"Curt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Devonian systems, appeared, not so much in time and place as in extended localities and conditions—indicating the presence of a law of life such as we have enunciated. We once inquired of the elder Prof. Silliman how long it took for the formation of one of these periods or systems? His reply was curt and pertinent: "It took long enough, young man!" That satisfied us at the time, and we have never asked the question since. It is prying beyond scientific depth, and the ablest scholars in the world will so regard it ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... dalliance, he gave Cimon and his companions the stiffest of nods and deliberately turned on his heel. Speech was too precious coin for him to be wasted on mere adieus. Only over his shoulder he cast at Glaucon a curt mandate. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... with a curt directness, and the air of authoritatively responding for his friends,—"no, never had. You was ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... stabbed her of that curt note from France—of what Mrs. Gaddesden had said. She withdrew into the background. With all the rest to help, she would not be wanted. Yes, she had been too masterful, ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... trying to help," said another, worn-out, when Maimon pleaded for only a few coppers. Yet he never acquired the beggar's servility, nay, was often himself the patron of some poorer hanger-on, for whom he would sacrifice his last glass of beer. Curt in his manners, he refused to lift his hat or embrace his acquaintances in cold blood. Nor would he wear a wig. Pure ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Rosa, and, out of sheer acute nervousness, I uttered them roughly, in a tone of surly command. I was astonished at myself. I was astonished at my own voice. She glanced up at me and hesitated. No doubt she was unaccustomed to such curt orders. ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... simple, easier, and now here also there were difficulties. She dejectedly followed her guide into an office, where she had all sorts of questions to answer about her name, residence, etc., and the purpose which brought her here. To the last inquiry she gave the curt information: "I am seeking justice from the king against an unjust sentence." Then she received a card with a number and a date, and was dismissed with the remark that she must be there again with her petition a fortnight thence, on Thursday, ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... the King with a proposal that he should marry, but Equitan would have none of this, nor would he listen to even his most trusted advisers with regard to such a subject. The nobles were angered at his curt and even savage refusal to hearken to them, and the commons were also greatly disturbed because of the lack of a successor. The echoes of the disagreement reached the ears of the seneschal's wife, who was much perturbed thereby, being aware ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... person in the dark was Colonel Clifford. He was nearly always confined to his room. However, one day he came down, and found Julia and Percy together. She introduced Percy to him. The Colonel was curt, but grumpy, and Percy soon beat ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... retain. He was conscious that his guide was studying him intently. But not with suspicion, he thought: Rather as one who would gauge the caliber of the man before him. He seemed satisfied, too, for his voice, which had been curt, grew ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Premier, was the terror of the idlers in Downing Street. On one occasion when the Treasury clerks told him that some required mode of making up the accounts was impracticable, they were met with the curt reply: "Never mind, if you can't do it, I'll send you half-a-dozen pay sergeants that will,"—a hint that they did not ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... are quite as far from having asserted the existence of such preternatural phenomena, and we shall surely not attempt to establish facts of which we have no experience whatever. All that we have done has been merely to question the validity of that curt and summary argument, which assumes that matter and spirit are incapable of acting upon each other, and in this ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... you too well!" replies M'Fadden, with a curt twist of his head. "A man of your cloth can't insult a gentleman like me; you're lawless!" He moves towards the door, stepping sideways, watching Romescos over his ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... battle-field, for Helen has just rekindled all his ardor. Seeing Hector does not answer, Helen timidly expresses her regret at having caused these woes, bitterly wishing fate had bound her to a man noble enough to feel and resent an insult. With a curt recommendation to send Paris after him as soon as possible, Hector hastens off to his own dwelling, for he longs to embrace his wife and son, perhaps for the ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... gone forward to meet the delayed special from Stanwood. Human beings were clinging about it in little clusters like bees; physicians, nurses, officials, and hospital attendants. The dispatcher from Stanwood listened to Banneker's brief report, and sent him back to Manzanita, with a curt word of approval ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the memories are bitter, and the reopened wound throbs and burns. Carew strode up to his hut, with only a curt good night to the trooper, and when Stanley arrived back there was no light burning, only darkness ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... rose and departed, the commissioners standing, but not another word being uttered on either side. As if to indicate to his hosts how little he regarded the curt order to leave, the commodore proceeded in the Susquehanna up the bay to the point the Mississippi had reached. Here he dropped anchor, the spot being afterwards known as the "American anchorage." On the following day he