"Brusque" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tolerated him, but when he tried to talk with them he found that most of them had little or no English, and he made scant progress with them in that particular. The big first mate, Carlos, rebuffed him repeatedly, but he persisted, and in time the rebuffs became less brusque. He also noticed a certain softening of the sailors toward him. His own charm of manner was so great that it was hard to resist it when it was continuously exerted, and sailors, like other men, appreciate help when it is given to them continuously. ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... than the canvassing of remote possibilities: each, in fact, was in the stage of finding each other a mine worth exploring. Brent began to see a lot in Queenie and her dark eyes; Queenie was beginning to consider Brent, with his grim jaw, his brusque, off-hand speech, and masterful manner, a curiously fascinating person; besides, he was beginning to do things that only strong ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... mystified and impressed by the brusque bitterness of Lieutenant D'Hubert's tone. They left the house together, and in the street he was still more ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... he had been an officer in Ellsworth's company, and was familiar with fancy manoeuvres for street parade, and with a special skirmish drill and bayonet exercise. Small, swarthy, with angular features, and a brusque, military manner, in a showy uniform and jaunty kepi of scarlet cloth, covered with gold lace, he created quite a sensation among us. His assumption of knowledge and experience was accepted as true. He claimed to have been a surgeon in the ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... alternated by small keys and old-fashioned mourning-rings. His complexion was pale and sodden, and his hair short, dark, and sleek. The bookseller valued himself on a likeness to Buonaparte; and affected a short, brusque, peremptory manner, which he meant to be the indication of the vigorous and decisive ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... An interruption brusque enough to silence her; or else it was its innuendo that struck the princess dumb with indignation. Lanyard's laugh offered amends for the rudeness, as if he said: "Sorry—but you asked for it, you know." He stepped aside, caught up a handful of her jewels that had been left, ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... The brusque reply is still remembered of Lawson Tait, the great English ovariotomist, to a distinguished German colleague, who had inquired the secret of his then marvelously low death-rate: after a glance at the bands of mourning on the ends of the other's fingers, ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... didn't take any notice of father," said Cicely, with the brusque directness of youth, and Aunt Ellen seemed to be somewhat bewildered at the statement, not liking to impute blame to her sovereign, but unable for the moment to find any ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... such a very undesirable party?" said Graham, laughing, for he heartily enjoyed his aunt's brusque way of talking, having learned already ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... born in Kentucky of Virginia parentage, married to a Southern woman, accustomed from boyhood to the narrow circumstances of the poor, and still unused to the ways of the great, was called to the American Presidency. He was not brusque and warlike as Jackson had been; he was a kindly philosopher, a free-thinker in religion at the head of an orthodox people, or peoples. A shrewd judge of human character and the real friend of the poor and the dependent, Lincoln, like his aristocratic prototype, Thomas Jefferson, believed ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... said no word. Perhaps if he had, Elizabeth might have been induced to reconsider her decision. The fact was, she was getting sore as well as unhappy. "If he had wanted me, he would have asked me to accompany them," she said to herself, never dreaming that her brusque, decided manner made any such invitation on his part ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... he carried eccentricity to an extravagant extent, was brusque and curt in speech, often to the verge of insult, laconic in his despatches, and—a soldier in grain—treated with stinging sarcasm all whose lack of activity or of courage invited his contempt. It was by this spirit that he incurred the enmity of the Emperor Paul, when, in his half-mad ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... murderer did," was the rather brusque reply. Inspector Carfon was finding the role of audience trying, alike to his nerves and to ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... the brunt of the battle alone, for Matchin soon grew shy of disputing with his rebellious child. She was growing rapidly and assuming that look of maturity which comes so suddenly and so strangely to the notice of a parent. When he attacked her one day with the brusque exclamation, "Well, Mattie, what's all this blame foolishness your ma's being tellin' me ?" she answered him with a cool decision and energy that startled and alarmed him. She stood straight and terribly tall, he thought. She ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... the rank and file. During training at home and on service in France he did splendid work, and to him is due in no small measure the high standard of efficiency and discipline maintained in the Battalion. In manner somewhat brusque, but of a tender heart withal, he was the friend and confidant of nearly all the Officers, N.C.O.s and men, and when off parade the best of ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... cried, in his brusque, explosive fashion, "I like Schuyler, and I care not who knows it! Dammy! I was cool enough with him and his lady when they arrived, but he played Valentine to my Orson till I gave up; yes, I did, George, I capitulated. Says he, 'Sir Lupus, if a painful misunderstanding ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... flow more quickly, out of sympathy; and his intellectual alertness bewildered and fascinated her. She was still shy at thirty-five, and really very timid and apologetic for her commonplaceness; but at times the rebellious bitterness at the bottom of her heart would leap forth in a brusque or bold speech. She was still capable of ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... remained silent, his speech failed him through the brusque manner in which he was addressed. Taking advantage of ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... at this time sixty-nine years old, a tall, robust, vigorous man with a stern face of remarkable vulgar strength. The illiteracy of his youth survived; he could not write the simplest words correctly, and his speech was a brusque medley of slang, jargon, dialect and profanity. It was said of him that he could swear more forcibly, variously and frequently than any other man of his generation. Like the Astors, he was cynical, distrustful, secretive and parsimonious. ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... saw her hastily stow a packet in her luggage. But, though he was Mayor of Auray, he did nothing more about his mother-in-law's death. It is to be remarked, however, that the Hetels themselves were against the brusque dismissal of Helene. She had "smothered the mother ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... otherwise a kind sort of woman, sends him here. She believes it will work his reform. I pity her error-for it is an error to believe reform can come of punishment, or that virtue may be nurtured among vice." Thus responds the brusque but kind-hearted old jailer, who view swith an air of compassion his new comer, as he lays, a forlorn mass, exposed to the gaze of the prisoners ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... without having learned that his business was to smite on conscience with a strong hand, and to tear away the masks which hid men from themselves. The whole spirit of the old prophets was revived in his brusque, almost fierce, address to such very learned, religious, and distinguished personages. Isaiah in his day had called their predecessors 'rulers of Sodom'; John was not scolding when he called his hearers 'ye offspring ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... He was never heard to speak other than gently to his mother, though to every one else his manner was sometimes brusque and dictatorial. ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... marry us both," said the marquis, replying to Laurence; "and the time has come," he continued, in the brusque tone of a man who is struck to the heart, "to ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... had openly proposed in her father's presence to ask them both to luncheon, the Squire had pretended not to hear, but had at any rate raised no objection. And when the brother and sister arrived, he had received them as though nothing had happened. His manners were always brusque and ungracious, except in the case of persons who specially mattered to his own pursuits, such as archaeologists and Greek professors. But the Chetworth family were almost as well acquainted with his ways as his own, and his visitors ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that, when Friday came and the afternoon session was over, Marjorie was escorted to the gymnasium by the Picture Girl and her friends, who, even to Mignon, believed that the newcomer had been wise and taken their brusque advice. ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... reader must rest satisfied with the author's bare word. There is no attempt at the study of passions; his heroes change their minds all of a sudden, with the stiff, sharp, improbable action of puppets in a show. Pandosto (Leontes) loves and hates, and becomes jealous, and repents always in the same brusque wire-and-wood manner; the warmth of his passions, so great and terrible in Shakespeare, is here simply absent; when he begins to suspect his friend Egistus (Polixenes) of feeling an unlawful love for Bellaria (Hermione), we are barely informed that the Bohemian king "concluded ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... cold days of January recurred monotonously, with now and then a brilliance of blue flashing in, when Brangwen went out into a morning like crystal, when every sound rang again, and the birds were many and sudden and brusque in the hedges. Then an elation came over him in spite of everything, whether his wife were strange or sad, or whether he craved for her to be with him, it did not matter, the air rang with clear noises, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... But this brusque separation from his particular divinity was disconcerting. How to see her again? He must go up to Oxford in the morning, he wrote her that night, but if she could possibly let him call during the week he would manage to run ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... with delinquency in not having required the Water people to share their superabundance with those of the Turquoise. The delegate of Kohaio was not only aggressive in his speech, but his manner of delivering it was brusque and violent, and created quite a stir; and many of the members cast glances at him which were not of ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... little Vicomte made his accustomed appearance in the drawing-room, after the table d'hote, he offered the Cockayne ladies his profoundest bows, and was most reverential in his attitude to Mr. Cockayne, who on his side was red and brusque. As neither Mr. nor Mrs. Cockayne could speak a French word, and Mr. John Catt was not in a position to help them, and was, moreover, inclined to the most unfavourable conclusions on the French nobleman, the presentations were on the English side of the most awkward description. ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... thirty of us followed the hearse which carried Louis Miraz to the Cemetery Montmartre. It had snowed the day before, and Doctor Arnould, the old frequenter of painters' studios, the friend and physician of the dead man, walking behind me, called in his brusque voice, ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... to join my new regiment, your excellency," replied Boris, betraying neither annoyance at the prince's brusque manner nor a desire to enter into conversation, but speaking so quietly and respectfully that the prince gave ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... had lived at the North,—not only from the proprietors of the office, but from every one of its frequenters. And yet after all these civilities he had so far forgotten himself as to challenge a friend of his host, a very worthy gentleman, who, although a trifle brusque in his way of putting things, was still an open-hearted man. And all because he differed with him on ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... leave for the second time. We walked some distance from the police-station before exchanging a word: I do not know what she was thinking of; as for myself, I was speculating on the change in my opinion brought about by the rough-and-ready statement of the brusque Yorkshireman. For until then I had firmly believed that the man who had accosted our friend of the Mariner's Joy, Jim Gelthwaite, the drover, was the man who had murdered Salter Quick. My notion was that this man, whoever he was, had foregathered ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... anxious countenance, first at one, and then at the other, but scarcely knew what to say. Woodward, however, who was better acquainted with the usages of society, and the deference due to the presence of women, than the brusque, but somewhat fiery Milesian, now said, with a smile and a bow to ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... class, the fishers have grown to be more religious than almost any other body of men, and they like powerful excitement; but they are always severely decorous. In his behaviour toward his social superiors the fisherman is rugged—perhaps morbidly rugged—but his brusque familiarity is not offensive. To touch his cap would be impossible to him, but his direct salute is neither self-assertive nor impolite. The fisherman toils on till the time comes for him to stay ashore always. His life is a very risky one, and the history of every ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... without. They thronged up to its lintels just as the surf presses against the dykes, that are the doors of the land, to guard it from that strange old sea which would learn all its secrets, only to obliterate them. The doctor looked up. "He is resting at last," he said in brusque fashion, "and a good thing for everybody. Did you ever see this mark on him, Dan? Regular ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... body to which he attributed most curious properties. Since his return he had been occupied with some very delicate experiments, which he did not always carry out to his satisfaction; his movements were brusque, his hands all thumbs; very often he chanced to ruin everything by breaking his vessels. Samuel proposed to assist him in a manipulation requiring considerable dexterity; he had very flexible fingers, was as expert as a juggler, and the ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... up quickly, as if he did not quite understand the brusque ways of his new acquaintance, who put his questions so directly. But the new acquaintance seemed good-humored and quite at his ease, and evidently had not the least idea of being rude or over-inquisitive. He had only the way of one apparently ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... every one stopped talking. At the beginning of the entr'acte Giovanni left the box, and Count Tornik took his chair. He was a strange man, but Nina was beginning to like him. Notwithstanding his brusque indifference, he had a charm that he could exert when he chose. Giovanni's speeches were no more flattering ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... and do a few errands. The sum total of these expenses amounted to only eighteen cents, which left me two cents over for emergencies." Balzac somewhat exaggerates his poverty and reduces his expenses to suit the pleasure of his poetic fantasy, but undoubtedly it was a brusque transition from the bourgeois comfort of family life to the ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... time in her life, her father repelled her, shrinking away from her with a brusque, involuntary recoil that shocked her, thrusting her arms roughly to one side, and rising up hastily to retreat into the house. He said in a bitter, recriminating tone, "You don't know what you are talking about," and left her standing there, the tears frozen in her eyes. He went ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... Marston Greyle came on the scene—she had seemed to become constrained, chilled, distant, aloof—not with the stranger, himself, but with her kinsman. This fancy had become assurance during the conversation which had abruptly ended when Greyle took offence at Stafford's brusque remark. Copplestone had seen a sudden look in the girl's eyes when the fisherman repeated what Oliver had said about meeting a Mr. Marston Greyle in America; it was a look of sharply awakened—what? Suspicion? apprehension?—he could not decide. But it was the same look which had come ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... went on by gradual disintegration rather than by any brusque or even voluntary action on the part of Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Bates, the attorney-general, growing weary of the labors of his official position, resigned toward the end of November. Mr. Lincoln, on whom the claim of localities always had great ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... beside her, he put her through a catechism as to her village, her uncle, her friends. She resisted a little, for the brusque assurance of his tone still sounded oddly in her American ear. But he was not easy to resist; and when she had yielded she soon discovered that to talk to him was a no less breathless and absorbing business than to listen to him. He pounced on the new, the characteristic, the local; he drew ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... used to advance theatrically to the edge of the stage, and, then, pointing an accusing finger at one part of the audience, declare in loud ringing tones, "You're a sneak!" It is questionable whether any attempt at arousing interest could justify such a brusque approach. Only in broadly comic or genuinely humorous addresses can it be said that the end ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... the confessional. Fate saved me from playing the part Vane had assigned me in this vulgar comedy, dragged me from my entanglement, flung me on my feet again. She was a little brusque in the process; but I do not feel inclined to blame the kind lady for that. The mud was creeping upward fast, and a quick hand must ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... value of this conversation was that it taught me that the man's manner was no indication of his mood. I had thought he was impatient and indifferent, but I saw now that he was not so, rather brusque merely. He was simply excitable, somewhat like the French, and meant only to be businesslike. The upshot of it all was that he agreed to do it for one hundred and fifty, and asked me very solemnly ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... of an affliction. "A pity I don't hear better?" I have heard him say. "Not at all. If my misfortune, as you call it, were to be removed, you can't conceive how I should miss my deaf ear." He was a fine fellow, though brusque, and I never saw him without his pipe until two days before we buried him, which was ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... fragments of their talk about the pictures—the easy mastery, now brusque, now poetic, with which Dalrymple had shown him the treasures of the gallery, in the manner of one whose learning was merely the food of fancy, the stuff on which imagination and ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to fear his brusque ways. He was no carpet knight, and men who carry their lives in their hands do not ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... unique. Simple-minded, modest, and almost morbidly retiring, he was fearless and outspoken when occasion required. Strong in will and prompt in action, with a naturally hot temper, he was yet forgiving to a fault. Somewhat brusque in manner, his disposition was singularly sympathetic and attractive, winning all hearts. Weakness and suffering at once enlisted his interest. Caring nothing for what was said of him, he was indifferent to praise or ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... knew from previous inquiry, to rather an exceptional class of individuals in America, I did not suffer my mind to be biassed, although I could see that many of the passengers were not disposed to view the matter in the same light. He was a brusque and uncouth man, of swaggering gait, about forty years of age, above the middle stature, and soon let the captain and crew know, by his authoritative manner and volubility of tongue, that he was chief ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... The Count made a brusque movement of surprise, and saluting the Prince coldly, left him. A quarter of an hour after, two carriages in different directions left Ceprano. Monte-Leone's took the road to Rome, the Prince de Maulear's that to Naples. The former, however, did not go to Rome; for, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... going to say "rude," but knew better when she saw me waiting for it—"well, you are rather brusque, as we used to call it abroad, Miss Castlewood; but am I incapable of ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... Burgundians and English together in speaking of the enemy which Joan had come to make war upon. But she showed that she made a distinction between them by act and word, the Burgundians being Frenchmen and therefore entitled to less brusque treatment ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sandy waste stretching away to the misty sea at Budden, four men were walking. Two wore uniform—one an alert, grey-haired general, sharp and brusque in manner, with many war ribbons across his tunic; the other a tall, thin-faced staff captain, who wore the tartan of the Gordon Highlanders. With them were two civilians, both in rough shooting-jackets and breeches, one about forty-five, the other a few years ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... hull of the tug appeared moving against the black islets, whilst a slow and rhythmical clapping as of thousands of hands rose on all sides. It ceased all at once, just before Falk brought her up. A single brusque splash was followed by the long drawn rumbling of iron links running through the hawse pipe. Then a solemn silence fell ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... epigrammatic remarks, is a piece of gross exaggeration, but it has a modicum of truth in it. In the eyes of well-trained Russian officials M. Witte was a titanic, reckless character, capable at any moment of playing the part of the bull in the china-shop. As a masterful person, brusque in manner and incapable of brooking contradiction, he had made for himself many enemies; and his restless, irrepressible energy had led him to encroach on the provinces of all his colleagues. Possessing as he ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Government departments, according to whose piping ministers themselves have willingly or unwillingly to dance—is totally incompatible with the very elementary conditions of Socialistic administration."[1127] "Bismarckian State control is brusque and baneful, and is certainly not the desire of the ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... with a heart of gold!" was his mental comment; then he spoke abruptly, and his voice sounded brusque though his face was working ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... curtains, the sooty little back garden beyond, with its cat-runs, and its one stunted sumach tree; the dark-brown stare of Monsieur Harmost's rolling eyes brought back that time of happiness, when she used to come week after week, full of gaiety and importance, and chatter away, basking in his brusque admiration and in music, all with the glamourous feeling that she was making him happy, and herself happy, and going to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... as it happens. The parlance I like is a simple and natural parlance, the same on paper as in the mouth, a succulent and a nervous parlance, short and compact, not so much refined and finished to a hair as impetuous and brusque, difficult rather than wearisome, devoid of affectation, irregular, disconnected, and bold, not pedant-like, not preacher-like, not pleader-like." That fixity which Montaigne could not give to his irresolute ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... I am not in politics. The political mess grows to be nastier every year. But what are you here for? Come, now! Come! Let's talk it over." He was a bit brusque, but his ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... responded the other, in that quick, brusque manner belonging to his nature, "Master Martin did lay naught at thy door, but what I, or any other righteous man, might deem an honor to a house. Nay," he continued, with some vehemence, "if what he said ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... and conversing in different groups, and I talked with several. Archbishop Whately, I thought, seemed rather inclined to be jocose: he seems to me like some of our American divines; a man who pays little attention to forms, and does not value them. There is a kind of brusque humor in his address, a downright heartiness, which reminds one of western character. If he had been born in our latitude, in Kentucky or Wisconsin, the natives would have called him Whately, and said he was a real steamboat on an argument. This is not precisely the kind of man ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... brusque movement, the lively little boat being unsteady under his feet, and she spoke slowly, absently, as if her thought had been lost in ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... all the marks of travel removed, came into the large room. They rose at once and exchanged greetings. Robert, although he did not trust them, felt that they had no cause of quarrel with the two, and it was no part of his character to be brusque ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... of Lent the Society of the Holy Gethsemane was visited by its ecclesiastical Visitor. This was the Bishop of the diocese, a liberal-minded man and not a very rigid ecclesiastic, abrupt, brusque, businesslike, and a good administrator. When the brothers had gathered in the community room, he took from the Superior the leathern-bound volume containing the rule of the Brotherhood and read ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... control the unruly spirits. Governor Cumming may for the moment have been deceived by this apparent division among the Mormons, but three years later he told the author that it was all of a piece with the incidents of his passage through Echo Canon. In his characteristic brusque way he said: 'It was all humbug, sir, all humbug; but never mind; it is all over now. If it did them good, it did not hurt me.'"—"Rocky Mountain Saints," ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... many hours to indulge in either emotion. Very early next morning the telephone, which Ranger Morton had promptly repaired, began to ring. Charley answered the call and received a brusque order from the forester to remain at the tower, as the forester was coming out to ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... from that day. Pontano, who was Ferdinand's secretary, told a different tale. He affirmed that the real father of the Duke of Calabria was a Marrano of Valentia. This last story is rendered probable by the brusque contrast between the character of Alfonso and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... was vibrantly conscious of the man's strange, forceful personality. His brusque, hard speeches fell on her like so many blows, and yet behind them she felt as though there were something that appealed—something hurt and seeking to hide its hurt behind an ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... penombre du Codex Exoniensis et devant qui passent soudain avec leurs brillantes syllables 'Halte-Clerc,' l'epee d'Olivier, 'Joyeuse' celle de Charlemagne, 'Monjoie' l'etendard des Francs? Avant toute description on est saisi comme par un brusque lever de soleil. Il est tels vers de nos vieilles romances d'ou la lumiere ruisselle sans meme qu'on ait besoin de prendre garde ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... jetted acutely across the indistinct mingling of remote noises, and this brusque person sprang to a little group of appliances in the corner of the room. He listened for a moment, regarding a ball of crystal, nodded, and said a few indistinct words; then he walked to the wall through which the two men had vanished. ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... temporary rank by the appointment of a provincial governor. Warren was an impetuous sailor accustomed to command, and Pepperrell was a merchant accustomed to manage and persuade. The difference appears in their correspondence during the siege. Warren is sometimes brusque and almost peremptory; Pepperrell is forbearing and considerate to the last degree. He liked Warren, and, to the last, continued to praise him highly in letters to Shirley and other provincial governors; [Footnote: See extracts in Parson, 105,106. The Habitant ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... commented with brusque good-humour. "We're all upset. A drop of brandy will do us ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... and it would sometimes happen, when Helbeck went away for a time, that the cold reserve or mauvaise honte of the Jesuit would melt wholly before the eagerness of the artist—when, with intervals of a brusque silence, he talked with the rapidity and force of a turbid stream on the imaginations and the memories embodied in his work. And on one occasion, when the painter was busy with the head of St. Ursula, Laura, who was talking to Helbeck a few yards away, turned suddenly and found those dark strange ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I owe the pleasure, Mr.... er ... Mahony?" he asked, refreshing his memory with a glance at the pasteboard. He spoke in the brusque tone of one accustomed to run through many applicants in the course of an hour. "I understand that you make use of my sister Mary's name." And, as Mahony did not instantly respond, he snapped out: "My time is ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... parson's pet antipathy. The bluff old minister, with his brusque manner and big heart, would have no truck with the man who never went to church, was perpetually in liquor, and never spoke good of his neighbors. Yet he entered upon the interview fully resolved not to be betrayed into an unworthy expression of feeling; ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... final promise that Harold would go to bed at once on coming home. It seemed that he had laughed at the recommendation, so that the young surgeon felt bound to enforce it before all of us, adding that it was a kind of hurt that no one could safely neglect. There was something in his frank, brusque manner that pleased Harold, and he promised with half a smile, thanking the doctor hastily as he did so, while Dermot Tracy whispered to me, "Good luck getting him; twice as ready as the old one;" and then ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you, that I wasn't really to blame for your accident?" The question was put to Katherine with brusque directness. "I was driving a little faster than usual to escape the storm. I was well within the speed limit. Remember that. I fail to understand why you girls didn't hear my horn. It sounded ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... his aides were not in the least prepared to accept the brusque demands of Sir William Phipps. Fort Royal, it is true, had been cowed into an immediate surrender, but the blustering sailor of New England had mistaken Quebec and ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... soyez bien prepare, & que vous n'ayez bien estudie vostre suiet. Dans l'entretien ordinaire, n'allez point chercher de periphrases, point de subtilitez, ny de figures. Ne confondez point vos paroles dans les coutumes d'vne langue trop brusque & begayante; mais aussi, ne parlez pas si lentement, & a tant de reprises, que vous ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... transacted, and when they might just as well have gone upstairs. But Mr. Thornton would not say a word about moving their quarters; he chafed and chafed, and thought Mr. Bell a most prosy companion; while Mr. Bell returned the compliment in secret, by considering Mr. Thornton about as brusque and curt a fellow as he had ever met with, and terribly gone off both in intelligence and manner. At last, some slight noise in the room above suggested the desirableness of moving there. They found Margaret ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... here!" he said. His voice, like himself, was rough and brusque, rumbling hollow from the depths of his cavernous chest. The figure in the bunk stirred and muttered. Nicodemus ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... were few in number. Only one of them had a distinguished air, and he, like the bridegroom, wore the uniform of France. He was a small man, somewhat brusque in attitude, as became a soldier of Italy and Egypt. But he had a pleasant smile and that affability of manner which many learnt in the first years of the great Republic. He and Mathilde Sebastian never looked at each other: either ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... ascetic person, she was looked upon with fear by all the villagers. Her manner was brusque, her speech sharp, and her criticism of neglectful mothers caustic and much to the point. Prim, always in black bonnet and jet-trimmed cape of years gone by, both in summer and winter, she took no heed of the vagaries of ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... it was thoroughly understood, did not tend to ingratiate him with the wives of the country gentlemen among whom he had to look for practice. And then, also, there was not much in his individual manner to recommend him to the favour of ladies. He was brusque, authoritative, given to contradiction, rough though never dirty in his personal belongings, and inclined to indulge in a sort of quiet raillery, which sometimes was not thoroughly understood. People did not always know whether he was laughing ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... his tone so brusque suddenly that Minks decided after all not to mention his poem where the Pleiades made their appearance as the ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... is,' the man answered in a deep and even voice. At the first brusque sound of my grandmother's voice his eyebrows faintly quivered. Surely he had not expected her to address him ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... every word that Morton did not address to her. Mildred looked at him again. He was better dressed than the others, and an air of success in his face made him seem younger than he was. He leaned across the table, and Mildred liked his brusque, but withal well-bred manner. She wondered what his pictures were like. At Daveau's only the names of the principal exhibitors at the Salon were known, and he had told her that he had not sent there for the ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... him like a great black sail. He had little imperious ways in court, too, of beckoning a client to come to him from the well, or of waving back a timid junior who had plucked his gown to draw his attention to some suggestion with a brusque 'Not now—I can't hear that now!' which suggested immeasurable gulfs between himself and them. But at home he unbent, a little consciously, perhaps, but he did unbend—being proud and fond of his children, who at least stood in no fear of him. Long years of ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... his brusque manner, "I like fair-play. If Cheenbuk is going to carry off one of our maidens, it seems to me reasonable that an Eskimo maid should be left in her place. There is one of their girls who is named Cowlik. I am willing to take Cowlik and make her my ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... nervous activity—the ardent vitality in his appearance—was too aggressive to be wholly pleasing. She had been used to a considerate gentleness from men, and his manner, though frankly sympathetic, had seemed to her almost brusque. ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... to Andover next day and called upon the Shuttleworths. Mrs. Shuttleworth was kind and affable as usual, but whether my suspicions were ungrounded or not, I thought the rector a trifle brusque in manner, as though annoyed by my ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... Rochester (Edward). Brusque, cynical lover of Jane Eyre. Having married in his early youth a woman who disgraces him and then goes crazy, he shuts her up at Thornhill, and goes abroad. He returns to find a governess there in charge of his child-ward; falls in love with her, and would marry her, but for the discovery ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... dollars." "Why, we might almost buy it," she cried. "It's lucky you haven't saved more, John. I really believe you would buy it." "I'd like to sell it to Mr. Baxter," said Novelli, "he understands it," only to be cut short with a brusque, "No, it's out of our class, but I wanted Mrs. Baxter to see it, and I wanted you to know that she appreciates a fine object as much as I do." "Evidently," said Novelli as they parted. "I hope she will do me the honour of coming ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... to printed papers. These papers deal with all sorts of things—from the payment of Rs. 200 to a "secret service" native, up to rebukes administered to Vakils and Motamids of Native States, and rather brusque letters to Native Princes, telling them to put their houses in order, to refrain from kidnapping women, or filling offenders with pounded red pepper, and eccentricities of that kind. Of course, these things could never be made public, because Native Princes never err officially, and their ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... shameless Salvation Army rhythms; and it is sometimes (as in the Priest's solo with chorus in the last scene of the second act) odiously vulgar. "Aida" is more dramatic than "Traviata," has more of Verdi's brusque energy, less of his sentimentality; but it has none of the youthful freshness of his latest work. The young Verdi has already aged—how long will the old Verdi ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... the Little Red Doctor, speaking with the brusque informality of one assured of his place as a local celebrity. "I don't ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... view of specially delineating his nature, or detailing his opinions, has conquered me. I had intended to interview him, report in detail what he said, picture his life and his figure, then bow him my "au revoir," and march back. That he was specially disagreeable and brusque in his manner, which would make me quarrel with him immediately, was ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... worthy clergyman had seemed, if his memory was to be trusted, to have been the shining centre of a group whose life threw the life of young Athens, as represented by Plato, into the shade. The man in question seemed, in later years, a sturdily built clergyman, slow and cautious of speech, brusque and even grim of address, sensible, devoted to commonplace activities, and with a due appreciation of the comforts and conveniences of life. His conversation had no suggestiveness or subtlety. He was grumpy in the morning and good-humoured in the evening. He seemed impatient of new ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... eight months younger than myself, a handsome, intelligent, high-spirited girl, rather wanting in polish, and perhaps in the protecting sense of decorum. She was well-born, of course—she was Welsh. She was really well-bred too, though somewhat brusque. The young lady fell hopelessly in love with my father at Bath. She gave out that he was not to be for one moment accused of having encouraged her by secret addresses. It was her unsolicited avowal—thought by my aunt Dorothy immodest, not ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of it present itself to your mind?" asked Allerdyke in his brusque, downright fashion. ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... perhaps, at this buoyancy of temperament, that enabled me to get over so quickly the disappointment and dejection I was suffering from at Mrs Clyde's brusque rejection of ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... was to show by his own manner to Mrs Kenrick the affection and respect with which he regarded her. When he hinted to Kenrick, as delicately and distantly as he could, that he thought his manner to his mother rather brusque, Kenrick reddened rather angrily, but only replied, "Ah, it's all very well for you to talk; but you don't live ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... princess presumptuous and humiliating. She confessed to herself that the prince's manners were not in the least improved by his long campaign—that they were somewhat brusque. He took her hand tenderly; leading her to a divan, and seated himself beside her, but suddenly jumping up he left her, and returned in a few moments with his ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... it, I have found out to-day," and she grew more and more assured as she went on. Stamfordham started, then looked incredulous again. "I have come to tell you who did it, that you may know my husband is innocent." Then she became aware of Lady Adela, who, having at first been much annoyed at her brusque intrusion, was now suddenly roused to interest, even to sympathy. Rachel turned to her. "I must say this," she said. "Don't you see, don't you understand, what it is ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... did not treat the Dictator with the same brusque spirit of camaraderie which she showed to most of her friends. Her admiration for the public man, if it had been very enthusiastic, was very sincere. She had, from the first time that Ericson's name began to appear in the daily papers, felt a keen interest in the adventurous Englishman ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... blood systems is the natural consequence. In natural infection, insidious and increasing amounts of poison come quite gradually into play, and for this reason, perhaps, hypoleucocytosis in the normal course of infectious diseases is much rarer than in the brusque conditions of experiment. ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... At a brusque sign from Chauvelin, Brogard had hurried back to the inner room, and the former now beckoned to the man who ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... home with her and had not mentioned it. He had been too talkative as a protector and too silent as a man. And, all day, there was a bitter taste in his mouth, and, at evening, as he sat alone in the office he cut himself with a cynical smile. Warren came in, bright and brusque. ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read |
