a somewhat abrupt manner, he was genial and kindly in his feelings, with warm affections ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... at her intently, presaging another disclosure. "Me, my father a white man too," she said in her abrupt way. "It ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... too abrupt. The nun turned deadly pale, and clung to the bars of the grate for support; but the emotion was momentary. "Go on," said she, in a ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... with you men; you don't understand us, you cannot. When you have made up your minds, after thinking of this one and that one, Choosing, selecting, rejecting, comparing one with another, Then you make known your desire, with abrupt and sudden avowal, And are offended and hurt, and indignant perhaps, that a woman Does not respond at once to a love that she never suspected, Does not attain at a bound the height to which you have been climbing. This is not right nor just: for surely a woman's affection ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... 210.] The crown of the dike, however, for the last three or four feet of its height, is much steeper, being intended rather as a protection against the spray than against the waves, and the inner slope is always comparatively abrupt. ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... mysteries of the toilet which required attention before the arrival of her expected guests—brought the performance to an abrupt termination, Damaris felt a little taken aback, a little put about, as though someone should be guilty of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... accidental; it was true that Cressy had accepted his attention with lazy amusement; it was true that she had suddenly and audaciously left him on the borders of the McKinstry woods in a way that might have seemed rude and abrupt to any escort less invincibly good-humored than Uncle Ben, but none of these things marred his fatuous felicity. It is even probable that in his gratuitous belief that his timid attentions had been too marked ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... never knew. I awoke at once with that abrupt start which we all know well, and which carries us in a second from utter unconsciousness to the full use of our faculties. The fire was still burning, but was very low, and half the room or more was in deep shadow. I knew, I felt, that some person or thing was in the room, although nothing unusual ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... She had her own description of it: it was the attitude of waiting for the carriage. If they didn't go out it was not that Mrs. Tramore was not ready in time, and Rose had even an alarmed prevision of their some day always arriving first. Mrs. Tramore's conversation at such moments was abrupt, inconsequent and personal. She sat on the edge of sofas and chairs and glanced occasionally at the fit of her gloves (she was perpetually gloved, and the fit was a thing it was melancholy to see wasted), as people do who are expecting guests ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... to her wishes, "I thought I saw you glide in here, and my guests being now all arrived, I ave ventured to steal away for a moment, just to satisfy the craving which has been torturing me for the last hour. Irene, you are pale; you tremble like an aspen. Have I frightened you by my words—too abrupt, perhaps, considering the reserve that has always been between us until now. Didn't you know that I loved you? that for the last month—ever since I have known you, indeed—I have had but the one wish, to ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... to read them, but to live them, to see the people coming and going: the gentlemen courteous and in top-boots, the ladies demure and piquant; we can almost hear them talking to one another. No retrospects; no abrupt flights; as in real life days and events follow one another. Last Tuesday does not suddenly start into existence all out of place; nor does 1790 appear upon the scene when we are well on in '21. Countries and continents ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... "The March of the Pilgrims" came to an abrupt end. John Lansing Birch laid down his viola and bow, whirled about, and flung out his arms in despair. "Oh, this crowd is hopeless!" he groaned. "Never mind any other instrument, providing yours is heard. This march is supposed to die away in the distance! You murder ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... seemed abrupt," he apologised. "You've been very good to us and I'm sure we are uncommonly obliged to you, Jim. The only reason I asked the question was that I saw a face in the door there and it gave me a start. For a moment I thought it was Craig ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... but did not hide. He was kept smiling in this quizzical way by the nervous chatter of the girl beside him. His profile, which was the view Allen had of him, was striking. His strong, straight nose and abrupt forehead formed a marked contrast to the rather characterless nose and retreating forehead ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... I knew her. My own long residence in Paris has made me more critical than I used to be in such matters; but I do not remember having met any woman in society with manners more nearly perfect than Mrs. Courtney's. Ethel Leigh used to be, upon occasion, painfully abrupt and disconcerting; and her movements and attitudes, though there was abundant native grace in them, were often careless and unconventional. Of course, I do not forget that niceties of deportment, without ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... and the Ny are narrow little streams, but deep, with abrupt banks, and bordered by heavily wooded and marshy bottoms—at the time we were there—and difficult to cross except where bridged. The country about was generally heavily timbered, but with occasional clearings. It was ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... situations and emotional states which are exploited, promulgated, and dwelt upon in the set music pieces. Its purpose is to maintain the play in an artificial atmosphere, so that the transition from dialogue to song may not be so abrupt as to disturb the mood of the listener. Of all the factors in an opera, the dry recitative is the most monotonous. It is not music, but speech about to break into music. Unless one is familiar with Italian ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... his formal sanction to present at the bank, as without this the transaction would not have the necessary official character. Li agreed readily enough when the matter was presented in this light; what he had objected to was Lay's abrupt demand to pay so many thousand taels out of ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... a compact body. In quarter column, therefore, the Brigade advanced and approached the foot of the hill. I have noticed several times that when you get rather close to the hill the rise comes to look more gradual and the ridge itself does not stand up in the abrupt and salient way that it does from a distance. Whether it was this, or simply that the darkness of the night hid the outline, at any rate the column approached the hill and the trench which runs at the foot of the hill much too closely before the order to extend was given. When ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... the futility, the obviousness of the lie, yet somehow unable to help speaking it, Marie answered in abrupt confusion. Yes, she had been gardening; it—it was a favourite ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... is compressed into a very narrow channel against the right-hand cliff, and falls 15 feet in 10 yards. At the second we have a broad sheet of water tumbling down 20 feet over a group of rocks that thrust their dark heads through the foam. The third is a broken fall, or short, abrupt rapid, where the water makes a descent of more than 20 feet among huge, fallen fragments of the cliff. We name the group Triplet Falls. We make a portage around the first; past the second and the third we let down ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... reflections, Trirodov did not hear the noise of the departing carriage; the unexpected call of the dark-faced, fascinating visitor, with his flaming speech and his fiery eyes, stirred his memory like a midday dream, like an abrupt hallucination. ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... with reference to these Mimika songs that he was forcibly struck by the resemblance of the termination of most of the songs to the common cry of the greater bird of paradise, and said: "They finished with the same abrupt note, repeated three times (like the birds)." Dr. Haddon has been good enough to lend me the manuscript of his notes on the dances performed in the islands of Torres Straits, which will probably have appeared in Vol. ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... two lines I could get no clearer rendering than that "he just came in full through these people for diversion and for fun to himself." Then the ballad continues at once—for its method is terse and its transitions abrupt throughout—to give us the words of the men who meet Connlaoch ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... what love is now," was the abrupt way in which the young man opened the subject on ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... British pwll]. A deep hole of water, generally beneath a cataract or any abrupt waterfall. Also, ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... not been engaged in aiding the rebel cause, they were not further molested. The steamers of the mortar flotilla ascended the river about thirteen miles above Pearlington, when the stream became quite narrow, and the turns so abrupt, that further progress for the larger boats seemed to be impracticable. Captains Renshaw and Baldwin therefore anchored their vessels, and went on board of the Sachem, which, on account of her lighter draught and less beam, could ascend higher, and was ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the most abrupt change. I had never seen her furiously angry. She's a typical high echelon Washington secretary, cool, extremely well-mannered, cheerful without being bumptious. But this time she was ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... climatic conditions. In general, each plantation consists of about 100 trees, 50 U.S.D.A. hybrids and 50 Connecticut hybrids. The trees are planted at a 10' by 10' spacing, and the overstory is girdled at the time of planting in order to give the plants better light conditions without causing an abrupt change in the microclimate of the forest floor—a method developed by Dr. J. D. Diller of the Division of Forest Pathology (1). Ten plantations at 9 locations have been established since 1947. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... and other seafarers in their eager search for new lands worth colonizing. Nor was it easy for explorers to penetrate into the interior. In its surface Africa has been compared to an inverted saucer,—the high plateaus occupying most of the interior descending to the sea by short, abrupt, and steep slopes, so that the wide and peaceful rivers of the plateaus are lashed into foam as they approach the ocean by many series of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... man are you, then, pray?" resumed the Little Countess in her brief and abrupt tone; "I cannot understand it very well. By what right, on what ground, do you despise me? Suppose I am really guilty of all the intrigues which are attributed to me; what is that to you? Are you a saint yourself? a reformer? ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... perfect time, occasionally exchanging brief sentences in which compliment played no insignificant part. To Brant, as he marked the heightened color flushing her fair cheeks, the experience brought back fond memories of his last cadet ball at the Point, and he hesitated to break the mystic spell with abrupt questioning. Curiosity, however, ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... Chief Justice appears to recoil from this abrupt dismissal of the clear and present danger formula for the more serious cases, and he makes a last moment effort to rescue the babe that he has tossed out with the bathwater. He says: "As articulated by Chief Judge Hand, it is as ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... cause for complaint before our National Government, was received with sympathy and respect. The President in his reply reserved our decision in the affair. It was the only course he could take without an abrupt departure from our most treasured traditions of non-interference in Old World disputes. But the sympathy of America went out to the Belgians in the heroic tragedy, and from every section of our land money contributions and supplies of food and clothing poured over to the Commission ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... over her as she turned and saw her brother Ezra behind her, smiling at her fright. In his arms he held a small white lamb, and it was this little animal's nose that had been pressed to Naomi's neck, and that had brought her day-dreaming to such an abrupt close. ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... With an abrupt, restless movement she turned and walked on till her way along the path was barred by a curious obstacle. This was a small red-brick tower, built within a few feet of the edge of the cliff. It was an ugly blot on the beautiful stretch of down, all the uglier that the ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... the little open ledgy space on three sides; toward the very verge of the mountain the rocks grew shelving and precipitous, and beyond the furthest which she could see, the gray edge of which cut sharply against the base of a distant dun-tinted range, she knew the descent was abrupt to the depths of the valley. Looking up, she beheld the trembling lucid whiteness of a star; now and again the great rustling boughs of an oak-tree swayed beneath it, and then its glister was broken ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... I was in the office of M. Henry, I saw one of those little abrupt, brisk men enter, who, at the first glance, we are convinced are interested and distrustful: it was M. Senard, who briefly related his mishap, and concluded by saying, that he had strong suspicions of Moiselet. M. Henry thought also that he was the author of the robbery, and I agreed with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... table came to rather an abrupt end, brought on by a difference of opinion between the Field-marshal and Mr Whipcord on some point connected with a deal. It was a slight matter, but in the sharp words that ensued my companions came out in a strangely new light. Whipcord, especially, ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... uttered these words before the reason for the Maria's abrupt departure became apparent. The anchorage of the yacht had been at a spot whence nearly the whole south of the lake towards Far Harbor was open, whilst a high tongue of land hid that part from us on the shore. As he spoke, there shot before our eyes a steaming ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... watched him idly for a moment or two, and then with an abrupt swing of his whole figure, eloquent of defiant resolution, he stared the Major in the face, and said in a ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... a movement for the purpose of seizing the letter and snatching it away from him. This abrupt action convinced Mederic that some important secret was at stake and made him resolve to do his duty, cost what ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... perfect as the whole. Studying the details, it seems as if Nature were a series of costly fragments with no coherency,—as if she would never encourage us to do anything systematically, would tolerate no method but her own, and yet had none of her own,—were as abrupt in her transitions from oak to maple as the heroine who went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie; while yet there is no conceivable human logic so close and inexorable as her connections. How rigid, how flexible are, for instance, the laws of perspective! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... be seen in the previous chapter, that the formal ceremony of a fashionable introduction, such as—"Mr. Sparkle, my friend Mr. Robert Tallyho, of Belville Hall; Mr. Tallyho, Mr. Charles Sparkle," was altogether omitted; indeed, the abrupt entrance of the latter rendered it utterly impossible, for although Sparkle was really a well-bred man, he had heard from Lady Jane of Tom's arrival with his young friend from the country. Etiquette between themselves, was at all ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... when Romayne would have asked for some explanation of this abrupt notice of removal. Now, he passively accepted the advice of his spiritual director. Father Benwell made the necessary communication to the authorities, and Romayne took leave of his friends in The Retreat. The great Jesuit and ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... the abrupt edge of a little hill in a Southern Japanese city. There, in a great tree hanging out over the edge, had hung the bell that called together the faithful retainers of the lord of the province, when they were needed. There, nearly thirty years ago, a little band of Japanese youth, of noble ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... It was not until the next day that she could find any pleasure in him, or even in the prospect of Lloyd's visit; and when these interests began to revive, sudden gusts of rage would tear her, and she would fall into abrupt reveries, declaring to herself that she would tell Lloyd how she had been insulted! But she reminded herself that she must choose just the right moment to enlist his sympathy for the affront; she must decide with just what caress she would tell him that she meant ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... sought it, worked as he walked, and was marked down as a 'pot-hunter.' He 'worked while he ate, he cut down his sleep, and for him the penalty came, not in a palpable, definable illness, but in an abrupt, incongruous reaction and collapse.' With rage he looked back on these insensate years of study which had weakened him just when he should have been carefully fortifying ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... to Milan was, after all, put off, and Messer Galeazzo was called away to more arduous duties in camp and field. The debate, which had been prolonged with so much wit and ingenuity on both sides, came to an abrupt ending. It was left to the Florentine poet, Bellincioni, in whose verses the smallest incidents that took place at court were faithfully reflected, to celebrate this "praiseworthy and memorable duel of intellect between these two august personages." At Beatrice's command Bellincioni wrote three ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... these abrupt stops, outside the large towns, and nowhere do they tax you on your oil or essence except at Paris—where you pay (alas!) nearly as ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... which the Round Tower stands may or may not be pre-historic. The slopes of the hill were inhabited, like nearly all our English sites, by the Romans, and by the savages before and after the Romans; but the welter of the Saxon dark ages did not use this abrupt elevation for a stronghold. What military reasoning led William of Falaise to discern it at once and there to build ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... an upright position with an effort. Very curiously she did not feel in the least afraid. By an abrupt intuition, wholly inexplicable, she knew that the man had something to ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... really had been, and was not the fact of her marriage enough to remove any suspicion that Mutimer might formerly have entertained? But the manner of his question was so singular, the introduction of Eldon's name so abrupt, that she could not but discern in a measure what was in ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... the waters one by one! Slumber wraps the silent city, and the droning mills are dumb; One lone whippowil's shrill ditty calls her mate that ne'er will come. Sadly moans the mighty river, foaming down the fettered falls, Where of old he thundered ever o'er abrupt and lofty walls. Great Unktehee [69]—god of waters—lifts no more his mighty head;— Fled he with the timid otters?—lies he in the ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... secluded places on the coast of Florida, Georgia and Texas, for the purpose of concealing their stock until it could be sold out. Without specifying other places, let me draw your attention to a deep and abrupt pocket or indentation in the coast of Texas, about thirty miles from Brazos Santiago. Into this pocket a slaver could run at any hour of the night, because there was no hindrance at the entrance, and here she could ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... they meet next morning at eight o'clock in front of the hotel, when the two boys will go to the place where the old man so strangely disappeared. Leaving the new assistant in full view of this turn, facing toward the street from which the stranger made the abrupt exit, the other boy is to quickly come ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... cast about for some less abrupt way of broaching the subject uppermost in his mind than he now found himself obliged to use. With a husky voice that trembled as he ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to an abrupt stop after that one word. He would not tell the dreadful news to this spirited young ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... one of these excursions she was returning when she brought the automobile to such an abrupt stop, that Clay, who had yielded her the wheel at her request and was not noticing just then at all, was almost thrown ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... as the uniform consequences of loyalty or disobedience to the covenant. When the anonymous prophet who, in the insertion in the last redaction (chap. vi. 7-10), makes his appearance as suddenly as his withdrawal is abrupt, improves the visitation of the Midianites as the text for a penitential discourse, the matter is nevertheless looked at immediately thereafter with quite different eyes. For to the greeting of the angel, "Jehovah is with thee, thou mighty ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... as a manufacturing nation, and advance materially that great object of all honest men, the abolition of the accursed traffic in human beings. It is the latter object that chiefly occupies my mind, but I shall not attempt to bring it before the native princes in too abrupt a manner. In some cases, indeed, to allude to it at all would be disastrous. The promotion of legitimate traffic must, after all, be our ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... girl?" asked Count von Breitstein, in his usual abrupt manner, as the arm of Leopold girdled the slim waist of the Princess, and the eyes of Leopold drank light from another pair of eyes lifted ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... "I'm stating simple facts." Then, with abrupt change to earnestness, "Do you suppose, if I were to break the engagement, she'd take it seriously ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... stood on the shore some way up the stream, but the crashing down of a couple of trees into the water told very clearly that some were there industriously at work. Thus for a couple of hours the boys and Indians watched with great interest these clever animals, and then there was an abrupt ending. It was not caused by any of our party, as the Indians, having abundance of food, had no desire to now kill the beaver. Then, in addition, the skins, so valuable in winter, were ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... velvet, and ferns in plumy profusion. . . . Dan Burnett leads on, and presently we emerge on the largest and most beautiful of the little prairies through which we have passed. This stretch of open ground lies at the foot of the highest peak, the abrupt sides of which rise in conical shape before us. It is here, Mr. Burnett tells us, that the mountaineers who were searching for Professor Mitchell found the first trace of the way he ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... were fond of indulging in it at the expense of the less fortunate. Even Lois Willoughby had not escaped that taint of class. Fearing to wound her by some impatient word, he made zeal in his round of duties the excuse for an abrupt good-by. ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... and thinks them equal to anything he had seen in the finest parts of Europe. For my own part, I think there is somewhat peculiarly sweet and amusing in the shapely-figured aspect of the chalk hills in preference to those of stone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, and shapeless. Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, and not so happy as to convey to you the same idea; but I never contemplate these mountains without thinking I perceive somewhat analogous to growth in their gentle swellings and smooth fungus-like protuberances, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... long, lazy, rolling swell of the Pacific had changed during the day to an abrupt and tumultuous upheaval that tossed the Doric like a cork and made locomotion a problem. The rising wind and sea sent the spray whirling from her bows, and Mildred's young man, casting about for a dry corner, had deposited ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King |