sent the Mississippi ten miles higher up, a point being reached within ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... out to receive them, and St. John was struck by the fact that he had grown perceptibly thinner in the interval; he was white too; his eyes looked strange. But the curt speech and the sulky masterful manner of Dr. Lesage impressed them both favourably, although at the same time it was obvious that he was very much annoyed at the whole affair. Coming downstairs he gave his directions emphatically, but it never occurred to ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... returned Thornton, and his coolness had grown into curt insolence. "I never saw the man yet that I'm going to do that for." He came on two more quick, long strides, thrust his face forward and cried in a voice that rang out commandingly above the crash of the wind, "Drop that ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... recipient of this curt command read the lines carefully. He read them twice, thrice, for his mind no longer functioned clearly. He raised a sick face, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... "On Tuesday the 17th curt.stilo novo, I hold a coenobitical symposion at Monkbarns, and pray you to assist thereat, at four o'clock precisely. If my fair enemy, Miss Isabel, can and will honour us by accompanying you, my womankind will be but too proud to have the aid of such an auxiliary in the cause ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... he was not Quartermaster, and declined to pay any attention to an order on that officer. Back to head-quarters travels 'Shylock,' with his dishonored order and his complaint. The paper is forthwith returned with a curt indorsement and the assurance that 'that will make it all right.' Thus fortified, he returned to the charge, and triumphantly displaying the back of the paper only to Dr. Smith, demanded his 'nigger.' Dr. Smith looked at the writing presented to him ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... including England,—is liberal in its principles, conservative in reference only to things that are good, and violently radical when treating of those that are bad. It enjoys the credit of being curt in its statements, brief in the expression of its opinions, perfectly silent in reference to its surmises, distinctly repudiative of the gift of prophecy, consistently averse to the attribution of motives, persistently wise in giving the shortest possible account of murders ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... with you," said the stranger. His tone was curt, authoritative, as that of a man used ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... curt exchange of question and answer, which had taken place in the cottage at Passy, between two gentlemen artificially friendly to one another, led to no regrettable result. Lord Harry had been too readily angry: ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... sent to the President by Gen. Pickett, recommending Gen. Roger A. Pryor for a cavalry command in North Carolina. But the President sent it to the Secretary of War with the curt remark that the command had already been disposed of to Col. Dearing, on Gen. Hoke's recommendation. Thus Gen. P. is again whistled down the wind, in spite of the efforts of even Mr. Hunter, and many other leading politicians. It is possible Gen. P. may have ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... troops, but, in spite of all his efforts, was unable to ingratiate himself in the eyes of the population. Most of the people had resented the signature of the Union of Brussels, and when the negotiations with the Northerners broke off and Don Juan asked for troops to fight them, he met with a curt refusal. Alarmed by this veiled hostility and exasperated by his protracted negotiations with Orange, Don Juan shut himself up in the fortress of Namur and recalled the Spanish troops. Nothing better could have happened from the point of view of the patriots, ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... The target had been observed for six minutes and an F-86 jet interceptor had been scrambled but by the time the F- 86 had climbed into the air the target was gone. The last paragraph in the report was rather curt and to the point. It was apparently in anticipation of the comments the report would draw. It said that the target was not caused by weather. The officer in charge of the radar station and several members of his crew had been operating radar for seven years and they could recognize ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... He issued a curt command, and there was the sound of movement. Presently four men staggered in, one to each leg, each arm, of the most impressive giant Mars had ever produced—Tolto, to whom there was no god but the one divinity: ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... blew in through the open door, and she heard Dr. Ratcliffe's voice, sharp and curt, ordering Daisy back into the house. Then came another voice, slow and soft as a woman's, and for an instant Muriel covered her face, overwhelmed by ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... held, that there are found in savage cults certain "self-existent, eternal, moral" beings who satisfy all the conditions of a monotheistic faith. Among the examples cited are the American gods described by Strachey and Winslow as supreme in power and ethically good.[1802] But, even in the curt and vague accounts of these early observers (who were not in position to get accurate notions of Indian beliefs), it appears that there were many gods, the supposed supreme deity being simply the most prominent in the regions known to the first settlers. The "Great Spirit" ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... "Independence," his desperate struggle with Burke, the swearing out and serving of warrants, the sudden change in situation which had placed them legally in the wrong, the accident to the sheriff, the curt dismissal of his deputy, and the probable consequences. His voice grew deep as he proceeded, marking the intense interest with which they followed his recital. Then he unfolded briefly the plan adopted for relief. ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... neighbors. Of course they had abundance of ridiculous pride, though having nothing to be proud of; and one of the daughters, Miss Belinda, was remarkable for holding up her head as if she had been the finest lady in the land, besides having a curt, snappish way of speaking, that made me habitually afraid ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... confiding his doubts to Mr. Revelstoke, the bank president, but he had a dread of that gentleman's curt conclusions and remembered his injunction to "hang on to his trust." Since his installation, Mr. Revelstoke had merely acknowledged his presence by a good-humored nod now and then, although Randolph had an instinctive feeling that he was perfectly informed as to his progress. It was ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the success of the program beyond possible dispute. It started with curt conversation between Jones and the pilot, Al—Jones loathed this part of it, but Al turned out to be something of a ham—on the problems of approaching a new solar system. Cut to computers back on Earth. Back to the control-room ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... was curt. "I'm clairvoyant, Canby, and I've read your thought. You can't stop payment by telephone, because Pink is going to close-herd you right here until I ride to Prouty ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... I was referred to the Postmaster himself, who, in his-capacity of leading citizen, was standing by. Asking if there were any letters lying at his office for me, I was answered in a very curt negative, the postmaster retiring immediately up the steep bank towards the collection of huts which calls itself Pembina. The boat soon cast off her moorings and steamed on into British territory. We were at length ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... seized a sheet of paper and began to write, annotating it with observations far from complimentary to Keith and Matheson. He read the letter to Plume. It was a curt inquiry whether Mr. Keith meant to make the charge that he had crossed his line. If so, Wickersham & Company knew their remedy and would be glad to know at last the source whence ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... skirts appeared to flaunt scorn in his face. There was mockery in everything. His humiliation was complete when this motley array of people disdained to greet him with the eager concern that heretofore had marked their demeanor. No one appeared to notice him, further than to offer a curt nod or to exchange sly grins with ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... will after all. Deborah, and Bart, who had witnessed it at the request of their master, told Mr. Pash of its existence, and he found it in one of the three safes in the cellar. It proved to be a short, curt document, such as no man in his senses would think of making when disposing of five thousand a year. Aaron was a clever business man, and Pash was professionally disgusted that he had left behind him ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... lines of his old brigade falter and fall back. Galloping to the spot he imperatively ordered Garnett to hold his ground, and then turned to restore the fight. Seizing a drummer by the shoulder, he dragged him to a rise of ground, in full view of the troops, and bade him in curt, quick tones, to "Beat the rally!" The drum rolled at his order, and with his hand on the frightened boy's shoulder, amidst a storm of balls, he tried to check the flight of his defeated troops. His efforts were useless. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... is not dining this evening; she has a bad headache, and doesn't wish to be disturbed," received it with a curt nod, and accepted it simply. Better to take women at their word. Her troubles would have simmered down by the morning, whereas if he were to go up now, one of two things: either she'd be angry enough to let him batter at the door to no purpose—and feel an ass for his pains; or she would ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... line of defiant Minute Men drawn up. The curt order, "Disperse, ye Rebels!" and the volley that followed so closely upon the words. This was the first blood shed in the American Revolution. The morning of an impending battle: the Continental leader exhorting his men. "There are the Red Coats! We must beat them ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... at his chambers he immediately handed over the camera to Polton with a few curt directions as to the development of the plates, and, lunch being already prepared, we sat down at the table ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... payment had been made with five Bank of England notes of ten pounds each, which had been handed by him to his friend in the library at the deanery. The letter was very short, and may, perhaps, be described as having been almost curt. Mr Walker, in his anxiety to do the best he could for Mr Crawley, had simply asked a question as to the nature of the transaction between the two gentlemen, saying that no doubt the dean's answer would ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... the curt epistles tossed restlessly on his couch, but the reader of them stared, incredulous and dumfounded, uncertain of his command of gravity. His jaw fell, and his open mouth might have betokened a being smit to imbecility; and, haply, he might be, for Helen ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... sent to join you," said a curt voice he recognized as that of the Commanding General of the United Nations, "have located an invisible barrier by their sonic altimeters. Four of them seem to have rammed it and exploded without destroying it. What have you ...
— Invasion • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... marriage from one whom she had been taught to regard as the noblest ornament of the profession she had selected. Thinking of the hour when she sat alone, shedding tears of mortification and bitter disappointment over his curt letter rejecting her MS., she glanced at the stately form beside her, the mysteriously calm, commanding face, the large white, finely moulded hands, waiting to clasp hers for all time, and her triumph ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... the whole interview he plays a sorry part, and is evidently cowed by the hated authority and personality of the old man; while Samuel, on his side, is curt, stern, and takes the upper hand, as becomes God's messenger. The relative positions of the two men are the normal ones of their offices, and explain both Saul's revolt and the chronic impatience of kings at the interference of prophets. Here we have ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... criticism for the Leipzig Tageblatt, which made such a sensation through its terse and lively style that he was at once offered, in addition to other literary work, the post of editor of Die elegante Welt. In our house he was looked upon as a genius; his curt and often biting manner of speaking, which seemed to exclude all attempt at poetic expression, made him appear both original and daring: his sense of justice, his sincerity and fearless bluntness made one ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... people, given before the Royal Institution at London during 1875-76, in a little work called "Lessons in Electricity,"—most interesting and beautiful of scientific studies,—in which he tells how to make the instruments and conduct the experiments yourself. And, as if that were not enough, Mr. Curt W. Meyer, of the Bible House, New York, has arranged to supply a complete set of instruments, to suit this book of Professor Tyndall's, at a total cost of $55, packing-case and all; the various articles being obtainable ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... last hours of the great were not in the way of friendly sympathy, or unfriendly intrusion, here. The back door stood wide open, and people came and went, while the children's sobs mingled with the curt, outspoken directions of the undertaker and the clatter of dishes, which some obliging neighbor was washing at the kitchen sink. The body of the murdered man lay on the bed in a small room off the little sitting-room—an apartment so tiny ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... shillings—classics, song-books, prayer-books, chronicles, law-books—Aubrey learned to handle them all, and to repeat their prices glibly, in a style which astonished himself. At the end of a week, Mr Whitstable told him, in his usual grave and rather curt manner, that if he would go on as he had begun, he should be ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... building logs down the road”; followed by “Who are you, and where are you going this late at night?” I told them who I was, and that I had now finished my journey, as I intended to stop there. I was immediately informed in a curt manner that they guessed I was rather “mixed” about staying there, if I had any stock along, for the stables were full, and the ranch, too; and they had no room for any additional people or stock. I told them that I had two teams standing outside, and that ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... was precisely a diary,—disjoined, full of curt, obscure phrases and irrelevant reflections,—for which reason it will not be reproduced here. Though Mr. Slocum pondered every syllable, and now and then turned back painfully to reconsider some doubtful passage, it is not presumed that the ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... curt announcement compared with many. When the deceased has occupied any kind of official post, or has been an employer of labour, a long register of his many virtues accompanies the advertisement of his death. "He who has just passed away was an exemplary chief, a fatherly friend ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... when on a certain day the droning of the mill told that its wheels had resumed their interrupted grinding, there might have been seen, within, the burly form of Colonel Witham, moving about as one with authority. Short, curt were his answers. There was little to be made out of him by Lawyer Estes or anyone else. What was his business was his—and nobody else's. There were the deeds, duly signed. If anyone had a better claim to the property, let him show it. As for the Ellison ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... way to the control room, and his curt "urgent report for the Captain" admitted him there without question. But when he approached the sacred precincts of the Captain's own and inviolate room, he was stopped in no uncertain fashion by no less a personage than the Officer ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... low, curt, and lugubrious tone, as she pressed the hand of the gypsy, who was more dead than alive. "Remain! Do not breathe! There are soldiers everywhere. You cannot get out. It is ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... here?" They were the first words spoken by the man on the lounge and they rang with a curt challenge. ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... almost curt, but unintentionally so, as one could easily see, for back in her eyes lurked an impatient hunger; she was not thinking of greetings. She murmured a quick word, and stood straight and tall with her eyes squarely on ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... He spoke with curt command, and the man he addressed looked at him for a second with raised brows, as if he would take offence. But in a moment he ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... know this till his late return to Venice. He has been grieved with a fever. The letter concludes with a mention that he has taken up of Baptista Nigrone 500 crowns, which he desires repaid from the sale of his lands, and a curt thanks for the news of his ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... tattered, dirty uniforms crowding one another, treading on one another's heels, with bowed heads and sidelong, hang-dog looks, the dejected gait and bearing of the vanquished to whom had been left not even so much as a knife with which to cut their throat. The harsh, curt orders of the guard urging them forward resounded like the cracking of a whip in the silence, which was unbroken save for the plashing of their coarse shoes through the semi-liquid mud. Another shower began to fall, and there could be no more sorrowful sight than ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... curt reply. The potentate glanced at the pianist, and then dropped his heavy eyelids. Racah had the air of a man ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... that she should be given to him for the mere asking? Why had he not come in person like a man to woo and win her if he could, and then he would have stood aside and bowed to her choice. But this curt order to take her away to him as though she were some piece of merchandise—no, if such things were possible, ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... balcony was the Khan, surrounded by his suite and another guard of Afghans. A couple of dilapidated cane-bottomed chairs were then brought and set one on each side of the crimson velvet divan occupied by his Highness. Having made my bow, which was acknowledged by a curt nod, I was conducted to the seat on the right hand of the Khan by Azim Khan, his son, who seated himself upon his father's left hand The Wazir, suite, soldiers, and attendants then squatted round us in a ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... never turned a hair, sir. When I had finished he was very short with me, almost curt. 'You have behaved like a man of sense, Walter,' he said. 'How much?' I hesitated for some time. Then I could see he was getting impatient. I doubled what I had thought of first. 'A thousand pounds, sir,' I said. Sir Timothy he went to a safe in the wall and he counted out a thousand pounds ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... The Minstrel Ballad of the banished and returning Count The Violet The Faithless Boy The Erl-King Johanna Sebus The Fisherman The King of Thule The Beauteous Flower.. Sir Curt's Wedding Journey Wedding Song The Treasure-digger The Rat-catcher The Spinner Before a Court of Justice The Page and the Miller's Daughter The Youth and the Millstream The Maid of the Mill's Treachery The Maid of the Mill's Repentance The Traveller and the Farm-Maiden Effects ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... leave, but paused while Colonel Boynton answered the phone. The first startled exclamation held him rigid while he tried to piece together the officer's curt responses and guess at what was ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... muffins different from what you get at home," said Mrs. Jenkins, in her curt, snappish, but really not inhospitable way, as she handed the muffins to Roland. "I know what it is when things are left to servants, as they are at your place; they turn out uneatable—soddened things, ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the mill was unsatisfactory. The elder Gaspard was away, and young Pierre was curt and surly. The sight of Victorine riding familiarly, and with an evident joyous pride, by the side of one of the richest men in the country, and a young man at that,—and a young man, moreover, who looked and behaved as if he were in love with his companion,—how could the poor ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Mallett?" asked Dysart coldly, as the former appeared in the light for an instant and turned back again with a curt gesture. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... and angry. He replied to Jenssen's friendly advances in curt monosyllables. To Meriem he did not speak, but on several occasions she discovered him glaring at her from beneath half closed lids—greedily. The look sent a shudder through her. She hugged Geeka closer to her breast and doubly ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... so on the very afternoon of my self-dismissal I start through the hot summer streets in search of a situation. On the day when my appearance is most forlorn I find policemen always as officially polite as when I am dressed in my best. Other people of whom I inquire my way are sometimes curt, sometimes compassionate, seldom indifferent, and generally much nicer or not nearly as nice as they would be to a rich person. Poor old women to whom I speak often call me ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... "Mr. and Mrs. John H. Brown request the honor of your presence," etc., is returning to fashionable favor. It never should have gone out. Nothing is more self-respecting than respect, and when we ask our friends to visit us we can well afford to be unusually courteous. The brief, curt, and not too friendly announcement, "Mr. and Mrs. John H. Brown request your presence," etc., etc., may well yield to the much more ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... concluded that she had not sufficient cause to be ashamed of him, and so it came about that they spent much of the afternoon and evening together. She did not fail to note, however, that when he approached Van Berg he received a cold and curt reception. Was jealousy the cause of this? In her elation and excitement on the previous evening, she had been inclined to think so, but now she feared that it was because the artist despised the ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... concluded to that end, and his hope that his return to his ancient city might be to the satisfaction of parliament and his people. The Commons were angry with the civic authorities for opening the king's letter without their leave, and returned a curt answer to a remonstrance presented to them by the City calling upon them to suppress heresy, to unite with the Scots and to come to a speedy arrangement with the king.(730) The Lords, to whom a similar remonstrance had been presented, expressed themselves more graciously. They acknowledged the ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... appeared. If von Zeppelin knew of the exploit which rumour had assigned to him—which is doubtful—he could not have carried it out. His ship collided with a tree—an accident singularly frequent in the Zeppelin records—so disabling it that it could only limp home under half power. A rather curt telegram from his Imperial master is said to have been Count von Zeppelin's first intimation that he had ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... this in the spring of 326 Alexander passed into the Punjab (at Ohind, 16 m. above Attock, according to Foucher, Notes sur la geogr. anc. du Gandhara, 1902). The country into which he came was dominated by three principalities, that of Ambhi (Gr. Omphis, Curt. viii. 12. 6) between the Indus and the Hydaspes (Jhelum, Jehlam), centred in the great city of Takkasila (Gr. Taxila), that of the Paurara rajah (Gr. Porus) between the Hydaspes and Acesines (Chenab), and that of Abhisara (Gr. Abisares) between ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... two hundred and forty-two pages long is likely to have its weak points. The volume before us is rather the plea of an advocate retained to defend the General's professional character and expound his political opinions than the curt, colorless, unimpassioned statement of facts which is usually so refreshing in the official papers of military men, and has much more the air of being addressed to a jury than to the War Department at Washington. It is, in short, a letter to the people of the United States, under cover to the Secretary ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... Forbes. Sorry I sent my man just now with a message that must leave sounded rather curt, but the Scotland Yard people kindly excused me, so I can give you a minute or two.... No, I'm sorry, but I cannot come to luncheon tomorrow, nor go to Brooklands again this week. You see, this dreadful murder which I spoke of will necessitate my presence at an inquest, ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... accent, appeared to be a Canadian of Irish parentage, said, in a few curt words, that he had a cart outside, and was going to drive at once to Cloud Island, that he wished to take the young doctor with him; for death, he observed, was not sitting idle eating his dinner at The Cloud, and if anyone was ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... moaning and groaning and declaring that he felt very ill, and I went in quest of information. The corporal in command of the gendarmes was exceedingly curt with me at first, but after a time he unbent and condescended to tell me that my landlord had been denounced for permitting a Bonapartiste club to hold its sittings in his house. So far so good. Such denunciations were very frequent these days, and often ended unpleasantly ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... thought the shortest plan would be to encourage hope by delay, in forcing Rion to depart, flattering himself that the declaration would be put off much more easily in his absence than in his presence. I strongly approved this idea, and on the morrow, Rion received at Meudon a curt and positive order to depart at once and join his regiment in the army of the Duc de Berwick. Madame la Duchesse de Berry was all the more outraged, because she knew the cause of this order, and consequently felt her inability to hinder its execution. Rion on his side did not dare to disobey ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... passing the Windom place, and twice he had gone as far as the railed-in base of Quill's Window. From the footpath at the bottom he could look through the trees up to the bare crest of the rock. The gate through the high fence was padlocked, and contained a sign with the curt warning: "No Trespass." On the opposite side of the wide strip of meadow-land, in which cattle grazed placidly, he could see the abandoned house where Alix Crown was born,—a colourless, weather-beaten, two-storey frame building ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... out a curt admonition to Barbee to mind his own business and flung himself into the saddle. As he spurred away to the outer fringe of his herd he was not thinking over-much of Carr's warning; somehow Barbee's stuck closer in his mind. A spurt of irritation with himself succeeded that first desire to slap ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... fish was being removed, the door opened to admit a tall, thin woman, wearing outdoor costume, who passed quickly down the room and took the vacant place at the table, murmuring a curt apology to Mrs. Lawrence on her way. To Diana's astonishment she recognised in the newcomer Olga Lermontof, ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... Holy Land was holy and new, and superior to his former behavior, albeit, even in his youth, he had ever been good and guileless, and worthy of high esteem." These are the words written about St. Louis by his confessor Geoffrey de Beaulieu, a chronicler, curt and simple even to dryness, but at the same time well informed. An attempt will be made presently to give a fair idea of the character of St. Louis's government during the last fifteen years of his reign, and of the place he fills in the history of the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and, not disconcerted by her curt refusal, he drew a wicker box from beneath a seat and opened it. His reference to a "bite and a drop" was obviously figurative, especially the "drop," which grew to the dimensions of a pint, which ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... him back the telegram, too much shocked for a moment to speak. The whole dreadful tragedy summed up in that curt message rose before me in an instant, and a wave of deep pity swept over me at this miserable end to ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... scarce less curt. And his defence may be divided into two statements: first, that the taumualua was proceeding to land with a hostile purpose on Mulinuu; second, that the shots complained of were fired by the Samoans. The second may be dismissed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lady without any acknowledgment save from oneself. And when even my own acknowledgments began to lose their first warmth—when, for instance, I answered four pages about my new pianola with the curt reminder that I was learning to walk and couldn't be bothered with music, why, then at last I saw that a correspondence so one-sided would have to come to an end. I wrote a farewell letter and replied to ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... was unshaken even in the excitement of the fight. At one time an officer rode up to him from another portion of the field and exclaimed, "General, I think the day is going against us!" To which Jackson replied in his usual curt manner, "If you think so, sir, you had better not ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... an occasional falling together of coal in the weakening fire. Overhead, from his aunt's bedroom, vague movements were perceptible. Then these ceased, absolutely. The tension, increasing, grew too much for him, and with a curt gesture, and a self-conscious expression between a smile and a frown, he left the parlour and stood to listen in the lobby. Not for several seconds did he notice the heavy ticking of the clock, close to his ear, nor the chill draught that came under the front door. He gazed up ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... make himself agreeable now saying a few words to the dame, who generally gave him curt answers, and now addressing Nelly. As he had plenty to say for himself, she could not help being amused, and his conversation served to beguile the way over the somewhat dreary country they had to pass till the neighbourhood ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... manager of the Royal Opera, who having seen the ease, grace, and dexterity of her performance, forthwith engaged her for the entire season at a salary which when named to the amazed child, seemed like a veritable shower of gold tumbling by rare chance out of the lap of Dame Fortune. The manager was a curt, cold business man, and she was afraid to ask him any questions, for when the words—"I am sure a kind friend has spoken to you of me—" came timidly from her lips, he had shut up her confidence at once by the ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... figure some grotesque indignity: thrown a pillow at it, or hailed it in tones of mocking offence. He was profoundly and exquisitely ashamed even before he ceased to tell the story for his listeners' idle amusement. When he stopped doing so, and snubbed solicitation with the curt answer that everybody had heard that story, he was retrospectively ashamed; and mixed with the expectation of seeing the vision again was the formless wish to offer it some ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... exquisite felicity of phrasing, ASQUITH excelled himself. The first time the House of Commons caught a glimpse of profound depths of a nature habitually masked by impassive manner and curt speech was when he talked to it in broken voice about CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, just dead. Speaking this afternoon about one with whom, as he said, he "had exchanged many blows," he was even more impressive, not less by reason of the eloquence of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... Steve. His tone in addressing the Virginian was so different, so curt, that I supposed he took the weakest point to mean himself. But the others now showed me that I was wrong ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... was startled by this curt rebuke, and was about to make an angry reply, but smoothed his face ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... back the door. Terry saw a man with shoulders of martial squareness enter. And there was a touch of the military in his brisk step and the curt nod he sent at Marvin as he passed the latter. He had not taken off his sombrero. It cast a heavy shadow across the upper part ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... At this curt answer O'Donnell looked black, then fell into thought, his shoulders hunched up and his head drawn in like the head of a turtle. Brian wished now that he had struck first ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... the gallery, and an old woman was standing close to her, talking to her. It was Mrs Marsham cautioning her against some petty imprudence, and Lady Glencora was telling that lady that she needed no such advice, in words almost as curt as those I have used. Lord Hartletop had left her, feeling that, as far as that was concerned, he had done his duty for the night. Burgo knew nothing of Mrs Marsham,—had never seen her before, and was quite unaware that she had any ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... If in face of this curt response I proceeded to follow him, my hand was revealed at once; yet the circumstances would admit of no other course. I determined to compromise matters by pretending to take the right hand road till he was out of sight, when I would return and follow him swiftly upon the left. ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... be 'crash' for 'crass' from 'crassus', clumsy; or it may be 'curt,' defective, imperfect: anything would be better than Warburton's ''scus'd,' which honest Theobald, of course, adopts. By the by, it seems clear to me that this speech of Exeter's properly belongs to Canterbury, and was altered ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... for he wished the waiting room to be clear when he should approach that busy consulting room beyond. Meanwhile, people came and went. The door into the inner room would swing open, a patient would emerge, a curt but pleasant "Good-bye" in a deep voice following him or her out, and the fair-haired nurse, who sat at a desk near the door or came out of the consulting room with the patient, would summon the next. The lady of the furs and violets sent in her card, but, as the stranger had anticipated in ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... brows over this curt missive, which was not couched precisely in the suave words that might be expected from the Greek. Read between the lines, its meaning was significant. Michael and his nephew, hungering for the spoils, had patched up a truce. They were ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... our friend spoke at hundreds of temperance meetings, and his bluntness of manner, curt style of address, and nautical phrases, won for him a ready hearing. Whenever he rose on the platform eyes beamed and hearts throbbed with delight. Not that his hearers expected to listen to an eloquent speech, ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... noticed her, and went on arguing in his curt, pugnacious way with the suitors, who looked at him as if he were some ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... rush his men into danger. In fact, he always looks before he leaps, and when he does leap, he makes us move—and the Boers too." Perhaps French was best summed-up one day by a trooper whom, in a curt word, he had just sentenced to barracks for some offence. "The General don't bark much," he remarked, "but, crikey, don't he ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... suffused with anger much of the time. He was not only good-looking but he was a college student, and their feelings were ready to bud toward him in tender efflorescence, but he kept them cropped and blighted by his curt words and impatient manner. Some of them loved him for the hurts he did them, and some hated him, but all agreed fondly or furiously that he was too cross for anything. They were mostly young school-mistresses, and whether they were of a soft and amorous make, or of a forbidding temper, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... morning, her father looked almost sick, and Tillie's heart throbbed with unfilial joy in the significance of this. His manner to her was curt and his face betrayed sullen anger; he talked but little, and did not once refer to the Board ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... smile which would hover like a heavenly Psyche about his mouth, his way of answering would sometimes have seemed curt to those who did not understand him. Instead of holding aloof in his superiority, however, as some thought he did when he would not answer, or answered abruptly, Andrew's soul would be hovering, watching and hoping ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... the ash from his cigar, struggled into his coat, and took up his hat. Then he waited until Quest had completed his conversation. The latter's face had grown grave and puzzled. It was obvious that he was receiving information of some importance. He put down the instrument at last with a curt word of farewell. ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the noble minister for the colonies on this occasion. The simple truth evoked was, that while a committee of the house supposed that they were possessed of full and complete reports, they were supplied with only curt and crude extracts, calculated to place matters in the ministerial light, but not really affording the committee the opinions of those whose views they purported to be. This practice was, unfortunately, common with great officers of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... a poor thing that night, and he felt tired and worn when, as usual, he went early to the yard. He was there before Cotherstone; when Cotherstone came, no more than a curt nod was exchanged between them. They had never spoken to each other except on business since the angry scene of a few days before, and now Mallalieu, after a glance at some letters which had come in the previous evening, went off down the yard. He stayed there an ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... no effect upon the intrepid young Englishman, Sung-wan—for so the officer was named—gave a few curt orders to the men who were guarding him, and Frobisher was hurried from the room, conducted down several long, gloomy corridors, and finally thrust into a large cell. This, as soon as his eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness, ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... his assent with a curt nod of the head. Accompanied by the manager and Gaffney he left the room, and with him he carried the small hand-bag in which he had placed the ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... remain by his side, and to rule through him. In less than a week the Japanese had prepared a new treaty, providing still more strictly for the absolute control of everything in the country by Japan. The six curt clauses of this measure were as far-reaching as they could possibly be made. No laws were to be acted upon or important measures taken by the Government unless the consent and approval of the Resident-General had been previously given. All officials were to hold their positions at the pleasure ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... evidently in the ascendant throughout the Province; but, as during the preceding Parliament, the exertions of the majority in the Assembly could do little for Reform under the existing state of the constitution. The Lieutenant-Governor responded with curt ambiguity to the Assembly's Address, and cemented his alliance with the Compact by refusing to grant the prayer of the petition for the release of Collins. The Government submitted to one defeat after ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... was the Captain's curt reply, as he entered Adams's house. "Where got you the chronometer and azimuth compass?" he said, ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... was a kind of chapel. St. James's church is situated between Knowsley and Berry-streets, and directly faces the National school in Avenham-lane. "Who erected the building?" said we one day to a churchman, and the curt reply, with a neatly curled lip, was, ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... automobile squawked curt warning behind him and then swept past and on its way, kicking dust upon him from ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... about the quartet. The oftener I fancy it performed on the stage the more effective it seems to me; and it has pleased all who have heard it on the pianoforte. Raaff alone thinks it will make no effect. He said to me in private: 'Non c'e da spianar la voce—it is too curt.' As if we should not speak more than we sing in a quartet! He has no understanding of such things. I said to him simply: 'My dear friend, if I knew a single note which might be changed in this quartet I would change it at once; but I have not been so completely satisfied with ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel |
