"Bluff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had got to learn," etc. etc. etc. It seemed to me that the lesson which they had yet to learn was then in the process of being taught to them. They were anxious to be told all about the mischance at Ball's Bluff, but nobody would tell them anything about it. They wanted to know something of that blockade on the Potomac; but such knowledge was not good for them. "Pack them up in boxes, and send them home," one military gentleman said to me. And I began ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... Ottawa are a splendid pile of buildings, and though they may owe a great deal to the wonderful site they occupy on a semicircular wooded bluff projecting into the river, I should consider them one of the most successful group of buildings erected anywhere during the nineteenth century. All the details might not bear close examination, but the general effect was admirable, especially that of the great circular library, with its conical ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... there, rose ohia blossoms lighted shady places, orange flowers gleamed like stars amidst the dense leafage, and the crimped-leaved coffee shrubs were white with their mimic snow. It was my last tropical dream, and I was rudely roused by finding myself on the unsightly verge of the great bluff on the north side of this valley, which plunges to the sea with an uncompromising perpendicular dip of 2000 feet, and carries on its dizzy brow a shelving trail not more than two ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... leaped of a sudden the sun, And against him the cattle stood black every one, To stare through the mist at us galloping past, And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff river headland ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... coming on of Sidney Johnston a bad surprise for you?" "Oh, later in the war," said Sherman, "we no doubt should have done differently, but we got ready for them as they came on." "Was there not bad demoralisation," I said, "ten thousand or more skulkers huddled under the bluff on the Tennessee?" "Oh," said Sherman, "the rear of an army in battle is always a sorry place; but on the firing line, where I was, things did not look so bad."—"Your adversaries, General, were often good fellows, were they not, and you are good friends now?" "The best fellows ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... Over a bluff of rock fifty feet high the rivulet poured and in the spray they saw a rainbow. Down below where they stood ferns were rank and the rocks were soft with moss. Here they sat and chatted of nothing but themselves, he discovering faults in himself and she denying them, ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... he said, "remember you are Canadians." The line advanced with great spirit, less than two thousand Canadians against a hundred thousand Germans. It was the biggest bluff in history but it won. On and on went the Canadians, 10th and Highlanders, one moment with the bayonet the next moment firing. The Germans, who were busy digging in south of the wood, saw the Canadians coming in the twilight, ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... and, instead, is further provoked to action by the unintended actions of the aggressor. Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis' invasion of Kuwait demonstrate when this Potemkin Village model can backfire. Saddam simply let his bluff ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... that the main object of the Yuen-nan provincial government in employing two American engineers, who at the present moment (August, 1910) are surveying a route from Yuen-nan-fu to the Yangtze, is merely official bluff. It is preferable to pay two men a monthly stipend if the official "face" can be preserved and the Chinese dogged official procrastination be maintained, rather than to allow foreigners ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... over. And when it appeared that the two magistrates were bluff, good-humoured squires, who seemed to have no particular spite against anybody, and believed everything the clerk told them, the spirits of our heroes revived wonderfully, and Duffield's ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... Peace Conference on the basis of his appeal. Our declaration might be shown to have been actuated by Wilson's having sent us a direct request for our peace terms. President is of opinion that Note sent to him by the Entente was a piece of bluff which need not be taken seriously. He hopes definitely to bring about Peace Conferences, and quickly too, so that the unnecessary bloodshed of the Spring ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... seen the squire so near at hand. He was a tall man, over six feet high, and broad in proportion, and he had a bluff, rough-and-ready face, all roughened and reddened and lined in his long travels. His eyebrows were very black, and moved readily, and this gave him a look of some temper, not bad, you would say, but quick ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the party was brought up by a large, powerfully-built man, with a bluff, honest, but rugged countenance, slashed with many a cut and scar, and stamped with that surly, sturdy, bull-dog-like look, which an Englishman always delights to contemplate, because he conceives it to be characteristic of his countrymen. This formidable person, who was ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... The water-carrier—a bluff, sturdy fellow in his way—would have thanked the baron could he have kept quiet; but he stood roaring like a child, perfectly overcome with the kindness he had received. It was some months afterwards that Francois announced two visitors. When they appeared, I recognised my ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... shadow of madness. They kept a close watch over him; and at last Bowling Green, one of the most devoted friends Lincoln then had, took him home to his little log cabin, half a mile north of New Salem, under the brow of a big bluff. Here, under the loving care of Green and his good wife Nancy, Lincoln remained until he was ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... side of that big bluff just west of town. Oh, that's some story. The hermit lived there until about ten years ago. Some said he was a Jesuit priest who lived a hermit's life to become more holy, and others that he was an Italian Noble who had fled from Italy to ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... He told the girl that she should remain in hiding; but she refused to be left, saying that whatever fate was to be his, she intended to share it, so that he was at last forced to permit her to come with him. Through woods at the summit of the bluff they made their way toward the north and had gone but a short distance when the wood ended and before them they saw the waters of the inland sea and dimly in ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Keep up a big bluff! Daddy'll be here in the morning sure!" That was what the attending nurse overheard of the parting. A minute after the door had shut, she discovered her little patient shedding silent tears for "daddy"; but he brightened ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... to where he had left his clothes. Catching up the garments into a bundle he placed them further along the bank, on a little bluff that overlooked the edge of the lake. The clothes were ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... Sir Asher himself was unpicturesque. Indeed, he was the very picture of the bluff and burly Briton, white-bearded like Father Christmas. But he did not seem to lead to yonder vision of poetry and purity. Lady Aaronsberg, who might have supplied the missing link, was dead—before even arriving at ladyship, alas!—and ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... for Goyder was at Lake Torrens, where he found the water quite fresh. He described the Lake as stretching from fifteen to twenty miles to the north-west, with a water horizon, with an extensive bay forming to the southward; while to the north, a bluff headland and perpendicular cliffs were clearly to be discerned with the telescope. From the appearance of the flood-marks, Goyder came to the conclusion that there was little or no rise and fall in ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... joy in life lies in the anticipation of pleasure to come. I think there is a considerable amount of truth in this, and I am sure that not even bluff old King Hal setting out to hunt in the New Forest could have promised himself a greater treat than we did as we got ready for our tour in the land of the guanaco, and country ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... was bluffing; still it was possible he wasnt. In such a delicate situation there was nothing I could do but bluff in turn. If you are a good salesman, I always say, you must have psychology at your fingertips. "Very well, Mr Gootes; perhaps I shall see ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... hands high to the stars, and then ran across the level to the foot of the bluff. It was high and very steep, but wings seemed his—his heart was on the summit, and his body must follow—must get there before the white flame sank into the west—must send his greeting to answer the greeting of ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... folk-lore, and feareth neither pixie or graymarie, he can, on a spring night, just as the moon has entered her last quarter, and the first note from the belfry of the chapel in the frith has proclaimed the arrival of midnight, take his stand upon Blentford's Bluff and peer into the dark and sombre depths of Kinder, when he will hear the hooting of the barn owl on Anna rocks, the unearthly screech of the landrail as he ploughs his way through the unmown grass in search of his mate, the scream ...
— Buxton and its Medicinal Waters • Robert Ottiwell Gifford-Bennet
... characteristic yells of boisterous hilarity from their noontide gathering under a cottonwood somehow ceased when Mr. Bulger was seen gravely approaching, and his casual stopping before a poker party in the gulch actually caused one of the most reckless gamblers to weakly recede from "a bluff" and allow his adversary to sweep the board. After this it was felt that matters were becoming serious. There was no subsequent patrolling of the camp before the stranger's cabin. Their curiosity was singularly abated. A general feeling of repulsion, kept within ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... burst out, violently. "There's not a gram of metal inside the fourth zone—within a hundred thousand kilometers—and yet they must be close to send such a wave as that. But the Second thinks not—what do you think, Costigan?" The bluff commander, reactionary and of the old school as was his breed, was furious—baffled, raging inwardly to come to grips with the invisible and undetectable foe. Face to face with the inexplicable, however, he listened to the ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... a full day to correctly estimate the situation in Simiti. His bluff, hearty manner and genial good-nature constituted a passport to every house, and by midday he had talked with nearly every man in the pueblo. He called Jose and Rosendo for consultation during ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... being thus matutinary, in order to get to Terni in time to see the falls. The road was very striking and picturesque; but I remember nothing particularly, till we came to Borghetto, which stands on a bluff, with a broad valley sweeping round it, through the midst of which flows the Tiber. There is an old castle on a projecting point; and we saw other battlemented fortresses, of mediaeval date, along our way, forming more beautiful ruins than any ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... its long occupation into what proved to be an impregnable stronghold—one which so far, to the Boers' cost, maintained its promise—that Drew Lennox and Bob Dickenson returned after their unfortunate fishing expedition, the colonel, a bluff, sun-burnt, stern-looking officer, meeting them with a frown as they came up. "How many men ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... that night, and the next day, cautiously approaching a bluff that arose precipitously from the water, their hearts were gladdened by the sight of three men, standing on a bluff, excitedly beckoning to them, and shouting at the ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... joked as the evening advanced. And the night passed without any disturbance; although it was a little odd for them to be so close to a city, and hear the various sounds that floated down to them in their enclosure below the bluff. ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... revered by every amateur photographer. The father of Henry, Dr. John William, was a friend of Daguerre, and it is said that in this building was developed the first portrait negative. The dwelling is beautifully situated on the high river bluff and affords a wonderful view up and down ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... sneered, and Sandersen retorted fiercely: "Shut up! You know it ain't possible, but I ought to call your bluff." ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... James Weber Linn * The First Christmas-Tree. By Lucy Wheelock The First New England Christmas. By G.L. Stone and M.G. Fickett The Cratchits' Christmas Dinner. By Charles Dickens Christmas in Seventeen Seventy-Six. By Anne Hollingsworth Wharton * Christmas Under the Snow. By Olive Thorne Miller Mr. Bluff's Experience of Holidays. By Oliver Bell Bunce ** Master Sandy's Snapdragon. By Elbridge S. Brooks A Christmas Fairy. By John Strange Winter The Greatest of These. By Joseph Mills Hanson * Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe. By Elizabeth Harrison ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... BLUFF. But? Look you here, boy, here's your antidote, here's your Jesuits' powder for a shaking fit. But who hast thou got with thee? is he of mettle? [Laying his hand ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... to water like a fleet of white schooners. He ascended the rise beyond the bridge, and looked over to see if Meshach might have taken a walk down the road. Then returning, he swept the back view of Princess Anne, from the low bluff of cedars on another inhabited cape on the right, which bordered the Manokin marshes, to the vale of the little river at the left, as it descended between Meshach's storehouse and the ancient Presbyterian church of the Head of Manokin, seated among its gravestones between its hitching-stalls ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... still; let us up again and new through the canal of Piombino, touching at the isle of Elba, the "Great Emperor's" mimic domain; step into the town lying beneath this rocky bluff; which is crowned by a fort-it is Porto Ferrajo. Look off for a moment from this rocky eminence, back of the town, and see the wild beauty of these Tuscan mountains on the main land. Now, we will over to the Italian coast, and cross, if you will, from Leghorn to Florence. There, we are ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... linnet—almost flute-like in softness, while others prick and tingle like thistles. He is the mocking-bird of squirrels, pouring forth mixed chatter and song like a perennial fountain; barking like a dog, screaming like a hawk, chirping like a blackbird or a sparrow; while in bluff, audacious noisiness he is a ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... building. The navigation, however, proved so much better than had been expected that I thought for a time of the possibility of making this the route for obtaining a foothold on high land above Haines Bluff, Mississippi, and small class steamers were accordingly ordered for transporting an army that way. Major-General J. B. McPherson, commanding seventeenth army corps, was directed to have his corps in readiness to move by this route; and ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... Mellen in the woods he took a moment for consideration, and then walked quickly towards the shore tavern. As he turned a point which led from Piney Point to the bluff which overhung it, his servant, the young mulatto, who had spent most of the season at this retreat, came to meet him with ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... modified by a touch of doubt. I could see that these words, by lifting the accusation from the wholly absurd to the somewhat plausible, had impressed him. Once again I was gripped by the uneasy feeling that Sam had an unsuspected card to play. This might be bluff, but ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... a south-south-east direction, and at the end of one mile rounded a bluff point; the limestone hills to the eastward gradually decreased in elevation and we ascended one of them to gain a view of the surrounding country. I found that the summit of this range consisted of a terrace about half a mile wide, richly grassed ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... Bart. "We called their bluff. They thought we'd have a case of nerves when we saw them come rushing towards us. But we've seen those fellows' backs too often to be afraid ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... fishing near the mouth of Fall Creek. It was late in the afternoon. The Boy was passing on his way home from a point farther up the stream. Not more than twelve, but tall and strong for his age, he came along the rough path at the foot of the bluff with the easy movement and grace of a young deer. He checked a moment when he saw the Doctor, as a creature of the forest would pause at first sight of a human being. Then he came on again, his manner and bearing showing frank interest, and the clear, sunny face of him flushing ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... drooped his ears and tail, and trotted along as if he were reproaching me for my rashness. I was glancing out over the grey trouble of the sea, and watching the forlorn ships cowering along like belated ghosts, when I heard a click to the right of me. Looking up the bluff, I saw a tall powerful lad who had just straightened himself up. He had two rabbits slung over his shoulder, and his big bag seemed to contain many more. I walked towards him to have a look at what he was doing, and I found him manoeuvring with a great steel trap. When he had finished, ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... an athlete all right," said Billups. "When it comes to running up accounts, and jumping his board-bill, and lifting his voice, and throwing a thirty-two pound bluff, there isn't a gladiator in creation that can give my boy Tommie any kind of a handicap. He's just written for ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... July our well must needs dry up; the cows had not a drop of water to slake their thirst and they almost stopped giving milk. So when I was hard at it in the woods the mother went off to the river with a pail in either hand, and climbed the steep bluff eight or ten times together with these brimming, and her feet that slipped back in the running sand, till she had filled a barrel; and when the barrel was full she got it on a wheelbarrow, and wheeled it off herself to empty it into the big tub in the cow-pasture more than three ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... it comes, Harry!" he said. He spoke in the same bluff, hearty way he always did. He fairly shouted in my ear. "When did you hear from the boy? Are you and Mrs. ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... Babbage's two men returning with some of the horses for rations. They informed me that the water was nearly all gone, but that there was plenty in the Elizabeth, nineteen miles from Pernatta. I intended to keep on the track, but our black insisted that Pernatta lay through a gap, and not round the bluff. I allowed him to have his own way. Our route was through a very stony saddle. When there we saw a gum creek, and made for it; when we arrived at the creek he told us that was Pernatta. We looked for water, and found a little hole, which, to our great disappointment, contained salt water. Could ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... Mediterranean and may be distinguished at a great distance by its white buildings. The chain of mountains on the left of our road hither form a sort of arch to the chord of the linea Pia and terminates one end of the arch by meeting the linea Pia at Terracina, which forms what the sailors call a bluff point. Terracina stands on the situation of the ancient Anxur and the description of it by ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... bluff fellow, to whose pride all that befell him seemed to minister. He was proud of his length of limb, and his hundred and eighty pounds of weight, and yet his slim appearance. "Ye wouldn't believe it now, would ye?" he was wont to say when he stepped off the scales at the store of the hamlet down ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... bold fishermen, who knew the coast well, went out in their boats, hugging the rocky shore until the promontory was gained, and gathering up great heaps of driftwood on the edge of the bluff, set it on ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... good guesser, for just as he decided it fell to the Harmony halfback to make the attempt. The bluff was dazzling, and deceived nearly all the Chester players, so that it looked as though Oldsmith with the pigskin oval in his grip would have a clear field to the coveted place in the line where he could drop for a touchdown, ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... he had said to Eleanor, "this chap Holmes thinks—or he did think, at least—that I'd be scared by his ability to help or hurt a man in my profession in the city. But I think a whole lot of that is bluff on his part. I don't believe he can do as much as he thinks he can. And I don't know that I care a whole lot, anyhow. He hasn't gone out of his way to help me so far, and I've managed to get along pretty well. I guess I can do without him to the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... well, too, for I'd got half way through the soup before I notices anything the matter with it. My guess was that it tasted scorchy. I glances around at Vee, and finds she's just makin' a bluff at eatin' hers. Doris and Westy ain't even doin' that, and when I drops my spoon Doris signals to take it away. Which Cyril does, movin' as solemn and dignified as if he was usherin' at a funeral. Then there's a stage wait for three or four minutes before the fish ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... The flat as featly as the edge he plies, Of that good faulchion forged of stubborn grain; And, at strange blindman's bluff, in weary wise, Hammers on Dudon with such might and main, He often dazzles so the warrior's eyes, That hardly he his saddle can maintain. But to win better audience for my rhyme, My canto I defer ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... oldest engineer on the road, off duty, but a privileged character on all occasions, stepped from the gossiping crowd of loungers at a little distance. He swung up into the cab with the expert airiness of long usage. His bluff, hearty face expressed admiration and satisfaction, as his rapid eye took in ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... of Queensborough," I said, coolly, explaining to the bluff major. "His mania takes the form of a curious hatred for me, though I know not why. Two days since, he was put in arrest by my Lord's authority for threatening my life and that of his master's daughter. Now, it would seem, he has broken jail and ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... avenue, at the head of Circular street, and near the base of a high limestone bluff, in the northerly part of the village, a few rods above the Star Spring, and about three-fourths of a mile from the Congress. Owned by the Congress and Empire Spring Company. O.H. ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn
... said, was about seventeen years old, and big and strong of his age. He played well at all games where pluck wasn't much wanted, and managed generally to keep up appearances where it was; and having a bluff, off-hand manner, which passed for heartiness, and considerable powers of being pleasant when he liked, went down with the school in general for a good fellow enough. Even in the School-house, by dint of his command of money, the constant supply ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... time thereafter, moved slowly along the deserted road, where it ran like a winding ribbon over the top of a great bluff. A sea wind, coming in varying gusts, bent low the long grass and rustled in the bushes. The moon had escaped from behind dark clouds in a stormy sky and threw its rays far and wide. They imparted a frosty sheen to the wavy surface between ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... river, arriving by boat on the 7th. The town of Randolph, which formerly contained about three hundred inhabitants, is situated above high-water mark on a narrow strip of land nearly three hundred yards wide, behind which rises a bluff ninety feet high and very steep. On this bluff, overlooking the town and the river, we established our camp, and here commenced our real soldier's life. The daily routine was as follows: Reveille at 5 A.M.; drill from 51/2 to 71/2; breakfast, 71/2; fatigue call from 8 to 10; ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... man—his noble proportions, his fine features, and his frank bearing—fitted in with that jovial, man-to-man manner which he affected. Here, one would say, is a bluff, honest fellow, whose heart would be sound however rude his outspoken words might seem. It was only when those dead, dark eyes, deep and remorseless, were turned upon a man that he shrank within himself, feeling that he was face to face with an infinite possibility ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 1840, it numbered in all not more than fifty houses, a few of them lodgings or humble cafes, but the greater part staid little whitewashed summer-dwellings with green verandas and occasional roof-balconies; set down irregularly, without street or system, along the sunny slopes of the bluff. Murray's Handbook for 1848 gives it passing notice, and disrespectfully styles it the dullest place upon earth for one having no resources of friends upon the spot. But in the modern edition of forty years later, the same manual has come to describe the place in a very different strain; ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... on the very peak of the ridge now, and the hill sloped smoothly down before them to the bluff which bounded Quitter Creek. Far down, a tiny black speck in the coulee-bottom, they could see Wooden Shoes riding along the creek-bank, scouting for water. From the way he rode, and from the fact that camp was nowhere in sight, Pink guessed shrewdly that his quest was in vain. ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... rustled and roared through the dark woods lining the shore, and then it would pipe afar off as if a reserve were advancing to aid in holding the ground already occupied; anon the echo of a force would be heard close in by the bluff bordering the stream, and in a moment more, it was sweeping with all its strength and pride of power down the broad surface of the glittering ice, as if the rightfulness of its invasion scorned resistance. Sullen ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... of Henry VIII., Catharine, and Anne Boleyn. "Bluff King Hal," although a well-loved monarch, was none too good a one in many ways. Of all his selfishness and unwarrantable acts, none was more discreditable than his divorce from Catharine, and his marriage to the beautiful Anne Boleyn. The King's love was as brief as it was vehement. ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the shore to the northward, toward the little group of houses at the foot of the bluff, in one of which ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... August, 1854, what seemed to be the entire population of Wynyard's Bar was collected upon a little bluff which overlooked the rude wagon road that was the only approach to the settlement. In general appearance the men differed but little from ordinary miners, although the foreign element, shown in certain Spanish peculiarities of dress and color, predominated, ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the Prophet! It is enough!" The Master's soul warmed toward the honesty of this bluff old Arab. "Thy magic is good magic. Give me thy salt, Frank, and ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... disagreed over the exact cause and nature of the weakness. It seemed all right. Smoky did not flinch from rubbing, though he did lift his foot away from strange hands. They questioned Bud, who could offer no positive information on the subject, except that once he and Smoky had rolled down a bluff together, and Smoky had been lame for a ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... their Majesties was erected on a stage in the shape of a semicircle, and covered with a bluff carpet studded with bees, and was reached by twenty-two steps. The throne, draped in red velvet, was also covered by a pavilion of the same color, the left wing of which extended over the Empress, the princesses, and their maids of honor, and the right over the two brothers ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... good; no bluff. Won't compromise inside limit set. Have seen paper and wish another interview before following original instructions. Party will wait forty-eight hours before acting. Where can you be seen? Wire ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... It was March; but the air was like summer. As soon as we had passed the first bend, the St. Johns appeared more like a far-reaching lake than a stream. The river is from one to six miles wide below Pilatka. The shores are never elevated, for there is not a bluff upon it that is more than thirty feet high, while generally the land is only a few feet above the level of the water. The highest elevation near the river ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... middle-aged gentleman reputed to be very rich. His name was Amos Sutterby. Mr Huntingdon had met him abroad in the second year after his marriage when taking a tour in Switzerland with his wife. Mr Sutterby was an old bachelor, rather bluff in his manners, but evidently in easy circumstances. The Huntingdons and himself had met on the Rigi, and the squire had taken to him at once—in a great measure, it may be, because Mr Amos was a good listener, and was very ready to ask Mr Huntingdon's opinion and advice. ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... said Miller, "but it was a woman's idea of a bluff, and it didn't go. She told us that before we urged her brother on to fight, we should have found out that he has spent the last five years in Paris, and that he's the gilt-edged pistol-shot of the salle d'armes in the Rue Scribe, that he can hit a scarf-pin at twenty paces. Of ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... same Sphinx!" he thought now, with a slight frown shading the bluff good-nature of his usual expression; "She is a woman who will face Death as she faces Time,—with that cold smile of hers which expresses nothing but scorn of all ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... Dr. Seward, "Say, Jack, if that man wasn't attempting a bluff, he is about the sanest lunatic I ever saw. I'm not sure, but I believe that he had some serious purpose, and if he had, it was pretty rough on him not to get ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... from the woods; but there are mosquitoes everywhere, and the report that people have been driven away by them is manifestly untrue, for whoever comes to Jocelyn's remains. The beach at the foot of the bluff is almost a mile at its curve, and it is so smooth and hard that it glistens like polished marble when newly washed by the tide. It is true that you reach it from the top by a flight of eighty steps, but it was intended to have an elevator, like those near the Whirlpool at Niagara. In the mean ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... but prayer for his men to return to Rouen,—needless his message, and short our answer," said Vebba, the bluff thegn ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the first two miles it winds and twists its sandy way over bare hills, with cranberry swamps and marshy ponds in the hollows between. Then it enters upon a three-mile stretch bordered with scrubby pines and bayberry thickets, climbing at last a final hill to emerge upon the bluff with the ocean at its foot. And, fringing that bluff and clustering thickest in the lowlands just beyond, is the village of East Wellmouth, which must on no account be confused with South Wellmouth, or North Wellmouth, or West Wellmouth, or ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the Mound-Builders was found near the Waterbury mine. Here, in the face of a vertical bluff, was discovered "an ancient, artificial, cavern-like recess, twenty-five feet in horizontal length, fifteen feet high, and twelve feet deep. In front of it is a pile of excavated rock on which are standing, in full size, ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... houses not very far away on the bluff along the river, and after a few inquiries, a white family was found that very kindly gave Miss Campbell shelter ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... heart's desire." The warriors applauded with loud "Ho! Ho!"[24] And he flung the brand to the drifting snow. Three times Wakawa puffed forth the smoke From his silent lips; then he slowly spoke: "Mahpiya is strong as the stout-armed oak That stands on the bluff by the windy plain, And laughs at the roar of the hurricane. He has slain the foe and the great Mato With his hissing arrow and deadly stroke My heart is swift but my tongue is slow. Let the warrior come to my lodge and smoke; He may bring the gifts;[25] but the ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... came into market he was bluff and cordial; with the people in general he was genial and good tempered. At meetings at which the county gentry were present he was quiet, businesslike, and a trifle deferential, showing that he recognized the difference between his position ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... a great mystery. Had you not met them after the fall over the bluff I would be inclined to say that that fall must have been accidental. But, as it is, it was premeditated, beyond a doubt. And you are certain that you never ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... brewers' servants, by means of ropes 420 and pulleys affixed to their drays, lowering down beer into, or drawing up empty casks from the cellars of public-houses. Now although this may be unavoidable, ask one of these bluff bipeds to let you pass, the consequence frequently will be, instead of rough civility, an insolent reply accompanied with vulgar oaths; in short, a torrent of abuse, if not a shove into the kennel; perhaps ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... and, having completed the preliminary commonplaces, said, as he hurled the core with an energetic sweep of his arm into the ocean at the base of the little bluff on which ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... a high bluff, covered with wood, contiguous to the college, I observed a monument or obelisk, which I ascertained to have been erected to the memory of Kosciusko, a Polish patriot, who took a prominent part in the annihilation of British rule in America. It had a very ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... and off they went on the pleasant ride through the city and out Broadway. As there was plenty of time, they drove through Shawnee Park and along the bluff overlooking the Ohio River creeping sluggishly past. Then they turned, and went a short mile to the entrance to ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt
... but slowly up that way; it is June before the woods have quite clothed themselves. In April the angler or the sketcher is chilled by the east wind, whirling showers of hail, and even when the riverbanks are sweet with primroses, the bluff tops of the border hills are often bleak with late snow. This state of things is less unpropitious to angling than might be expected. A hardy race of trout will sometimes rise freely to the artificial fly when the natural fly is destroyed, and the angler is almost blinded with ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... started as if he had heard the warning of a rattlesnake at his feet. Turning like a flash, he saw Mr. Warmore standing at his elbow. Had he received but a few seconds' notice, he might have tried to bluff it out, by pretending he had come to look after some matters about which he was not fully satisfied. Holding the situation he did in the establishment, he could feel certain no one would suspect him of ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... and I ain't a word to say agin it. It war just a piece of cussedness, and I have asked myself forty-eleven times since, what on arth made me make such a blame fool of myself. Afore that fellow came over to bluff me I hadn't no thought of following the waggons, but arter that I felt somehow as if he dared me to do it. I reckoned I was more nor a match for the two fellows who just jined them, and as for the greasy-faced chaps in black, I did not count them in, one way or the other. ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... breadth she 151has; why she's fit for any seas; and if the Arrow ever shoots past her, I'll forfeit every shot in my lockers." "Avast there! master Horace," said our master at the helm, who was an old Cowes pilot, and as bluff as a Deal sea-boat; "the Pearl is a noble sailer; but a bird can't fly without wings, nor a ship run thirteen knots an hour without a good stiff breeze. If the light winds prevail, the Arrow will have the advantage, particularly now she's cutter rigged, and ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... younger clerks came in and congratulated him with much heartiness. He was popular at his office, and they had got a step by his promotion. Then he met one or two of the elder clerks, and was congratulated with much less heartiness. "I suppose it's all right," said one bluff old gentleman. "My time is gone by, I know. I married too early to be able to wear a good coat when I was young, and I never was acquainted with any lords or lords' families." The sting of this was the sharper because Crosbie had begun to feel how absolutely ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... of July the Union forces were routed at Bull Run with terrific loss of life and many wounded. Two months later the battle of Ball's Bluff occurred, in which there were three Massachusetts regiments engaged, with many of Clara Barton's lifelong friends among them. By this time the hospitals and commissaries in Washington had been well organized, and there ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... of the chateau, although its architecture has been highly praised, did not impress us particularly. This may be because the mansion is situated on a level sweep of lawn, laid out after the English style, instead of crowning a great bluff like Blois, Amboise and Chaumont. The interior of Cheverny leaves nothing to be desired. It is elegant, aristocratic, and yet most delightfully homelike, with its spacious hall, richly decorated royal bedroom, and salon as livable ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... Seraphim," he exclaimed. "I call upon them to suspend their singing for an instant, and to witness this. He sees that I patter of Miss Sandus. What perspicuity. And he just a mortal man, like anybody—nay, by all accounts, just a bluff country squire. Ah, what a noble understanding. Well, then, my dear Hawkshaw, since there's no concealing anything from you,—fine mouche, allez!—I own up. I patter ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... 1812, was a Jackson Democratic Representative in the days of the contest between "Old Hickory" and "Biddle's Bank." He was a type of a gentleman of the old school, and he recalled Washington Irving's picture of the master of Bracebridge Hall. The bluff and hearty manner, the corpulent person, and the open countenance of the General, his dress of the aristocratic blue and buff, and his gold- headed cane, all tallied with the descriptions of the English country gentleman of the olden time. He was greatly beloved in Ohio, and several anecdotes ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... a young man who owned the ranch next to ours, who, during the year, had ridden over to see us with increasing frequency. His name was Ralph Buckner, and he seemed to us to be a characteristic product of the West—with his large frame, bluff manners, and frank, open countenance. We all liked him, and the fact that he differed so much from the Eastern men I had known perhaps caused me to show a greater interest in him than I really felt. At all events, no girl was ever more genuinely surprised by an offer of marriage than ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... The dictionary definition is a ravine or gulch, but it also means a high bluff or cliff and in that sense is ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... all ready but the date! Let him get wind of this business, and you mark my words, Uncle Masterman will die in two days and be buried in a week. But see here, Johnny; what Michael can do, I can do. If he plays a game of bluff, so can I. If his father is to live for ever, by God, so ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... captain will be glad enough to have us celebrate—at our own expense," suggested a cadet in one corner, yet he did not mean what he said, knowing that bluff Captain Putnam, the owner and headmaster of Putnam Hall was whole-souled and ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... was there a stop made. There were two or three passengers on board for Bluff City, a new and prosperous mining camp, composed chiefly, though so late in the season, of tents. Lumber and supplies of different kinds had to be put off. As the entrance to the hold of the ship where the stores were kept was in ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... high bluff, northeast from the village of Mackinaw, half a mile from the mission house. Soon after the settlement of the modern Mackinaw, Capt. Robinson, of the English army, then commanding this port, had a summer house built on the brow of this bluff, now called Robinson's Folly, for ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... images, and dumpy pillars—his native cheekiness faded into most unwonted humility. For he was increasingly conscious of being, to put it vulgarly "up against something pretty big." Conscious of a personality altogether too secure of its own power to spread itself or, in the smallest degree, bluff or brag. Sir Charles Verity struck him, indeed, as calm to the confines of cynicism. He gave, but gave of his abundance, royally indifferent to the cost. There was plenty more where all this came from, of knowledge, of initiative and of thought. Only once or twice, during the course of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... occurred in October. On the night of the 20th two Massachusetts regiments crossed the Potomac at Ball's Bluff, a few miles above Washington, to surprise a hostile camp which according to rumor had been established there. A large force concealed in the woods attacked and forced them to retreat. They were re-enforced by 1,900 men under Colonel Baker. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... if you will pardon the expression, was a piece of bluff. You love Miss Parmenter perhaps as much as, though not possibly more than, I do, and therefore you would certainly not destroy the world as long as she was alive in it. You would be more or less than man if you did, and I don't ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... 1863, the Confederates held the Mississippi River only from Vicksburg to Port Hudson. The capture of these two towns would complete the opening of the river. Grant, therefore, determined to capture Vicksburg. The town stands on the top of a bluff which rises straight and steep from the river, and had been so strongly fortified on the land side that to take it seemed impossible. Grant, having failed in a direct advance through Mississippi, cut a canal across a bend in the river, on the west bank, hoping to divert ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... that there really was a considerable body of Protestant opinion in agreement with Lord Pirrie, and prepared to support Home Rule on "Liberal," if not on avowedly "Nationalist" principles, and that the policy for which Carson, Londonderry, and the Unionist Council stood was a gigantic piece of bluff which only required to be exposed ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... may be commended to any poet ingenious enough to find a rhyme for "scissors." The following is dated July 7th: "I should not forget to say that the gentle Mr. Bauer seldom forgets to add 'and Mrs. Flinders' good health' after the cloth is withdrawn, and even the bluff Mr. Bell does not forget you...Thou wilt write me volumes, my dearest love, wilt thou not? No pleasure is at all equal to that I receive from thy letters. The idea of how happy we MIGHT be will ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... went the hard, bluff soldier, who has as much iron in his composition as any man of his time sprang one of those human surprises that even war fails to emulate—when he listened time after time to the record that he loved better than most music, "I know that my ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... a bluff near Pasig, overlooking the river of that name, has the form of a pagoda. It was built as a thank-offering by a Chinaman who, having been endangered by a crocodile, and having called on men and joss without receiving ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... brave octave, and listened again. A distant cowbell tinkled from some willows in another meadow across the river, a breeze moved audibly by, and then the answer came. "Bob—Bob White?" it inquired from the top of a pine-covered bluff, round which the stream swept down in boulder-strewn rapids to its smoother course between the two meadows. It may be the name was not just that, but it was certainly two monosyllables! The listener stepped quickly ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... she had nothing, nothing to give him. For he had to go back, oh, he had to go back to-morrow, and he hated it so—they all hated it—the best of them! How clearly she saw through the superb, pitiful bluff, that it was all sport, "wonderful"! Wonderful? She knew, but she would never dare let Leonard see that ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... the politician remarked, with unwitting veracity. "Did the dern Dago bluff me, does he want more, er did he reely didn't un'erstand fer honest?" Then, as he took up his way, crossing the street at the warning of some red and green smallpox lanterns, "I'll git those seven votes, though, someway. I'm out fer a record this ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... make short work of it, General," he said, in his bluff, abrupt fashion. "It will come rattling about their heads, and they must take to the walls behind, and these will soon give way before a steady cannonade. Or if we take the cannon up to yonder heights of Rattlesnake Hill, we can fling our round shot within their breastwork ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Mawruss. In fact, last week Mendel Immerglick struck me for new terms—ninety instead of sixty days—and he wanted to give me a couple of thousand dollar order. I turned him down cold, Mawruss. People what throw such a bluff like Mendel Immerglick don't give me no confidence, Mawruss. I'm willing to sell him up to five hundred at ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... a landmark. When they leave the Souris valley the hills are blue with distance and seem to promise wooded slopes, and maybe leaping streams, but a half-day's journey dispels the illusion, for when the traveller comes near enough to see the elevation as it is, it is only a rugged bluff, bald and bare, and blotched with clumps of mangy grass, with a fringe of stunted poplar at ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... did not return at night, and a horror seized the others, as they thought that he had been overtaken and killed by hostile Indians. Day after day the woods were scoured in the hope of finding the missing companion, but it seemed vain. A fort was erected for the protection of the party on a high bluff, and named for the lost hunter, Prudhomme. At last they met some Chickasaw Indians, and messages of amity were exchanged through them with the people of their village, not far distant. Soon afterwards Prudhomme was ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... they touched at one of the first of the South Sea Islands that they came in sight of, where scenes of the most unprecedented description took place between Corrie and a bluff old gentleman named Ole Thorwald, and a sweet, blue-eyed, fair-haired ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... the springs snapped and whined, there was a violent oscillation of the back, a shudder convulsed the thing, and it sprang after him, much as a tame rabbit thumps its feet upon the ground in an effort to bluff ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... his bluff way, "you all make great merit of risking property and life in this wretched teapot tempest; you all take credit for unchaining the Mohawks. But you give them no credit. What have the Iroquois to gain by aiding us? Why do they dig up the hatchet, hazarding ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... virtue! If you are only polite, there is nothing that you may not do. This is a school of manners, you know!" One of the men, Rose by name, laughed—a pleasant musical laugh. "I remember," he said, "that when I was a boy at Eton, my excellent but very bluff and rough old tutor called upon us, and was so much taken up with being hearty, that he knocked over the coal-scuttle, and didn't let anyone get a word in; and when he went off in a sort of whirlwind, my old aunt, who was an incisive lady, said in a meditative ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... begin; for she has always been severe upon our bluff old man, and it is not the spirit of contrariety alone which makes me invariably take his part. Coarse he may be, and not one whom the owners would have chosen to command the Lady Jermyn; a good seaman none the less, who brought us round ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... dashes forward of a few feet; and often we went astray on false scents, only to return finally to the last certain spot. In this manner we crossed the little plain with the scattered shrub trees and arrived at the edge of the low bluff ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... and slender sprouts, as he rolled down the almost perpendicular bluff, Stacy yelled lustily for help. From the soft, sandy soil the weeds came away in his hands, without in the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... back there, quivering and unable to speak. I was so unnerved; but I saw the other gentleman hand a flask to the bluff-looking man who had saved me, and I saw him take a hearty draught and draw long breath, after which he ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... deep and broken canon, on the north by a creek which ran through a forest of scattered juniper trees. The plateau rose in two gentle slopes to a height of about five or six hundred feet above the valley level, and was thus half as high as the bluff to the westward, which formed the base of the semi-circle. Near the northern part of the plateau the rocks were elevated in a series of irregular broken peaks, like the jagged ice hummocks of the higher latitudes. The whole plateau was covered with enormous boulders, over ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... a little bit of gold rolled over the table to the doctor, from a bluff-looking gentleman opposite—it was well aimed—"There, doctor! there's your fee; but don't you begin again prating a parcel of stuff to my wife about her complaints—she is quite well—and if you frighten her into illness, take notice, you will get a different ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... Wrangell Narrows, that tortuous and narrow passage between Mitkof and Kupreanof Islands, past Norris Glacier with its far-flung shaft of ice appearing above the forests as if suspended in air; past the bold Pt. Windham with its bluff of three thousand feet frowning upon the waters of Prince Frederick Sound; across Port Houghton, whose deep fiord had no ice in it and, therefore, was not worthy of an extended visit. We made all haste, for Muir was, ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... insanity—the London "Times" called them ravings. The people, in gratitude for the past, and in anxiety for the future, outbid one another in servility to Russia. They despise Austria-Hungary as powerless, for internal and external reasons. The serious words of our statesmen are regarded as "bluff." ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... on towards the Sieur Rudel's home-coming, and ever the twain looked out across the sea for the black boats to round the bluff and take the beach—Joceliande from her balcony, Solita from the window of her little chamber in the tower; and each night the princess gave orders to light a beacon on the highest headland that the wayfarers might steer safely down that red path ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... that part of the road which ran below the doctor's house. The moon swam clear; the cliffs and mountains in this strong light lay utterly deserted; but the house, from its station on the top of the long slope and close under the bluff, not only shone abroad from every window like a place of festival, but from the great chimney at the west end poured forth a coil of smoke so thick and so voluminous, that it hung for miles along the windless night-air, and its shadow lay far abroad in the moonlight upon the glittering alkali. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
