"Abrupt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... almost at once, before Alice or her father could come in. Alice was out walking, she said, and her father was in the study. They would be in soon. She thus made Rowcliffe realise that if she was going to be abrupt it was because she had to be; they had both of them ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... abrupt retirement, but when a few moments later, Prudence looked shyly around, with cheeks a little rosier than usual, she saw Perez regarding her with a slight smile of amusement. A minute after she got up and went over to Mrs. Hamlin, and laid the ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... muttered the constable, not at all satisfied with this abrupt close of the conversation, but too unready to prolong it. He went on his own way slowly, looking back often, till he saw the door open, after which he seemed better satisfied, and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... perfectly convinced, and this is that he is at all times surrounded by a host of invisible agencies to which all occurrences are due, and with whom he must come to terms. Even death wears a different aspect to the primitive mind from that which it presents to the modern. To us death puts a sharp and abrupt termination to life. To the primitive mind death involves no such ending.[16] Death is no more of a break than is sleep; and at all times the conception of an annihilation of personality requires a marked degree of ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... difficult to talk to this hard, grizzled man, knowing nothing about the war in Cuba nor evincing any interest in America. When Ned asked him about Ireland he answered in short sentences, which brought the conversation to abrupt closes. America having failed to draw him out, and Ireland, Ned began to talk of his landlady. But it was not until he related the conversation he had had with her that evening about Miss Cronin that the old farmer began to talk a little. Ned could see he was proud of ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... and Corylus) were often plainly zigzag and sometimes looped. After hypocotyls or epicotyls have emerged from the ground, they quickly become perfectly straight. No trace is left of their former abrupt curvature, excepting in the case of Allium cepa, in which the cotyledon rarely becomes quite straight, owing to the protuberance developed on ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... alleged wrong which had thus been done to Patrick Henry during his brief military career, and which had brought that career to its abrupt and painful close, seems to have continued for a considerable time. Throughout the colony the blame was openly and bluntly laid upon the Committee of Safety, who, on account of envy, it was said, had tried "to bury ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... STAGE.—After sufficient time has been devoted to the long turns shorter turns may be made, and these also require the same care, and will give an opportunity to use the lateral controls to a greater extent. Begin the turns, not by an abrupt throw of the turning rudder, but bring it around gently, correcting the turning movement to a straight course, if you find the machine inclined to tilt too much, until you get used to the sensation of keeling ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... woman, her maternal solicitude would have been the first denouncer, even the abrupt betrayer of a plotted crime in which one companion of her son could have been implicated, had cognizance of such reached her. Her days would have been agonized, and her nights sleepless, till she might have exposed and counteracted ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... and women who surged up to stare at me, as I passed in the middle of the road. The thick line of trees that are near Rathnew makes the way intensely dark even on clear nights, and when one is riding quickly, the contrast, when one reaches the lights of Wicklow, is singularly abrupt. The town itself after nightfall is gloomy and squalid. Half-drunken men and women stand about, wrangling and disputing in the dull light from the windows, which is only strong enough to show the ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... late Edward Huntington, a successful English merchant, who had resided many years in India and had realized a fortune, which he had proposed to return to his native land to enjoy with his wife and only child. But death had stepped in to put an abrupt end to his hopes, and to render abortive all his well-arranged plans, some twelve months previous to the period of which we have spoken. Mrs. Huntington, the widow, had remained in Calcutta to settle up her husband's affairs, and this done, she ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... reckless driver did "go" just at that moment. He came up to the corner of the new fence, where the road took a rather abrupt turn, in a style that insured a capsize. In another second the spirited horse turned sharp round, the sleigh turned sharp over, and the occupant was pitched out at full length, while a black object, that might have been mistaken for his hat, rose from his side like a rocket, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... done before, that Mrs. Phillips's post was not particularly enviable. Daphne treated her in many ways with great generosity, paid her highly, grudged her no luxury, and was always courteous to her in public. But in private Daphne's will was law, and she had an abrupt and dictatorial way of asserting it that brought the red back into Mrs. Phillips's faded cheeks. Mrs. Verrier had often expected her to throw up her post. But there was no doubt something in Daphne's personality which made life beside her too full ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was well acquainted with the abrupt ways of the godfather, frowned at him with disapprobation. Nevertheless, thanks to Maurice, who made a point of laughing at everything Adhemar said, they had a gay luncheon, and Adhemar himself, appreciating the consideration shown for his palate, cast aside his ill humour and enjoyed with full ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... broad river, sweeping round in an imposing curve from the South-Eastward, with abrupt ranges of sandstone hills, for the most part cleared of forest, hemming it in on either side, and a glimpse of lofty blue mountains towering skywards far away to the North-East, is a long straggling collection ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... fading glow of the fire, my thoughts became fixed that whether she came from Earth or Heaven or Hell, my lovely visitor was already more to me than aught else in the world. This time she had, on going, said no word of returning. I had been so much taken up with her presence, and so upset by her abrupt departure, that I had omitted to ask her. And so I am driven, as before, to accept the chance of her returning—a chance which I fear I am or may be ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... stupid creature! but I must pass some little time with him, if it is only to endeavour to learn whether it was his master that made such an abrupt entrance into our house, and my young mistress' heart, this morning. [Aside.] As you don't seem to like to talk, Mr. ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... four-horse Concord stage, which from all appearances might have been in action ever since the days of Bret Harte. At last I felt I was in touch with the Sierras. The driver even honored my bow with an abrupt "Howdy!" which from such a magnate, I took ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... French on both sides, surround and capture them. The other division was on the Adige in front of Verona, ready to relieve Mantua. Between that river and the lake rises the stately mass of Monte Baldo, abrupt on its eastern, more gentle on its western slope. This latter, as affording some space for manoeuvers, was really the key to the passage. Such was the first onset of the Austrians down this line that the French outposts at Lonato ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... hammer rings upon them as upon a bell, and their fracture is brilliantly crystalline. The basalt is the same as that which caps the sandstone hills of the Vindhya range throughout Malwa. The sandstone hills around Gwalior all rise in the same abrupt manner from the plain as those through Malwa generally; and they have almost all of them the same basaltic glacis at their base, with boulders of that rock scattered over the top, all indicating that ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... existence, he added sharply— objectively; and the stout figure in knickerbockers, rough stockings, a yellow buckskin jacket and checked cap pulled over a face which, he felt, was brightly red, surprised and a little annoyed him. In the abrupt appearance of this image it seemed that there had been no transitional years between his slender youth and the present. He had an absurd momentary impression that an act of malicious magic had in a second transformed him into a shape decidedly too heavy for grace. His breathing, where the ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and abrupt change. Impossibly strange! I walked toward one of the trees, stopped at a reddish boulder to examine it. And surprise caught at my throat. It was an artifact—a crumbling ruin, the remnant of an ancient structure whose original appearance I could ...
— Where the World is Quiet • Henry Kuttner
... together, but, as fate would have it, Smith's quest among the tribes was to be quickly ended. Hardly had he begun his pilgrimage when he found the Indians in wild commotion. Again the hatchet had been unburied, and for the sake of security he had to bring his mission to an abrupt end. ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... form any clear picture. The most distinguished is Yajnavalkya who, though seen through a mist of myths and trivial stories about the minutiae of ritual, appears as a personality with certain traits that are probably historical. Many remarks attributed to him are abrupt and scornful and the legend indicates dimly that he was once thought a dangerous innovator. But, as has happened so often since, this early heretic became the corner stone of later orthodoxy. He belonged to the school of the Yajur Veda and was apparently the main author of the ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... his abrupt, decisive way. He threw the cigarette into the empty fireplace and stood up. "I think I'll take your advice and marry ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... slight crush at the doors of the theatre, and what with the abrupt change from the pleasant warmth and light of the interior to the sharp chill of the night outside, Preston shivered, and a sudden weakness smote him ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... artistic touch in the parable is its abrupt close. We do not know whether the elder son yielded to the entreaty of his father or not. It was an appeal to the Pharisees; would they accept the grace of God and further his plans for the salvation of the lost, ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... awkwardly uncomfortable in ordinary company. The man, Val sometimes thought privately, lived, ate, slept books. Save when they were the subject of conversation, he was as out of his element as a coal-miner at the ballet. "We should explain the reason for this—this rather abrupt call." He fingered his brief-case, ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... abrupt rise in temperature on Christmas Day, the snow began to fall heavily, with a barometer continually falling until it reached 27.98 inches, the lowest point recorded here (at an elevation of about 500 feet above the sea) in two years and ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... As though we were not strangers at all. I suppose it is what they call mesmerism. He had that soft, delightful way of speaking, and gentle mannerism. There was nothing abrupt or new about him. He seemed, somehow, to become part of the life of any one in whom he chose to interest himself in the slightest. And he talked so delightfully, Arnold. I cannot tell you how ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of deep pain and repulsion came out upon Edith's face, and he saw it. The avowal of his love was so abrupt—indeed it was almost stern; and, coming thus from quite a stranger, who had little place even in her thoughts, it was so exceedingly painful that it was like a blow. And yet she hardly knew how to answer ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... Several cases have been reported in which the specific gravity of the urine was extremely high, due to an excess of urea. Wood calls attention to the wave-like course of leukoderma, receding on one side, increasing on the other. The fading is gradual, and the margins may be abrupt or diffuse. The mucous membranes are rosy. The functions of ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... lackeys also had stopped their horses, which stood pawing and snorting at a respectful distance. It was an awkward moment for me. I could not stand there trying to persuade a perfectly serene man to fight. So with an abrupt pull of the rein I started my horse, mechanically applied the spur, and galloped off. A few minutes later I was out of sight of this singularly self-controlled gentleman, who resented my description of the Duke of Guise. I was annoyed for some time to ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... another question on other subject put and answered, collected his thoughts, rose and begged to say that "Prince Louis of BATTENBERG served under me, and a more efficient officer——" Here sentence came to abrupt conclusion. Angry cries of "Order!" stormed round gallant Admiral. COMMERELL a man of proved valour, as the Victoria Cross worn on his breast on Jubilee Day and other high festivities testifies. But his bronzed cheek blanched ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various
... every now and then came up sniffing behind me, and seemed very much inclined to have a bite at it. We saw several more jungle cocks on our way. They were very like the common game-cock, but the voice was much shorter, and more abrupt. The Malays call it the bekeko. We had reached an open space, when we saw running before us a couple of the most magnificent peacocks. Their tails, spread out as they ran along, were fully seven feet in length. ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the hollow became more and more abrupt as they advanced, though they were less covered with brushwood. The fugitive made no attempt to climb the bank, but still pressed forward. The road was tortuous, and wound round a jutting point of rock. Now he was a fair mark—no, he had ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... empire could escape from the effects of frequent and abrupt changes in its rulers: like so many previous dynasties, that of Nabopolassar became enfeebled as if from exhaustion immediately after the death of its most illustrious scion, and foundered in imbecility and decrepitude. Popular imagination, awe-struck by ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... countrymen. But the penalty of refusing it was the prophet's wrath, with its terrible attendants, war and rapine, and none of the Arabs cared enough for their old gods to brave such terrors for their sake. The inhabitants of Taif endeavoured to make terms, so that the change might be less abrupt. Their ambassadors urged that fornication, usury, and the use of wine might be allowed them, but this could not be granted; the Taifites must accept the deprivations to which all the Moslems had agreed. Then ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... moment to take stock of the situation, and then we hurried on again. Every time he struck a man for lazy running, the man in his turn paid me with punch or kick. After a mile or so, the avenue made an abrupt turn to the east and brought us out on the main road in the rear of the ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... anti-mediaevalist, but he is very much afraid that an average mediaeval romancer might have thought it necessary to catalogue these other monsters with the aid of a Bestiary. On the other hand, there have been times—no matter which—when this abrupt introduction and dismissal of monsters as common objects (for which any respectable community will have proper stables or cages) would have been disallowed, or explained away, or apologised for, or, worst ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... A wise man would count before the war, if he can accomplish it: and if he cannot, then he would send messengers of peace, and cede in all things he may without sin. If it be but more honour and wealth to our king,(397) should we destroy the kingdom to purchase that? Our rash and abrupt proceedings show our folly. Ver. 20. "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." A man will be, must be, assimilated to his company, and then partake of their ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... to the first cities, historically a vast interval, would have seemed to that still watcher, measuring by the standards of astronomy and the rise and decline of races and genera and orders, a, step almost abrupt. It took, perhaps, a thousand generations or so to make it. In that interval man passed from an animal-like obedience to the climate and the weather and his own instincts, from living in small family parties of a score ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... many passages, partly from the brevity and apparently disjointed nature of the individual sections. Possibly this is due, in large measure, to later redactors of the book, or to the fragmentary reports of the prophet's addresses; perhaps, however, it also expresses something of the abrupt passion of his speeches, which, as Kautzsch says, were "more sob than speech." The general theme of this division appears in its opening words, "There is no fidelity or love or knowledge of God in ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... Mr. Norman Maugans, always grew temperamental when he played Mendelssohn's "Wedding March," and always relieved its monotonous cadence with passionate accelerations and abrupt retardations. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... met us; he was in a cotton suit walking about among his flowers and enjoying the evening. He was a man of about fifty, short, strong, brown, and abrupt. Though it was already evening and one could see little, we knew well enough that his eyes were steady and dark. For he had the attitude and carriage of those men who invigorate France. His self-confidence was evident in his sturdy legs and his arms akimbo, his vulgarity ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... to return to the cable office about midnight and await the reply to his cablegram. He had proceeded but a few blocks from the cable office, however, before a disturbing thought struck him with such force as to bring him to an abrupt pause. ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... the wild geese to start out—two and two—in different directions, to search for him. But after a two days' hunt, whether or not they had found him, they were to meet in northwestern Smaland on a high mountain-top, which resembled an abrupt, chopped-off tower, and was called Taberg. After Akka had given them the best directions, and described carefully how they should find ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... less subject to it. Isaacson had known that when he saw Nigel draw his chair nearer to hers at the supper-table in the Savoy. But he had been subject to it without ever saying to himself, "I am in subjection." He had never supposed that he was in subjection. The abrupt consciousness of how it was with him excited him tremendously. After the long interval of years, was he to feel again the powerful fever, and for a woman how different from the woman he had loved? She stood, in her young purity, at one end of the chain of years, and Mrs. ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... own way they strove to continue, possibly under the modifying influence of the art tradition of their conquerors, the great story of the art of Knossos. There is no abrupt break in the style of the pottery and other articles belonging to the latest Minoan period, as compared with that of the days before the catastrophe. Technical skill is almost as great as ever; it is degeneration in the inspiration of the art that has begun. ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... part, I think there is somewhat peculiarly sweet and amusing in the shapely-figured aspect of chalk-hills in preference to those of stone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, and shapeless. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... request to householders to return the names of those of military age ready to serve if called on, he heard of it, and stopped munching to say in his abrupt fashion: "I'll go—fight the Germans." But the farmer did not put him down, ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... clauses of the treaty of Washington, in pursuance of the joint resolution of March 3, 1883, must have resulted in the abrupt cessation on the 1st of July of this year, in the midst of their ventures, of the operations of citizens of the United States engaged in fishing in British American waters but for a diplomatic understanding reached with Her Majesty's Government in June last, whereby assurance was obtained ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... involuntarily, acquired. Not long afterwards, Tatyana's name-day festival is celebrated by a dinner, at which Onyegin is present, being urged thereto by Lensky. He goes, chiefly, that no comment may arise from any abrupt change of his ordinary friendly manners. The family, ignorant of what has happened between him and Tatyana, and innocently scheming to bring them together, place him opposite her at dinner. Angered by this, he revenges himself on the wholly innocent Lensky, by ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... married, Peggy, yes or no? Tell me at once, before I let you go!" Abrupt he spoke, and gave her arm a swing, But the same moment felt the wedding ring, And stood confus'd.—She wip'd th' empassion'd tear, "I am, I am; but is my father here?" Herbert stood by, and sharing with his bride, That perturbation which she strove to hide; "Come, honest Gilbert, ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... Mr. Clark himself appeared, and in a particularly happy frame of mind. For an hour the delighted senior and myself sat laughing at the fellow's quaint conceits and witty sayings, the conversation at last breaking up with an abrupt proposition from Mr. Clark that I remain in the city overnight and accompany him to the theater, an invitation I rather eagerly accepted. Mr. Clark, thanking me, and pivoting himself around on his high stool, with a mechanical "Good afternoon!" was at once submerged in his books, ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... mountain she could place upon a given space; she had, however, still some regard for utility, for the mountains are rarely precipitous—very steep, often rocky and shingly when they have attained a great elevation, but seldom, if ever, until in immediate proximity to the West Coast range, abrupt like the descent from the top of Snowdon towards Capel Curig or the precipices of Clogwyn du'r arddu. The great range is truly Alpine, and the front range occasionally reaches an altitude of nearly ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... piece of scrubbing-soap on the table, and an unwrung house-flannel soaking on the seat of a wooden chair. There is a nice, old-fashioned, round-fronted chest-of-drawers with brass handles in the room, but the most striking detail of its equipment is a stumpy and amazingly abrupt bedstead against the wall, which is just big enough for a big doll. The bedclothes of this eerie little cot are thrown back, and in the centre of the rumpled mattress, in the hollow made by my heroine's recumbent form, curled up in a sublime indifference to the puffing ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... it wullna be sair partin'—" And then, seeing the sympathy in the landlord's eye and fearing a disgraceful breakdown, Auld Jock checked his self betrayal. During the talk Bobby stood listening. At the abrupt ending, he put his shagged paws up on Auld Jock's knee, wistfully inquiring about this emotional matter. Then he dropped soberly, and slunk away under his ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... impenetrable cloud of mist; but it so chanced, by what freak of Dame Nature I know not, that the fog on that day was confined to the deep water, so that we who were in the port could see it at the distance of several miles from the coast, lying on the ocean like a huge stratum of snow, with an abrupt ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... his first experience of a trotting camel, and at first the motion, although irregular and abrupt, was not unpleasant. Having no stirrup or fixed point of any kind, he could not rise to it, but he gripped as tightly as be could with his knee, and he tried to sway backwards and forwards as he had seen the Arabs do. It was a large, ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the croft mending his gear. He never went down to the harbour for work like the other fishermen and never worked on the land. Humming away and talking to himself he fiddled about in his shed, around his boat-house or his croft, his hands all grubby with tar and grease. If addressed, he was abrupt and curt in his answers, sometimes even abusive. Hardly anyone dared ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... which the chief matter I much care to recollect at present is, that a pitful of good-natured people applauded it. Ever since, I have been desirous of doing something in the same way that should better reward their attention." But, except in so far as its abrupt declension from the stage hurt its author in the eyes of the critics, and possibly in those of theatrical managers, "Strafford" was certainly no failure. It has the elements of a great acting play. Everything, even the language (and here was a stumbling-block with most of the critics and criticasters), ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... with any abrupt change of the outer man, there is sometimes a more, very more natural abandonment of the inner thoughts and disposition and character. Just as men so often lose self-respect when they take to the bush life; or children who pray by their own little ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... more extraordinary in the history of the Vegetable Kingdom, as it seems to me, than the APPARENTLY very sudden or abrupt development of the higher plants. I have sometimes speculated whether there did not exist somewhere during long ages an extremely isolated continent, perhaps near ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... "All night!" rakishly, rakishly; They would pelt me with oysters and wiggletails, Laughing and clapping their hands at me, "All night!" prankishly, prankishly; But I would toss them back in mine, Lobsters and turtles of quaint design; Then leaping out in an abrupt way, I'd snatch them bald in my devilish glee, And skip away when they snatched at me, Fiendishly, fiendishly. O, what a jolly life I'd lead, Ah, what a "bang-up" life indeed! Soft are the mermaids under the sea— We would live ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... abrupt deterioration of Mary's magnificent nervous system would have been unaccountable to Dr. Hillyard had it not been for a chance encounter with McEwan after her first visit. The Scotchman had hailed her in the lane, asking for ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... suggested for ladies who are inclined to be stout, for in them, only slim figures appear to receive consideration. I would recommend the loose-fitting coat as the most becoming for portly persons, because with a loose garment there is no abrupt accentuation of bulk, a fact which many stout ladies who adopt the Eton jacket style of dress, fail to recognise. On the stage, a slim actress may look well in tights, but this skin-like covering on a bulky figure would be ridiculously ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... I can't possibly—" She came to an abrupt pause. Her eyes had encountered Rosa's, and in Rosa's eyes the puzzled questioning was plainly ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... boasting, followed the dictates of reason and loved virtue. When did she sadden her parents even by a look?... There was nothing forward in her looks, bold in her words or unbecoming in her actions. Her carriage was not abrupt, her gait not indolent, her voice not petulant, so that her very appearance was the picture of her mind and ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... candles, where two gentlemen sat at a table finishing a bowl of punch. One of these was stout, elderly, and irascible, with a face like a full moon, well dyed with liquor, thick tremulous lips, a short, purple hand, in which he brandished a long pipe, and an abrupt and gobbling utterance. This was my Lord Windermoor. In his companion Nance beheld a younger man, tall, quiet, grave, demurely dressed, and wearing his own hair. Her glance but lighted on him, and she flushed, ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of a consciously despicable character standing before Christ, wondering, yearning, hungering to be like that! Yet must one trust the process fearlessly and without misgiving. "The Lord the Spirit" will do His part. The tempting expedient is, in haste for abrupt or visible progress, to try some method less spiritual, or to defeat the end by watching for effects instead of keeping the eye on the Cause. A photograph prints from the negative only while exposed to the sun. While the artist is looking to see how it is getting on he simply ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... topic was so abrupt and barefaced that the lover stared for a moment, then tried not ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... passes. On the S.W. and S., on the borders of Yun-nan, high mountains and deep valleys separate China from Burma and Tongking. On the narrow N.E. frontier the transition from the Manchurian plateau to the alluvial plain of northern China is not abrupt, but, before the advent of railways, Manchuria afforded few and difficult means of access to other regions. Thus China was almost cut off from the rest of the world save ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... housekeeper, a wiry, sad-eyed woman, came to see why the door was left open. When she saw the master of the house she retired in abrupt, angular fashion, but the suggestion of her errand recalled him ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... of us there was a plain which extended for some twelve hundred paces to the foot of an abrupt rise in the ground. This we fortunately reached before the English, although we were exposed all the way to the fire of their guns. But even when we gained the rise we were little better off, as it was too low to give us cover. The English were scarcely ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... climate, and cultivation of Italy, the whole party agreeing that it exceeds in natural blessings all other lands. The first book contains directions for raising crops of all kinds as well as vegetables and flowers, and is brought to an abrupt termination by the arrival of the priest's freedman who narrates the murder of his master. The party promise to attend the funeral, and with the sarcastic reflection de casu humano magis querentes quam admirantes ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... the rhythmic pulse, during the measure allotted to the cadence-chord, that the desired dual impression,—that of cadential interruption without actual cessation,—is secured. It is like rounding off a corner that might otherwise be too angular or abrupt. ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... so. He waited impatiently to hear more, either to quench or confirm his suspicions. If she had not been lying there, very still and calm, he would have forced the words out of Mr Donne, by some abrupt question. As it was, he listened silently, his ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... short by the sudden opening of the door, followed by the abrupt entrance of a tall, slender young man, who hastily advanced towards the table, around which the company were seated. His appearance excited the utmost astonishment in the whole group: curiosity was exhibited in every countenance—the magnum remained poised midway in the hand of Palmer—Dr. ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Crowland gathered round the cell of Guthlac in the midst of a desolate mere. Evesham occupied a glade in the wild forests of the western march. Glastonbury, an old Welsh foundation, stood on a solitary islet, where the abrupt knoll of the Tor looks down upon the broad waste of the Somersetshire marshes. Beverley, as its name imports, had been a haunt of beavers before the monks began to till its fruitful dingles. In every case agriculture soon turned the wild ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... country's immediate economic challenge is an acute financial crisis that is undermining monetary stability and preventing disbursement of foreign development assistance. Cambodia is still recovering from an abrupt shift in 1990 to free-market economic mechanisms and a cutoff in aid from former Soviet bloc countries; these changes have severely impacted on public sector revenues and performance. The country's infrastructure of ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... himself as honest a young man as ever lived, was utterly unconscious,—the pouring of a glass of beer from the window. The beer did as little harm on the cuirassiers' coats as it would have done in the American's stomach, and was at least the incidental means of bringing the whole scene to an abrupt end. The government was inclined to do us justice, but very naturally thought that the drenching of its cuirassiers might be pleaded in abatement of the insult to our national dignity; and so a nominal punishment of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... known than they suppose—may say, and although they are preparing to infect foreign countries with their correspondence, our Bretons did not run away on Thursday. It is true that when they saw the Saxons emerging from their holes and shouting hurrah, our Bretons were a little troubled by this abrupt and savage joke, but"—then follows the statement of several of the heroes themselves that they fought like lions. The fact is, as I have already stated in my letter of yesterday, the Mobiles fought only tolerably well, and some of their battalions rather the reverse of well. The Line, ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... the hair while my eyes were being burnt prior to my abortive execution. Wilson and Karak Sing seized and disarmed me, but there was a general stampede of the Tibetan officers, and thus our interview and negotiations were brought to an abrupt end. ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... evening, he was unable to appear. A severe attack of pneumonia developed itself. He was carried to his hotel, and his last engagement was brought to an abrupt and melancholy end. As soon as he was able to move, he left Boston for his home in Philadelphia, resting on his way only a day in New York. As the summer passed away, the desire for work grew stronger and stronger, and he decided to re-enter public life, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... steady. In his heart he did not believe that the quarrel would prove final, that she would break off the engagement on the grounds of his past failings. It was just a passing cloud, he told himself. Both of them would have been more upset had their love affair come to a sudden and abrupt close. He remembered how he had felt when he had parted from Lalage, the fever and the agony of it, the sense of utter desolation and hopelessness. And from that he came to think of Lalage herself. She had never turned on him because he drank. ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... my grandfather's speech and presence, no doubt forgot all he had said with wholesome quickness, and set themselves to the interesting and necessary work of gaining their own experience. Once, indeed, a dreadful thing happened, whose immediate consequence was the abrupt end to the long and close friendship between us and our nearest neighbour. His son was brought to the arbour and left there in the usual way, and either he must have happened on the critical half ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... men have passed from an initial peaceable stage to a subsequent stage at which fighting is the avowed and characteristic employment of the group. But it is not implied that there has been an abrupt transition from unbroken peace and good-will to a later or higher phase of life in which the fact of combat occurs for the first time. Neither is it implied that all peaceful industry disappears on the transition to the predatory phase of culture. Some ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... of Sinai, as far as we can see from the shore, reflects, in wilder forms and more abrupt lines, the opposite coast of Midian: there is, however, the important difference that the Secondaries and the quartz-veins, there so important, are here wanting. The skeletons of mountain and hill appear as if prolonged under water. The ruddy syenite is dyked and veined by the familiar ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... in the breath, as already directed, and emit it with a sudden and violent explosion, in a very brief sound of the letter h, in the style of an abrupt and forcible, but whispered cough. The breath is, in this mode of expiration, thrown out with ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... Gloucestershire side (see CLIFTON). Others are Victoria Park, south of the river, near the Bedminster station, Eastville Park by the Frome, on the north-east of the city beyond Stapleton Road station, St Andrew's Park near Montpelier station to the north, and Brandon Hill, west of the cathedral, an abrupt eminence commanding a fine view over the city, and crowned with a modern tower commemorating the "fourth centenary of the discovery of America by John Cabot, and sons Lewis, Sebastian and Sanctus." Other memorials in the city are the High Cross on ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... at bottom true to their paternal training. John Keble added to it great attainments and brilliant gifts of imagination and poetry; but he never lost the plain, downright, almost awkward ways of conversation and manner of his simple home—ways which might have seemed abrupt and rough but for the singular sweetness and charm of his nature. To those who looked on the outside he was always the homely, rigidly orthodox country clergyman. On Isaac Williams, with his ethical standard, John Keble also impressed his ideas of religious truth; he made him an old-fashioned ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... bank of sand and white coral; the northern is about half a mile across, of the same formation precisely as the low isles of Forestier Group. It is fronted on all sides with a coral reef extending off from a mile to a mile and a half, which dries at low-water, leaving an abrupt wall of from two to three feet at the outer edge, with pools between it and the island, in which several luckless turtles, who had deferred leaving until too late, were found. Though we only took what was required for our own ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... spared, 'that he would not turn on his heel to be President,' and that 'he had given up all for his own brave, magnanimous little State of South Carolina.' While thus protesting, his eyes flashed, his brow seemed charged with thunder, his voice became almost a bark, and his sentences were abrupt, intense, producing in the auditory a sort of laugh which is squeezed out of people by the application of a very sudden mental force. I believe he knew not what a revelation he made in a few sentences. They were to us strangers the key, not only to ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... traces of mounds, and the stones are generally on a level with the surface. On the outside, in close proximity to the others, are ten more, while on the slope of the hill to the northwest—the hill not being so abrupt in its descent at this point—are eighty-six more graves; making a total of one hundred and thirty-six buried on this hill. All are marked in the same manner, the last being covered by a thick growth of blackberry vines and bayberry bushes, and ...
— John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter Cockenoe-de-Long Island and The Story of His Career from the Early Records • William Wallace Tooker
... near the surface, and in places came through, when the grass was changed for lichens and mosses. Through this rocky meadow now roamed, now rushed, now tumbled one of those Alpine streams the very thought of whose ice-born plenitude makes me happy yet. Its banks were not abrupt, but rounded gently in, and grassy down to the water's brink. The larger torrents of Winter wore the channel wide, and the sinking of the water in Summer let the grass grow within it. But peaceful as the place was, and merry with the constant rush of this busy stream, it had, ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... here?' cried Walpole in horror, for he now perceived that the road really came to an abrupt ending in the midst ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... when irritated, pout the lips, gaze with a fixed and savage glare on their foe, and make repeated short starts as if about to spring forward, uttering at the same time inward guttural sounds. Many display their anger by suddenly advancing, making abrupt starts, at the same time opening the mouth and pursing up the lips, so as to conceal the teeth, while the eyes are daringly fixed on the enemy, as if in savage defiance. Some again, and principally the long-tailed monkeys, or Guenons, display their ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... do not properly belong to the object of a Collection of Voyages and Travels; but which, if altogether passed over, would leave much of the foregoing circumstances, and some that have to be noticed in the sequel, abrupt, isolated, and almost unintelligible. It has therefore been deemed proper to give a brief account of these differences, and of the singular so called union, which took place in consequence, extracted from the Annals of the East India Company, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... sir, whom I am now answering, arguments can be of very little importance, because, by his own confession, he is retained as a mere machine, to speak at the direction of another, and to utter sentiments which he never conceived, and which his hesitation and abrupt conclusion shows him to admit with very little examination. He had not even allowed himself time to know the opinion which he was to assert, or to imprint upon his memory those arguments to which he was ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... become the center of business. It, however, was soon perceivable that the advantage of water privileges, stone, and access to both, was greatly in favor of Rochester. At Carthage the Genesee is narrow and its banks steep and abrupt, rising in many places three hundred feet above the bed of the river, which of course render the privileges and business on it far less easy of access for building purposes. I may have occasion to speak hereafter of the expensive and magnificent bridge ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... the flagstones outside, and the next moment an officer appeared at the door accompanied by several soldiers. In abrupt, peremptory tones he ordered Heideck ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... a veiled significance; for our quest of Dr. Fu-Manchu had come to an abrupt termination by reason of the fact that all trace of that malignant genius, and of the group surrounding him, had vanished with the destruction of ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... continuous from the present time up to the commencement of the Tertiary period; and then so abrupt a break occurs, that, with the exception of the microscopic diatomaceae, to which I last evening referred, and of one shell and one coral, not a single species crossed the gap. On its farther or remoter side, however, where the Secondary division ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer |
