"Bluster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... leaned back in his chair. His elbow rested on the chair-arm, his fingers were set, tips on his chin, and over them he surveyed his listeners with calmness. He did not raise his voice. It was his mild manner that made what he said sound so balefully savage. Bluster ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... is time the traitors of the South should know that the Free States are becoming every day more united in sentiment and more earnest in resolve, and that, so soon as they are thoroughly satisfied that secession is something more than empty bluster, a public spirit will be aroused that will be content with no half-measures, and which no Executive, however unwilling, ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... vain youth! shall not thy peace ensure, Nor Phoebus' serpent yield thy wound a cure.11 He spoke, and, waving a bright shaft in air, Sought the warm bosom of the Cyprian fair. That thus a child should bluster in my ear Provok'd my laughter more than mov'd my fear. 50 I shun'd not, therefore, public haunts, but stray'd Careless in city, or suburban shade, And passing and repassing nymphs that mov'd With grace divine, beheld where'er ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton
... black bear is not usually a formidable opponent, and though he will sometimes charge home he is much more apt to bluster and bully than actually to come to close quarters. I myself have but once seen a man who had been hurt by one of these bears. This was an Indian. He had come on the beast close up in a thick wood, and had mortally wounded it with his gun; it had ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... means to make a little bluster, and try if he can pick up a little money. There is nothing whatever actionable in the paper.... The article on Hazlitt, which will commence next number, will be a most powerful one, and this business will not deprive it of ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... I so curiously and particularly embrace the conveniences of life, find them, when I most nearly consider them, very little more than wind. But what? We are all wind throughout; and, moreover, the wind itself, more discreet than we, loves to bluster and shift from corner to corner, and contents itself with its proper offices without desiring stability and solidity-qualities not ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... side by side; low-jointed cottages, with long, sloping roofs greened over with moss or grass, and other objects usually shadowed dimly in the background of the picture. It is these quiet hamlets and houses in the still depths of the country, away from the noise and bluster of railway life and motion, that best represent and perpetuate the primeval characteristics of a nation. These the American traveller will find invested with all the old charm with which his fancy clothed them. It will ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... silver, man and woman, For things that's raided, made, dug, or human, 'Meriky's the coming nation; She's-bound to conquer all creation! Per'aps you call this brag and bluster; No, 'taint nuther, for we muster The best of brain, the mighty dollar; We'll lead ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... class most indebted to the government, that these seditious movements generally arose; and Fulvia's cousin was one of the most notorious malcontents of his order. She had mistaken his revolutionary bluster for philosophic enlightenment; and, persuaded that he shared in her views, she rashly appealed to him for help. With the most eloquent expressions of sympathy he offered her a home under his own roof; but on reaching Venice she was but ill-received ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... with a laugh. 'All the same, I almost believed I was losing my head when Maurice St. Mabyn came into the room. Isn't he a splendid chap though? No noise, no bluster, ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... the lift, Ma'am! No danger at all, no discomfort, no dirt! You love Sweetness and Light? They are both in my gift, Ma'am; I'll prove like a shot what I boldly assert. Don't heed your Old Flame, Ma'am, he's bitterly jealous, 'Tis natural, quite, with his nose out of joint; You just let him bluster and blow like old bellows, And try me instead—I will not disappoint! Old Flame? He's a very fuliginous "Flame," Ma'am; I wonder, I'm sure, how you've stood him so long; He has choked you for years—'tis a thundering ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... one gets clear at last, and we have to run to overtake the rest of the company. We begin to pant and complain, and bluster against those who are leading. Our feet go down haphazard; we stumble and hold ourselves up by the wails, so that our hands are plastered with mud. The march becomes a stampede, full of the noise of metal things ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... and Betty lived in a dreadful unnamed terror lest he should offer some impertinence to her father which the veteran's honour might not brook. However, there was something in the old soldier's dignity and long service that kept the arrogance of the younger man in check, and repressed all bluster ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ACT OF AUTHORITY.—The storm of excitement that may make the child start, bears no relation to actual obedience. The inner firmness, that sees and feels a moral conviction and expects obedience, is only disguised and defeated by bluster. The more calm and direct it is, the greater certainty it has ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... a few days, my Father rode over to Andover, and sent for Griffith down to the Star Inn, to pay him his bill. Having expostulated with him upon his conduct to me, and his still more unfeeling conduct if possible to himself; Griffith chose to bluster and bully, upon which my father coolly turned him out of the room, telling him that his gown alone saved him from the chastisement that he merited; a privilege which the parson did not choose to waive. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... to bluster; "do you mean to say that I don't know my own business? Do you think I'm going to steal money from your grandfather's estate ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... need but little penetration in any one conversant with the ways of that wise but windy potentate, the sovereign people, to discover that not withstanding all the warlike bluster and bustle of the last chapter, the city of New Amsterdam was not a whit more prepared for war than before. The privy councillors of Peter Stuyvesant were aware of this; and, having received his private orders to put the city in an immediate posture of defense, they called a meeting of the oldest ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... Bridgeport, and made preparations for manufacturing. Terry knew ten times as much about the business as Barnum did, and knowing, also, that the old stock was comparatively worthless, held back while Barnum was urging him to push ahead with the manufacturing. Terry made a great bluster, saying that he was going to hire men and do a great business, while, unknown to Barnum, he was trying to sell the stock he held in the company. They finally cooked up a plan to sell their New York store and ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... persuaded, against the evidence of his own ears, that it was the Chancellor's intention to insist upon his daughter's rights, and to appeal to Parliament. That threatened opposition, the Duke met by cowardly bluster, which the Chancellor was easily able to rebuff by an indignant denial of such tales. For the injury the Duke had done him, he said, he was answerable to "One Who is as much above him as his highness was above him." The Chancellor's sense of proportion is curious, ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... back!" repeated Hildegarde sternly, with a sudden light in her gray eyes which made the rascal step backward and thrust the papers hurriedly into the drawer. After which he began to bluster, as is the manner of cowards. "Pooty thing, city gals comin' hectorin' round with ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... discrimination as you have. Tell you to be gentle, and you think we want you to dissolve into milk-and-water; tell you to be polite, and you infer hypocrisy; to be neat, and you leap over into dandyism, fancying all the while that bluster is manliness. No, Sir. You may make shoes, you may run engines, you may carry coals; you may blow the huntsman's horn, hurl the base-ball, follow the plough, smite the anvil; your face may be brown, your veins knotted, your hands grimed; and yet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... demand was made, the States government yielded at once, and yielded without bluster. I cannot say I much admired Mr. Seward's long letter. It was full of smart special pleading, and savored strongly, as Mr. Seward's productions always do, of the personal author. Mr. Seward was making an effort to ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... style, I have endeavored neither to creep nor to bluster, for no author is so likely to betray his translator into both these faults, as HOMER, though himself never guilty of either. I have cautiously avoided all terms of new invention, with an abundance of which, persons of more ingenuity than judgment ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... meeting could only be regarded as a deliberate challenge and provocation to Ulster. It seemed probable that the First Lord of the Admiralty had been selected for the mission in preference to any other Minister precisely because he was Lord Randolph's son. All this bluster about "fight and be right" was traceable, so Liberal Ministers doubtless reasoned, to that unhappy speech of "Winston's father"; let Winston go over to the same place and explain his father away. ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... especially of Frenchmen, never cease? Will it be believed, that after the action of St. Cas—a mere affair of cutting off a rearguard, as you are aware—they were so unfeeling as to fire away I don't know how much powder at the Invalides at Paris, and brag and bluster over our misfortune? Is there any magnanimity in hallooing and huzzaying because five or six hundred brave fellows have been caught by ten thousand on a seashore, and that fate has overtaken them which is said to befall the hindmost? I had a mind ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... only the bounds of the English language are leapt, but truth is unconsciously set at nought. We always allow for the words of some persons, for with them a scratch is a wound; a wind, a hurricane; one dollar, a thousand; and all they do in life, a big, big bluster. The only way to bring back English to a state of purity—for it has been outraged by slang, imitation, technical expressions, a straining after long words, and a regular system of exaggeration—is to speak simple words, using all necessary force and emphasis in the voice instead of ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... meet again opposite the church. If I'm not there in twenty minutes go back without me; I'll wait that long for you. Walk in as if you owned the shanty. There's nothing starts suspicion as quick as looking frightened. Bluster a bit if they look crooked at you, and answer ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... the younger man blankly, "what a ridiculous old humbug it is! And how he used to frighten me in the old days with his confounded cavalry bluster! I rather think I will look him up: and I'll dine with him three times a week if he likes. Meanwhile, it's time for me to go and meet old Rainham, and take him round to ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... is lost, and nothing will be lost. But I fear these two men. They do not bluster and talk at random like the others. They are so very quiet ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... case. Of course there are ingenious arguments, but there is much more of loud bluster about the danger of the Republic. But, you see, no opposition could prevent the assembly from being prorogued, and a certain powerful influence rightly applied during the next three days might determine the wavering courage of those who desire that the Appeal should be granted, and might even ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... but a cowardly brute, with all your bluster," he continued, turning round to Kirker, and looking him in the eye. "Up with that knife! quick! or I will send this bullet through ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... dealer cannot be got rid of—he is a vice inherent in our civilisation; but if the Press withdrew its subvention, his monopoly would be curtailed, and art would be recruited by new talent, at present submerged. Art would gradually withdraw from the bluster and boom of an arrogant commercialism, and would attain her olden dignity—that of a quiet handicraft. And in this great reformation only two classes would suffer—the art critics and the dealers. The newspaper proprietors would profit largely, and the readers ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... The first one will be jocular and friendly, and the business part will be in the postscript; the second will be pathetic and somewhat reproachful, and the demands more urgent; finally, if money is not forthcoming, he will bluster and threaten and make himself exceedingly unpleasant. Cedric must simply have no dealings with him; and above all things, he must take no notice of ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... her best," said Mr. Mount, snuff-taking in graceful Court fashion, "for he hath loved a dozen since; but she is a shrew, and can rave and bluster at him till he would hang her with jewels, and give her his crown itself to quieten her furies. 'Tis the pretty orange wench and actor woman Nell Gwynne who will please him longest, for she is a good-humoured baggage and ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... what I wrote at the time. I subsequently found that I had been sent for to come back because the road was believed to be dangerous, there was no secure resting-place, and the authorities could not guarantee my safety. Imagine a Chinese in a Western country acting with the bluster that I did, although in good humour; I wonder whether he would be treated with the courtesy that ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... him, you will say that I wish to see him. He will be surprised, and talk big, but he will surely question you. Make no secret of the fact that you are in my confidence. Tell him I offer a truce, that I am in a position to make terms. He may bluster, and boast, perhaps, that I am on my knees. Well, admit it, and remind him that where I fail, he, at least, has no chance of success. Do you understand?' It is a question as between money and revenge. Alfieri is something of a fool. If the bait be tempting enough he will swallow it, and not ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... thickets;—what a privilege of fairy-land is this noiseless prow, looking in and out of one flowery cove after another, scarcely stirring the turtle from his log, and leaving no wake behind! It seemed as if all the process of rowing had too much noise and bluster, and as if the sharp slender wherry, in particular, were rather too pert and dapper to win the confidence of the woods and waters. Time has dispelled the fear. As I rest poised upon the oars above some submerged shallow, diamonded with ripple-broken ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... had struck too hard, had killed the man? A little tremor went over him, a prickling of the scalp. Killing Cliff had no part in his plans, would be too horrid a mischance. He wished now that he had left him alone, had let him bluster and threaten. Perhaps Cliff would not have had presence of mind enough to do what Johnny had feared he would do when he saw capture was inevitable: drop overboard what papers he carried that would incriminate him with the United States Federal officers. With empty pockets ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... Mexicans yet? They would be opposed to God Almighty, rather than confess they were well governed. Bah! the genius of Mexico is mutiny. They scarcely want a leader to move their madness. They rebel on any weak pretence. They bluster when they are courted; they crouch when they are oppressed. They are fools to all the world but themselves. I beg the Almighty to consider in my favor, that some over-hasty angel misplaced my lot. I should have been ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... car had disappeared. Doubtless she had gone in ignorance of this outrage, perhaps thinking him accosted by a chance acquaintance. At all events, she was gone, and there was now nothing to be gained from an attempt to bluster the detective down, but deeper shame and ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... on other earth. There was a wind blowing that was as salt as sea-winds are, yet travelled more mildly over the estuary land than it would have over the waves, like some old captain who from old age had come to live ashore and keeps the roll and bluster of his calling though he does no more than tell children tales ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... summer. In fact, winter does not wear the scowl here that he has at home; he is robed rather in a threadbare garment of autumn, and it is only high up on the mountain tops, out of the reach of his enemy, the sun, that he dares to throw it off, and bluster about with his storms and scatter down his snow-flakes. The roses still bud and bloom in the hedges, the emerald of the meadows is not a whit paler, the sun looks down lovingly as yet, and there are only the white helmets of some of the Appenines, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... close enough for the hot contagion to sweep them with typhoon speed and they went up in spurts like pitch barrels. The wind was high enough to romp ruthlessly with spark and blaze, until even the effort at fire-fighting had been abandoned. Happily the bluster had settled to a constant gale out of the south-west and the fire-tide rolled with it to the edge and not the core of the town and when it lapped at the reeking woods it ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... to bluster, and attempted to deny this statement; but Lecoq opened the door, and Rose appeared in a most becoming costume. Paul now made no effort to continue his protestations, but throwing himself on his knees, in whining accents confessed the whole fraud and pleaded for mercy, promising to give ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... from 1886 to 1896, when the Venezuela episode opened a valve for the steam to blow off, the relations between Canada and the United States were continuously at high tension. It was an era of friction and pinpricks, of bluster and retaliation. The United States was not in a conciliatory mood. It was growing in wealth and numbers and power, in unprecedented ways. Its people were one and all intensely proud of their country and satisfied with themselves. ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... gradually left behind; they were, in truth, half-hearted. Many of them had worked in Lloyd's, and had small mind to injure their old comrades. They were not averse to a great show of indignation and bluster, but when it ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... lank man with that sort of persuasiveness which can turn instantly into bluster, "all this is pure foolishness, you know. We're here to stay. We've bought this place, and some other land to go with it, and we expect to stay right here and make a living. It happens that we expect to make a living off of sheep. Now, we don't want to start in by ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... taken twenty guns with their horses, and about thirty battle flags. It was a tremendous capture, if he could hold his ground. No officer of the Union army ever showed to better advantage. The world may well forgive the touch of vanity and bluster in the undaunted Hancock, as he sent this despatch to Grant: "I have used up Johnson and am going into Hill." He found, however, that he should have terrible work even to keep the gain ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... which as far back as 1860 passed every week on its northward way up along the coast of Norway, was of a very sociable turn of mind. It ran with much shrieking and needless bluster in and out the calm, winding fjords, paid unceremonious little visits in every out-of-the-way nook and bay, dropped now and then a black heap of coal into the shining water, and sent thick volleys of smoke and shrill little echoes careering aimlessly ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... a hard-working blaze, it was because he must. He was a tempestuously organized creature, of a martial front and a baby heart, most fortunate in his breadth of shoulder, his height, and the readiness of the choleric blood to come into his cheeks, the eagerness of his husky voice to bluster. ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... because it is true to human nature, true to the determined, prompt, kingly character of David. He does not complain, bluster, curse over the insult as a weak man might have done. He has been deeply hurt, and he is too high-minded to talk about it. He will do, and not talk. A dark purpose settles itself instantly in his mind. Perhaps he is ashamed of it, and dare not speak of it, even to ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... for anything but the show and bluster which are threatening our ruin? English food, not long ago the best in the world, is falling off in quality, and even our national genius for cooking shows a decline; to anyone who knows England, these are facts significant ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... begun to work again, if only a little, and he could by this time have answered if he would. But he knew that his own cowardice, if nothing else, had given away the game. After such a confession as his own terror had made, what was the use of bluster or pretence? He could not guess how much was known. He was completely cornered, and must fight or yield. His native instinct at any moment was ready to teach him how much discretion was the better part of valour, and now to fight seemed mere madness. ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... blue jay neighborhood or a blackbird neighborhood? The place was well policed, certainly; robins and blue jays united in that work, though their relations with each other bore the character of an armed neutrality, always ready for a few hot words and a little bluster, but never really coming to blows. We never had the pleasure of seeing a stranger among us. We might hear him approaching, nearer and nearer, till, just as the eager listener fancied he might alight in sight, there would burst upon the air the screech ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... came home from the Bandstand I said quietly: "Show me the jewellery Burker sent you, Dolly. I am very much in earnest, so don't bluster." ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... thrown down, or the hat which had been knocked from his head. There was only one instinct or desire in his being—the instinct which drives the wounded rat back to its hole to die, the instinct of self-preservation working in its meanest range. His swagger and bluster had been hopelessly crushed out of him by the vigour of Palmer Billy's attack; and to have been, as he considered, twice deserted by his own comrades, rendered ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... put himself in a passion, and Mr. Saunders, accustomed for his own part to make bluster serve instead of prowess, despised a command so calmly given. Ellen, who knew the voice, and still better could read the eye, drew conclusions very different. She was almost breathless with terror. Saunders was enraged and mortified at an interference that promised to baffle him; he was a stout ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... fascinated Haydon. Harlan saw him shrink back, the bluster gone out of him, his face the color of ashes. He kept stepping back, until he brought up against the rear wall of the ranchhouse; and there he stood, watching Woodward, his eyes bulging ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... caricaturists—with every quality, good or evil, at its highest? Here are the rough crust over a kindly heart, the explosive temper, the arrogance, the insular narrowness, the want of sympathy and insight, the rudeness of perception, the positiveness, the overbearing bluster, the strong deep-seated religious principle, and every other characteristic of the cruder, rougher John Bull who was the great grandfather of the ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... officers' quarters, Mr Robert Roberts, and the other leads, as you well know, to the residency. Now go and find out for yourself, and don't air your salt-junk bluster ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... the sight of the boys and seemed about to indulge in his usual bluster, but a thought appeared to come to him suddenly that made him ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... very downcast, though the midshipmen did their best to keep up her spirits by telling her that they were sure the Spaniards would not dare to hurt her or any of us, let them bluster ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... real inner strength. How many faces one sees which, in ordinary circumstances, are comfortable, self-asserting, sufficient, and even bold; the lines of which, under difficulties, collapse and become mean, spiritless, and insignificant. There are faces which, in their usual form, seem to bluster with prosperity, but which the loss of a dozen points at whist will reduce to that currish aspect which reminds one of a dog-whip. Mr. Camperdown's countenance, when Lord Fawn and Mr. Eustace left him, had fallen away into this meanness of appearance. He no longer ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... the law of election in really representative governments which are truly free; the majority of electors returns the majority to the government; and rightly so. Of course, there is room here, particularly where the majority happens to be Irish, for a vast quantity of frothy bluster about drilled and intimidated voters, and all that sort of thing. With that we have no concern at present, and merely remark en passant that it is a pity a little more of it was not wasted on the recent Galway ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... Singing Water, and there they may have every luxury they can provide for themselves, or we can offer, and the pleasure of your presence, and both of them can grow strong and happy. I'll have grandmother on her feet in ten days, and the edge off grandfather's tongue in three. That bluster of his is to drown tears, Ruth; I saw it to-night. And when they pass over we will carry them up and lay them beside her under the oak, and we can take the house we build for them, if you like it better, and use ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... best of monarchs, add, to crown Thy bounty to the Dardans,—one, beside These many, nor let bluster bear thee down. A worthy husband for thy child provide, And peace shall with the lasting pact abide. Else, if such terror doth our souls enslave, Him now, in hope to turn away his pride, Him let us pray his proper right to waive, And, pitying, deign ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... gently led him up to the question of loving him hard in this new way, he might be induced to sip out of the cup just to see if he liked it—and it might be just what he craved, for the time being; but I doubt it. He would storm and bluster at the idea. ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the Constitution. While much will be yielded—every thing, almost, but the integrity of the Constitution, and the essential interests of the country—to the cause of mutual harmony and mutual conciliation, no ground can be granted, not an inch, to menace and bluster. Indeed, menace and bluster, and the putting forth of daring, unconstitutional doctrines, are, at this very moment, the chief obstacles to mutual harmony and satisfactory accommodation. Men cannot well reason, and confer, and take counsel together, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... and since the elements were beyond our control, there was no telling when relief would come. Until the weather moderated in the hills to the west, there was no hope of crossing the river; but men grew hungry and nights were chilly, and bluster and bravado brought neither food nor warmth. A third wave was noticed within an hour, raising the water-gauge over a foot. The South Fork of the Big Cheyenne almost encircled the entire Black Hills country, and with a hundred mountain affluents emptying in their tribute, the waters ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... could well be, but they did possess the royal prerogative of inspiring men with an extraordinary devotion. There was something to be said for the cause which could send a man like Balmerino so gallantly to his death with such a brave piece of soldierly bluster upon his dying lips. ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... wondered why there was such a difference between the effect of her temper on him now and the effect of it those long years ago. He had no feeling of uneasiness in her presence now, no sense of irritation. In spite of her tirade, he had a feeling that it didn't matter, that she must bluster in her tiny teacup if she wanted ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... place of voting, on the prairie, and hitched their horses to their wagons, and were quietly going about their business, when with a great whoop and hurrah, which frightened their horses and made them break loose from their wagons, a company of men came in sight, and with swagger and bluster, took possession of the polls, and proceeded to do the voting. Meantime whisky flowed like water, and the men, far gone in liquor, turned the place into a bedlam. In utter humiliation and disgust many of the squatters went home. Caleb May did not get into the neighborhood ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... fearful storm, the heavens seem As if they would vent themselves in streams of fire; So thick the darkness which usurps the day, That one might see the stars. The angry winds Bluster and howl like spirits loosed from hell. The firm earth trembles, and the aged elms Groaning, bow down their venerable tops. Yet this terrific tumult, o'er our heads, Which teacheth gentleness to savage beasts, So that they seek the shelter of their caves, Appeaseth not the bloody strife ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Lords thought that the threats used against them in the course of the election meant nothing and were only a kind of bluster to get the Budget passed, they were grievously mistaken. It must have been hard for them to realize that Lloyd George meant all the presumptuous things he said. He was never more in earnest. A cut-and-dried plan had been arranged between him and Mr. Asquith with regard ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... Justin's mind ran clear in spite of that feeling of sharp practice toward himself—nay, because of it; it was impossible to use the weapon that a former kindness had placed in his hand. He looked at Leverich now with an expression which the latter quieted himself to meet. This was a situation, not for bluster and rage, but ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... once and began to bluster around the studio, damning Haggerty. There was something disturbingly warm and honest in Garry's eyes. Then with a sudden gesture of impatience he came back and his troubled ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... rushing tumultuously up and down a gang-plank, as negroes do when wooding up on a Southern river; of shouting and swaggering Austrian customs officials, clad in gorgeous raiment, but smoking cheap cigars; of Servian gendarmes emulating the bluster and surpassing the rudeness of the Austrians; of Turks in transit from the Constantinople boat to the craft plying to Bosnian river-ports; of Hungarian peasants in white felt jackets embroidered with scarlet thread, or mayhap even with yellow; and of various ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... not only one violation, but constant violations, of the criminal law. They were unmolested; having the power to prevent it they assuredly would not suffer themselves to undergo even the farce of prosecution. Such few prosecutions as were started with suspicious bluster by the Government against the Standard Oil Company, the Sugar Trust, the Tobacco Trust and other trusts proved to be absolutely harmless, and have had no result except to strengthen the position of the trusts. The great ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... foolishly, and talking to myself—now under my breath—now out loud. A strong southwest wind blows steadily in my face: it sounded noisy and fierce enough as I sat in the house; but there is no vice or malevolence in it—it is only a soft bluster. ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... The swan-down to feeling, The snow of the gaillin,[134] Thy limbs all excelling, Unite to amaze. The queen, I would name thee, Of maidenly muster; Thy stem is so seemly, So rich is its cluster Of members complete, Adroit at each feat, And thy temper so sweet, Without banning or bluster. My grief has press'd on Since the vision of Morag, As the heavy millstone On the cross-tree that bore it. In vain the world over, Seek her match may the rover; A shaft, thy poor ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... before you go into the trial of a cause. Be very cautious on cross-examination. It is the most powerful but most delicate and dangerous instrument known to the surgery of the law. Do not bluster, "bull-doze," or browbeat a witness; there is nothing in it. You only make the jury sympathize with the person abused. Remember that an American loves nothing so much as fair play. When on a jury, he is apt to regard you and the witness as adversaries, you the stronger and ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... need to bluster in this fashion. Take up the poker and go and break into the door quiet and decent, like anyone else would do. And girls—off for your bonnets this moment ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... I met in Canaan was one Mistake, a large, loose-jointed fellow, who, I found, made a tremendous bluster but was as weak as a pygmy. Really he is not a true Anakim, but a Gibeonite, who are foes until they are conquered, and then they become hewers of wood and drawers of water for us—they become our servants betimes [Joshua 9:21]. ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry
... But the roar of the waterfall rang too persistently in his ears and he hastily closed the window again. There was something in the incessant boom of that tumbling water which strangely disturbed him. He could better stand suspense than that. If only the wind would bluster again. That, at least, was intermittent in its fury and gave momentary relief to thoughts strained ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... If Montcornet begins to bluster before his Virginie, Madame lays a finger on her lips and he is silent. He smokes his pipes and his cigars in a kiosk fifty feet from the chateau, and airs himself before he returns to the house. Proud of his subjection, he turns ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... day, and the Duke cheered as he came out of the Palace. There have been some meetings, with resolutions to support the Bill, to express approbation of the Ministers, and to protest against the payment of taxes, and there will probably be a good deal of bustle and bluster here and elsewhere; but I do not believe in real tumults, particularly when the rabble and the unions know that there is a Government which will not stand such things, and that they will not be able to bandy compliments with the Duke as they did with Althorp ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... is a cheerless scene, and cheerless are the wanderers in it. Here comes one who has so long been familiar with tempestuous weather that he takes the bluster of the storm for a friendly greeting, as if it should say, "How fare ye, brother?" He is a retired sea-captain wrapped in some nameless garment of the pea-jacket order, and is now laying his course toward the marine-insurance office, there to spin yarns of gale and shipwreck with a ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... towards the door by which Nikta entered the hut] Well, have you had enough spree? You've been puffing yourself up, but now you'll know how it feels! You'll lose some of your bluster! ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... for courage had long been established; and his temper was under strict government. The fury of Glengarry, not being inflamed by any fresh provocation, rapidly abated. Indeed there were some who suspected that he had never been quite so pugnacious as he had affected to be, and that his bluster was meant only to keep up his own dignity in the eyes of his retainers. However this might be, the quarrel was composed; and the two chiefs met, with the outward show of civility, at the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... people who assume that gushing women are shallow, but this is jumping at conclusions. A recent novel gives us a picture of "a tall soldier," who, in camp, was very full of brag and bluster. We are quite sure that when the fight comes on this man with the lubricated tongue will prove an arrant coward; we assume that he will run at the first smell of smoke. But we are wrong—he stuck; and when the flag was carried down in the rush, he rescued it ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... does not seem to have been of great length. In it, Tecumseh entirely abandoned any attempt at bluster, but firmly and positively stated to the Governor that he would not consent to the sale of the Indian lands, and that any attempt to survey them would be met with resistance. This frank and open statement, elicited a response equally frank from the Governor. ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... slight tremulous motion like the poise of a rope-dancer, then rising and falling in long undulations, and seeming to resign themselves passively to the wind; or, again sailing high and level far above the mountain's peak, no bluster and haste, but as stated, occasionally a terrible earnestness and speed. Fire at one as he sails overhead and, unless wounded badly, he will not change ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... swallowed up; and their place knoweth them no more. So it is in politics: where the people is most closely restrained, there it gives the greatest shocks to peace and order; therefore would I say to all kings, let your demagogues lead crowds, lest they lead armies; let them bluster, lest they massacre; a little turbulence is, as it were, the rainbow of the state; it shows indeed that there is a passing shower; but it is a pledge that ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... How did she know all this? It made strange music in his ears, for, in spite of all his bluster, he hungered for praise; for applause. Pearl's words fell like a ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... most fear is that the perpetual bluster of a party in the States will at last set the patient British back up. And if our people begin to bluster too, and there should come into existence an exasperating war-party on both sides, there will be great danger of ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... as poor a critic As an honest friend: you stroke me on one cheek, Buffet the other. Come, you bluster, Antony! You know I know all this. I must not move Until I hear from Carew and the Duke. I fear the mine is ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... something and hang on," the red-faced man said to me. All his bluster had gone, and he seemed to have caught the contagion of preternatural calm. "And listen to the women scream," he said grimly—almost bitterly, I thought, as though he had been through the ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... its eyes to the 'gratifying prospect of a people building up the edifice of their liberties, and consolidating the work of their independence, amid the sympathies and good wishes of Europe.' Foreign Courts might bluster, protest, or sneer, but England was with her Foreign Minister; and 'Punch' summed up the verdict of the nation in generous words ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... a voice, that intended to bluster, while the speaker was manifestly a little apprehensive of the consequences; "Woman, I forbid you on pain of the law to project any of your infernal missiles. I am a citizen, and a freeholder, and a graduate of two universities; ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... which had begun to blackguard The Blunder and Bluster's correspondent while he remained under the shelter of his pseudonym, now that his name was known, came out with double virulence, and filled half a sheet with filthy abuse of Harry, including collateral ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... based upon the solid ground of ascertained fact. In the childhood of every science dogmatism precedes induction, and in the absence of clear knowledge, foolish and wild-eyed visionaries have posed as discoverers again and again. Yet bluster and audacity have their use, if only to stimulate the timid and the dilatory to quicken their pace and move forwards. For my part, however, if it be necessary to choose between the two, I should prefer to err with the slow and ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... always be ready to kill, May ev'ry Day here take his Stand, if he will; And the soldier, who'd bluster and challenge secure, May draw boldly here, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... come. Oxford contented himself with quarreling in a loud voice; but those whom he was trying to impress were not deceived by his bluster, and all present knew that he had proved ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... confirmation, which he assuredly never intended, to the Prussian ideal of a State. Nietzsche was too much averse from politics to intend such an application of his teaching, which is essentially individualistic, and he had nothing but contempt for the bluster and philistinism of the Prussian State in particular. We must admit, however, that in this unintentional way he contributed to the formation of that German temper which led to the war. General von Bernhardi's admiring references to his philosophy ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... plaudits and encores. Nay, I forswear the drama, if to win Or lose the prize can make me plump or thin. Then too it tries an author's nerve, to find The class in numbers strong, though weak in mind, The brutal brainless mob, who, if a knight Disputes their judgment, bluster and show fight, Call in the middle of a play for bears Or boxers;—'tis for such the rabble cares. But e'en the knights have changed, and now they prize Delighted ears far less than dazzled eyes. The ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace |
