"Blank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... browsing sheep; and, having collected these together, they drove them from the meadows and disappeared with them among the trees. Before sundown they were many miles away, leaving behind desolation and blank dismay. ...
— 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
... the detail of all this shipping down to the smallest ropes, from memory, in the drawing-room of a mansion in the middle of Yorkshire, even if considerable time had been given for the effort. But Mr. Fawkes sat beside the painter from the first stroke to the last. Turner took a piece of blank paper one morning after breakfast, outlined his ships, finished the drawing in three hours, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... if attacked by a wasp. Attorney General Smith said, "Hum," very loudly and looked at Assemblyman Brown who looked blank. Dr Johnson's nose raised itself a perceptible inch and Judge Robinson, sensing a sensation among his colleagues, shouted, "Speak up, ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... suffered, because the subject of the connexion between intelligence and virtue is very fully exhibited in the Doctrine of the Mean, and will come under our notice in the review of that Treatise. The manner in which Chu Hsi has endeavoured to supply the blank about the perfecting of knowledge by the investigation of things is too extravagant. 'The Learning for Adults,' he says, 'at the outset of its lessons, instructs the learner, in regard to all things in ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... out a moment later, seeming to fill the world with his giant bulk and his astounding radiation of joy. Two narrow-chested city clerks stood still to stare at him, their pallid little faces blank with amazement. A red-nosed flower-girl thrust a great bunch of yellow roses up at him with certainty of sale written all over her. ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... that 'but'—alas, that but!—and then, too, the words, 'Varia is mine!' aroused in me not a deep, overwhelming rapture, but a sort of paltry, egoistic triumph.... If Varia had refused me point-blank, I should have been burning with furious passion; but having received her consent, I was like a man who has just said to a guest, 'Make yourself at home,' and sees the guest actually beginning to settle ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... little girls bored Norah frightfully. They seemed a species quite distinct from herself. They prattled of dolls; they loved to skip, to dress up and "play ladies"; and when Norah spoke of the superior joys of cutting out cattle or coursing hares over the Long Plain, they stared at her with blank lack of understanding. With boys she got on much better. Jim and she were tremendous chums, and she had moped sadly when he went to Melbourne to school. Holidays then became the shining events of the year, and the boys whom Jim brought home with him, at first ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... often as they heard a door open, every eye turned involuntarily toward it, and when nothing ensued but the entrance of the steward with some more dishes, or of the cupbearer with a fresh supply of rich wine, the guests would look sad and blank, and the sparks of gayety kindled by the light jest or the cheerful discourse, were quenched in the damp of melancholy recollections. The bride was the most thoughtless, and consequently the most cheerful person ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... friends, and preventing his aunt's greatness from making them abashed, or their own too much modesty from showing a lack of breeding. But how shall I describe his face when major Marvel entered! he had not even feared his presence. A blank dismay, such as could seldom have been visible there, a strange mingling of annoyance, contempt, and fear, clouded it with an inharmonious expression, which made him look much like a discomfited commoner. In a ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... remembrance of having been pleased so many hours by the mere vibration of air, which, being but sound, you cannot bring away with you; and must therefore enter the time passed in such a diversion, into the account of those blank hours, from which one has not reaped so much as ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... and at about one the march through the gate of Neuilly commenced, colours flying and music playing, as though a victory had been won. I remained there some time watching the crowd that had congregated at each side of the road. Most of the lookers on appeared to be in a condition of blank despair. They had believed so fully that the grand sortie must end in a grand victory, that they could hardly believe their eyes when they saw their heroes returning into Paris, instead of being already at Versailles. There were many ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... exclaimed, and then suddenly realizing how he had echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair and stared at him in blank amazement. ...
— The Adventure of the Cardboard Box • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Malatesta told me," urged Baldassare, plaintively, looking very blank. "I am not answerable for him. Go and quarrel with Malatesta, if you like, but leave me alone. You asked me a question, and I ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... blank dismay from one to the other of the little company. Claudia had started to speak, but closed, her lips without uttering a word. Lentulus faced him, hot, flushed, and with a cynical smile of delight, at the infliction of mental torture, playing over his face. Cornelia had ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... had offered to tell his fortune; but he refused point-blank, for surely no good tidings could come ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... took one lesson, he hated it so. I don't see what his mother was made of. I sympathise with your fear of spending too much time adorning your home, etc., etc. It is a nice question how far to go and how far to stay. But I honestly believe that a bare, blank, prosaic house makes religion appear dreadfully homely. We enjoy seeing our children enjoy their work and their play; is our Father unwilling to let us enjoy ours? In a German book [17] I translated, a little boy is very happy in making a scrap-book ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... that assume a distinct presence before me, as I look far back into the blank of my infancy, are my mother, with her pretty air and youthful shape, and Peggotty, my old nurse, with no shape at all, and with cheeks and arms so red and hard that I wondered the birds didn't peck her ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... leaving home and the one hundred and ten dollars was but a small item compared to his expected profit on the sale of the North Inlet land. He reached into his pocket, produced a long, dingy leather pocketbook wound about with twine, unwound the twine, opened the pocketbook and produced a blank check. ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Square, he found William Kershaw in a wild state of excitement, and his wife in tears. Mueller attempted to state the object of his visit, but Kershaw, with wild gestures, waved him aside, and—in his own words—flabbergasted him by asking him point-blank for another loan of two pounds, which sum, he declared, would be the means of a speedy fortune for himself and the friend who would help him ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... mute attitude of appeal, the pitiful outward token of the mind's bearing, that could not be forborne a silent uttering of the plea she had made her own in happy days. There was something of comfort in the mere feeling of doing it; and there was more in one or two words that even in that blank came to her mind "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him;" and she again recollected that "Providence runneth not upon broken wheels." Nothing could be darker than the prospect ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... in a report of some conversations given in the Bee for 1791. He was speaking about blank verse, to which he always had a dislike, as we know from an interesting incident mentioned by Boswell. Boswell, who attended Smith's lectures on English literature at Glasgow College in 1759, told Johnson four years ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... and the after-swell still tumbled us heavily: but nowhere within the great ring of horizon did it heave one of the other boats into sight. The sea smoothed itself down with a quite wonderful rapidity, and still its great surface was a blank." ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... took out a small blank-book and made a note, for she had an ear for any sentence that might ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... shall be beheaded for it ten times.—Ah, thou say, thou serge, nay, thou buckram lord! now art thou within point- blank of our jurisdiction regal. What canst thou answer to my majesty for giving up of Normandy unto Mounsieur Basimecu, the dauphin of France? Be it known unto thee by these presence, even the presence of Lord Mortimer, that I am the ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... that, Georgina's memory is a blank, save for a confused recollection of being galloped to Banbury Cross on somebody's knee, while a big hand helped her to clang the clapper of a bell far too heavy for her to swing alone. But some dim picture of the kindly ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... more pear cider and made a cigarette. Wonderful ideas must be moving behind the blank brown of his forehead. His mother adored him and planned a recital of his acts to Egg, who had accused Adam of being ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... vote, and I reflected that if I could obtain a second one, I might create some change of opinion. How was I to gain it? On the election day I was sitting beside the excellent Pongerville, one of the best of men. I asked him point blank, 'For whom are you voting?' 'For Vatout, as you know.' 'I know it so little that I ask you to vote for Balzac.' 'Impossible!' 'Why?' 'Because my bulletin is ready. See.' 'Oh! that makes no matter.' And on two bits ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... it seemed a lifetime, what must an enforced sojourn of five or six years mean to the unhappy exiles, some of whom had been here for a quarter of a century. Let the reader imagine, if possible, the blank despair of existence under such conditions; day after day, year after year, nothing to do or look at of interest, tortured by heat and mosquitoes in summer, perished by cold and hunger in the dark, cruel winter, and cut off as completely as a corpse from all ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... closet, which is now illuminated by light from the room. The closet is and is not a closet; it is the size and shape of one, but it contains nothing, not a single hook, no rod for hanging clothes, no shelf. It is an empty, blank-walled, ...
— Hall of Mirrors • Fredric Brown
... hunting party now finds him; and they all sit down together to make a meal by the river side, Siegfried telling them meanwhile the story of his adventures. When he approaches the subject of Brynhild, as to whom his memory is a blank, Hagen pours an antidote to the love philtre into his drinking horn, whereupon, his memory returning, he proceeds to narrate the incident of the fiery mountain, to Gunther's intense mortification. Hagen then plunges ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... ad C. Herennium Libri IIII," 1546, the fine proportions of the page appear in spite of trimming. Very noticeable are the undersized roman capitals; more curious is the letter printed in the otherwise blank square to indicate what initial the illuminator should insert in color, and the irregular use of capitals and small letters after a period. The catchword appears only on the last page of the signature, not on every page, as was the later practice. Modern usage wisely ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... an hour his brain skirmished for an opening, until, spreading the blank sheets of paper before him, he wrote: 'THE ISLAND OF DARKNESS.' Tilting his chair back, he surveyed ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... page blank. There follows here an essay in French or notes of a lecture on the study of law, a juvenile performance. Though inserted in the MS. book it is not part of the Journal. It has been ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... was about to fire again, point blank at my head, when I drew my sword and quieted him. Matters have come to a pretty pass when gentlemen can't walk out on the public road without becoming a target for every frightened fool that travels in a coach. I'll learn who this ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... of the person, the title, and the date in this blank book. When the volume is returned, ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... coat, and as we are hoping effectually to spit one another over there... gadzooks! but there's the specific purpose.... Is it not true, sir," he added, turning once more to Chauvelin, "that in the pocket of that exquisitely cut coat of yours, you have a passport—name in blank perhaps—which you ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... improves the condition of the skin for the development of the rash, and relieves the patient, without depriving him of any part of that organic power so indispensable for a cure, and without which the best physician in the world becomes a mere blank. Under the process of wet-sheet packing, the heat invariably abates, the pulse becomes slower and softer, the violence of the symptoms is alleviated, the skin becomes moist, the restlessness and anxiety of the patient give way to a more quiet and ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... copy paper, and at the top of the first sheet was written, in capitals, the one word: "Hell." It was underlined, and around it he had drawn sundry fantastic flourishes and shadings, but the rest of the sheet was blank. ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... considered by you who are leaving a school you have loved and valued, and which you should commend to the world, by showing that it has made you fit for home. Beaumaris School has a blank shield for its arms, with the motto, "Albam exorna," "Adorn the white;" you are all starting with white shields, and you can adorn the white: it is not only in Spenser that we find Britomarts. ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... firing into them with blank cartridges and over them with ball had already been tried ... with no visible result, the general opinion was that they would stand charging niggers or anything else in creation with equanimity. Sad to say we came to the conclusion that it was want of brains pur et ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... June 15, 1791. The early part of this letter relates to certain blank commissions signed and left with Mr. Lear to be filled up under the direction and advice of the Secretary of the Treasury. He next adverts to a vacancy in one of the United States judgeships—that of the district ...
— Washington in Domestic Life • Richard Rush
... the dose of all the Allopaths; and Christian Science has attenuated the Hahnemannian theory of attenuations, it having been found that the blank tablet often cures quite as effectively as the one that is medicated. Christian Science does not shout, rant, defy nor preach. It is poised, silent, sure, and the flagellants, like the dervishes, are noticeable by ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... and went again to my chair, and opened it. It was Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," and full of plates. I had never heard of the book, and did not know what the title meant. I first looked at all the plates, and then I turned to the opening of the book. On the blank leaf at the commencement, in very neat and lawyer-like handwriting, was "Anna James, on her marriage, from her dear friend Mary Farquhar, Tynemouth, June the 19th, 1738." By this I discovered, as I thought, the married but not the maiden name of old Nanny; and very ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... of the greatest length, and have hardships in it, and wonders, and a good gift for you. But all your ways lead to Iceland, and thither you will return. Out of you will come a great race of men, and you shall end your life-days in the way that pleases you best." Then her eyes grew less blank, and seemed able to see more clearly. She held out her hand towards Gudrid, who stood rooted, staring up with great eyes. "Farewell, daughter, and I give you hail," she said. Gudrid ran up the steps and ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... with a blank gesture of helplessness. "It is useless!" she answered. "Nobody would believe me. Consider the situation. YOU know the needle I gave you was the one Sebastian meant to use—the one he dropped and I caught—BECAUSE you are a friend of mine, and because you have learned to trust me. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... this Letter with the answer, which is roughly written on the blank leaf, is, I believe, now in the library of Oriel College, Oxford. I am indebted for my copy to the kindness of the Rev. J. H. Newman, ...
— Some Remains (hitherto unpublished) of Joseph Butler, LL.D. • Joseph Butler
... man, my dear girl—the nature of the man," he said, opening one of his plump little books bound in calf and vellum. "A transaction has taken place between us. I must have it down in black and white." He opened the book at a blank page, and wrote at the top, in a fine mercantile hand: "Miss Vanstone, the Younger: In account with Horatio Wragge, late o f the Royal Militia. Dr.—Cr. Sept. 24th, 1846. Dr.: To estimated value of H. Wragge's interest in Miss V.'s first year's salary—say—200 pounds. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... of seeing even a goldfish injured or slain, shrank far more shudderingly from being injured or slain himself. The horrid wrench that physical assault was—and then, perhaps, the sharp break with life, the plunge into a blank unknown—and never to see again on this earth the person whom ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... matter. But how had Mlle. Dorian, or the person instructing her, traced the envelope to his study? And why, if they could establish a claim to it, had they preferred to attempt to steal it? Finally, why all this disturbance about a blank ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... in gangs of twenties the slaves entered the great Moslem city. John Smith was left at the gate of a house exactly like all the others in the narrow noisy street. The beauty of an Oriental palace is inside the walls. Within the blank outer wall of stone and mud-brick, arched roofs, painted and gilded within, were upheld by slender round pillars of fine stone—marble, jasper, porphyry, onyx, red syenite, highly polished and sometimes brought from old palaces and temples in other lands. Intricate carving in marble or in fine hard ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... should see there estrangements, quarrels, jealousies, the thousand dreary incidents that, if we knew them, would break the suddenness with which at present the catastrophe bursts upon us. It is the want of preparation, the blank ignorance in which we are left of the daily life and daily occurrences of the court, which places us at such disadvantage for recovering the truth. We are unable to form any estimate whatever of those ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... I would have given much to have seen the pair of them. When Mr. Malcolm MacPherson spoke his voice was that of blank, ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... prizes given in colleges, (when all the pure parsley goes naturally to the rabbits), and has a great deal of beauty here and there in image and expression. Still I do not quite agree with you that it reaches the Tennyson standard any wise; and for the blank verse, I cannot for a moment think it comparable to one of the grand passages in 'Oenone,' and 'Arthur' and the like. In fact I seem to hear more in that latter blank verse than you do, ... to hear not only a 'mighty line' as in Marlowe, but a noble full orbicular ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... Dagobert: "I dare say it was only a scratch, as the general calls it. Formerly, he used to call wounds, which did not disable a man from fighting, blank wounds. There was no one like ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... messenger said, extending the telegram and receipt blank to Joe. The boy fish hurriedly scribbled his name, and then tore open the envelope. As he read a look of surprise and joy showed ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... me," he said. "I have not your resources for beguiling the tedium of the way. I would give all my possessions gladly, for your young eyes. All journeys are alike to me now, since, however interesting the scenery, it is a blank to me." ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... the few main thoroughfares. High over head, to be sure, the red crags of the Acropolis may be towering, crowned with the red, gold, and white tinted marble of the temples, but all around seems only monotonous squalor. The houses seem one continuous series of blank walls; mostly of one, occasionally of two stories, and with flat roofs. These walls are usually spread over with some dirty gray or perhaps yellow stucco. For most houses, the only break in the street walls ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... eye could reach through the white haze of the flying drift the ocean presented a dirty steel-gray color, torn into long, ragged streaks of white where the combers rolled on the high seas before the gale. Overhead all was a deep blank of gray vapor. The wind was not blowing nearly as hard as it had during my last watch on deck, but the sea was rolling heavier. It took the Pirate fair on the port bow, and every now and again it rose so high above her topgallant rail that it showed green light through the mass that would crash ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... blank. Pappoose was evidently a new word for them. We then resorted to various expedients, such as holding our hands knee-high and hip-high; but the requisite gleam of intelligence could not be inspired. So, with another ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... tie All again; what's done is past recal, And past you to revenge; and there are thousands That wait for such a troubled hour as this; Throw him the blank. ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... a bud of them that has not got a rosy side. I must gather one, and see if I cannot make a drawing of it.' So he gathered a lily, sat down with it in his hand, and tried very hard to make a correct sketch of it in a blank leaf of his copy-book. He was far more patient than usual, but he succeeded so little to his own satisfaction, that at length he threw down the book, and, looking into the cup of his lily, said to it, in a sorrowful voice, 'Ah, what use is it my trying ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... close to the table with napkins on her arm. She removed the work-box reverentially, the doctor's manuscript unceremoniously, and proceeded to lay a cloth: in which operation she looked at Rose a point-blank glance of admiration: then she placed the napkins; and in this process she again cast a strange look of interest upon Rose. The young lady noticed it this time, and looked inquiringly at her in return, half expecting ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... following Parliament's failure in August to elect then-President MERI's successor; on the second ballot of voting, RUUTEL received 186 votes to Parliament Speaker Toomas SAVI's 155; the remaining 26 ballots were either left blank or invalid ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... reliable information concerning its extent. Believing that the remedy of this defect lies within the power of the laboratories, I venture to ask whether you would be willing to fill out the accompanying blank form, returning it to me as soon as practicable? If so, I should be glad if you would state whether the figures are based upon a register giving exact numbers or whether they are simply the best estimate you are able to give. If impossible to supply the details asked, can you not give the ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... been so obviously entitled. Milly's answer to this was the plea of her curiosities—which left her friend wondering as to their odd direction. Some among them, no doubt, were rather more intelligible, and Kate had heard without wonder that she was blank about Lord Mark. This young lady's account of him, at the same time, professed itself as frankly imperfect; for what they best knew him by at Lancaster Gate was a thing difficult to explain. One knew people in general by something they had to show, something that, ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... celebrates in this, as in his other sonnets, a lady for whom he appears to have entertained no more than a Platonic or imaginary passion. Surrey was a great experimentalist in metre. Besides the sonnet, he introduced into England blank verse, which he borrowed from the Italian versi sciolti, fixing that decasyllable iambic rhythm for English versification in which our greatest poetical triumphs ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... men. In this manner I was less under the spell of the mesmerism of the snake, and could to some extent think and act. I wheeled around while I still held control of my faculties, and, perceiving a slight movement of the snake's coils, I fired point-blank at the head, letting go the entire chamber of soft-nose bullets. Instantly the other men woke up from their trance and in their turn fired, emptying their Winchesters into the huge head, which by this time was raised to a great height above ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... he had at his command he devoted to pondering over the problems of Euclid: he was always drawing mysterious complications of angles, triangles, and parallelograms, on pieces of slate, and on the blank leaves of such few books as he possessed. But he made very slow progress in his studies. Poverty and hard work increased with the increase of his family, and obliged him to give up his mathematics altogether. He laboured early and ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... blank, then exclaimed: "Why, girls, how stupid of me! I forgot to ask. I was so interested in hearing about her condition that I ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... friendship with Miss Lindsay and Lorraine Forrester, and often went to see them at the studio which they had temporarily hired. Lorraine's principal branch of art was sculpture, and she was modelling a bust of Morland, who came readily for sittings, though he had refused point-blank to ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... owner of that pair of now shaking little hands had felt quite sure that no one could possibly see what they were engaged in doing—for the window on the ledge of which the medicine bottles were standing looked out on what was practically a blank wall. But the man whose long, surprised whistle had so suddenly scared her, happened at that moment to be sitting astride the top of the blank wall, engaged in the legitimate occupation of sticking bits of broken bottles into putty. The man was Piper, and doubtless the ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... trial, or with a bag of known numbers—say from ten to one hundred—a range convenient for computation—in which bag he replaces and shuffles up the number drawn, after each trial. Let him draw a card (to take cards as our example) say, "Now!" and gaze fixedly at it. Let P keep his mind as blank as possible, and make his guess only when some kind of image of color, suit, or pips, in some way floats into his mind. His first guess only must be counted, and must be received in silence. Let A continue ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... shalt despise their image.' Closely rendered, the former clause would read simply 'in awaking,' without any specifying of the person, which is left to be gathered from the succeeding words. But there is no doubt that the English version fills the blank correctly by referring ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... irresistible coming. In this case, it must not be seen before it is felt, or before that time comes when the danger of incurring it is over. I cannot withdraw the veil, and disclose to your view the exterminating angel. All must be vacant and blank, and the danger that stands armed with death at your elbow must continue to be totally invisible, till that moment when its vengeance is provoked or unprovokable. I will do my part to encourage you in good, or intimidate you from evil. I am anxious to set before you all the motives ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... was a lad of peaceable habits, and had a mortal antipathy to fighting. He refused point blank to be a soldier. The Navy offered the same cause for objection, strengthened by a natural aversion to the water, which made him decline going ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... to our purpose, said Grangousier. What, said Gargantua, to skite? No, said Grangousier, but to wipe our tail. But, said Gargantua, will not you be content to pay a puncheon of Breton wine, if I do not blank and gravel you in this matter, and put you to a non-plus? ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the 4th of July, General Lahitte, having assured himself by personal inspection that all was ready, ordered the signal rocket to be thrown, and at the same moment the whole French batteries opened their fire within point blank distance, and with a report which shook the whole of Algiers, and brought the garrison, who were little expecting so speedy an attack, running to their posts. The artillery was admirably served, and from one battery which enfiladed ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... Read Kreisler. That will amuse me. It is a picture of his own sufferings at the esthetic Teas in Berlin, supposed to be written in pencil on the blank leaves of ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... rendered her life a tragedy. The realization of the terrible truth staggered me. Such a perfect face as hers I had never before set eyes upon, so beautiful, so clear-cut, so refined, so eminently the countenance of one well-born, and yet so ineffably sad, so full of blank unutterable despair. ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... had shown it to Clara, who immediately recognised it as the property of Francisco. The book was saturated with the salt water, and as Edward mechanically turned over the pages, he referred to the title-page to see if there was any name upon it. There was not; but he observed that the blank or fly-leaf next to the binding had been pasted down, and that there was writing on the other side. In its present state it was easily detached from the cover; and then, to his astonishment, he read the name of Cecilia Templemore—his own mother. He knew well the history; how he had been saved, ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... his turn to look blank now, and catch his breath. He whistled, and stared at me from head to foot, and whistled again. Then he found words, ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... evil-looking lot, more like the strikers he had seen in the town earlier in the day. Even as he was turning the new thought over in his mind, one of them stepped out of the little knot, and, without a word of warning, lifted his arm and fired point blank at the little Englishman. A pistol ball whizzed close by his head. His horse leaped to the side of the road ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... was nothing to be gained in this direction. She turned to the rest of the men; they watched her with blank faces. Not a man there but would have done much for the sake of a single smile. But how ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... was looking for him; walking a long time through a country she could no longer see or remember. She came out of blank space to the river bridge and the red town. She could see the road switchbacking over the bridge and turning sharp and slanting up the ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... Western mind penetrated the Chinese mind but a short distance when it found itself in a fathomless maze. The Chinese mind penetrated the Western mind an equally short distance when it fetched up against a blank, incomprehensible wall. It was all a matter of language. There was no way to communicate Western ideas to the Chinese mind. China remained asleep. The material achievement and progress of the West was ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... proceeded to the Town Hall, and after berating the city officials listened to the speeches of welcome. As he and his wife were departing a Serbian student, named Prinzip, who was later arrested, rushed out from the crowd and fired point-blank at the couple with a revolver. Both were hit a number of times and died some hours later from ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... nodded, a bit vaguely. "That's kind of like Pa talks. He sent you this, and says to tell you it's our first spendin' spree and act accordin'." From her pocket she drew a folded check, made out in blank to Calvin Gray and signed by ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... although he had always practiced self-control, had begun to rise, but he checked it, seeing that it would be a mere foolish display of weakness in the face of the blank wall that confronted him. ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Willie's Prayer" next made its appearance, and alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they held several meetings to look over their spiritual artillery, if haply any of it might be pointed against profane rhymers. Unluckily for me, my wanderings led me on another side, within point-blank shot of their heaviest metal. This is the unfortunate story that gave rise to my printed poem, "The Lament." This was a most melancholy affair, which I cannot yet bear to reflect on, and had very nearly given me one or two of the principal qualifications for a place among those who ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... ruled blank book of good size to write down the botanical and common name of every flower. How many flowers do you think you can find in April? and ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Umslopogaas, but merely looked blank and shrugged my shoulders, saying that I was not in the habit of ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... long time to work out. Meanwhile Babs and Cochrane had swung down to the ground and went hiking. Cochrane was armed as before, though he had no experience as a marksman. In television shows he had directed the firing of weapons shooting blank charges—cut to a minimum so they wouldn't blast the mikes. He knew what motions to go through, but ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... he and 'Merican Joe had set some traps on the lake a day's journey to the south-eastward. Pierre Bonnet listened attentively, but by not so much as the flicker of an eyelash did he betray the fact that he had ever heard of the lake. Finally, the boy asked him, point-blank, if he had ever been there. Connie knew something of Indians, and, had been quick to note that Pierre held him in regard. Had this not been so, he would never have risked the direct question, for it is only by devious and round-about methods ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... forward to the wire. The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear, Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire. Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear, They leave their trenches, going over the top, While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists, And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, Flounders in mud. O ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... trail with three movie magazines and a loaf of bread that she had purloined from Kate's makeshift pantry. On this day she was not so frivolous, but helpful and full of sympathy. Jack could not believe that she had told his secret to Kate; and because he could not believe it he asked her point blank whether Kate had come spying up there deliberately, and was vastly reassured ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... fellows, I'll attend to that. I'll let you all in if she gives up. I'll play you square. He's my roommate—can't you trust me to handle it? Keep on. Miss Sadie Brown, works at the Emporium, lives 2196 Valencia—" Mark was reading from a perfectly blank sheet of copy paper—"Judge Tiffany will take him home. He wired ahead for a private ambulance from Havens. That's all of that. Now what have you fellows got? Help me out; it's ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... showed a blank closed stone exterior to the passer-by, like an old grey secretive face. As they approached it Colwyn, with a slight movement of his head, drew his companion's attention to the upper windows which belonged to Nepcote's flat. The blinds ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... The blank astonishment and incredulity with which these theories will be received, will soon be followed by acceptance, and the world will wonder why these things have been so ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... of her fine pyromaniac rage For a season or two she appeared on the stage; Her dancing was crude and her voice was a blank, But she carried it off by superlative swank, And married a swarthy and elderly milli- Onaire who was killed in an earthquake in Chile. A militant during the Suffrage campaign, In the War she adopted the cause of Sinn Fein, And, according to credible ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... there was nae appearance of the Scotch coming to fecht with them." For a long time the Captain was solemn and quiet; but when it appeared that the Scots "were not to come to show fecht," he got as wordy as a blank-verse poet, and stood up in the face of a neighbouring wood, from which it was expected the enemy would emanate, and called upon the cowards (as he styled them) to come out "and dare to touche one stone of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... altogether Brother Stephen's anger was aroused, for he had a rather unruly temper; and so, smarting under the disappointment of not receiving his liberty, and feeling that the book for Lady Anne was one cause of this, he had spoken angrily and disrespectfully to the Abbot, and refused point-blank to touch ...
— Gabriel and the Hour Book • Evaleen Stein
... mistake, sir," he said, "and I can see it now as my end approaches, has been this—in all my career I have used ball cartridge. I can see now that in using ball cartridge I did wrong I ought to have used blank cartridge; then I would not have taken life." Peace said that he hoped he would meet his death like a hero. "I do not say this in any kind of bravado. I do not mean such a hero as some persons will understand when they read this. I mean such a hero as my God might wish ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... word (as nearly as the change from prose to blank verse would allow) from the old record in Hall. It would have been easy for Shakspeare to have exalted his own skill, by throwing a coloring of poetry and eloquence into this speech, without altering the sense or sentiment; but by adhering to the calm argumentative ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... for a merchant's note-book, but not for the young man or woman who wants to keep a live, cheerful account of a happy and pleasant life. Sometimes you will have a picnic or excursion to write about, and will want to fill more space than the printed page allows. Buy a substantially bound blank-book, made of good paper; write your name and address plainly on the fly-leaf, and, if you choose, paste a calendar inside the cover. Set down the date at the head of the first page, thus: "Tuesday, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... once lose sight of his party, it is held that his chance is small of recovering their traces. And why? Not chiefly from the want of footmarks where the wind effaces all impressions in half an hour, or of eyemarks where all is one blank ocean of sand, but much more from the sounds or the visual appearances which are supposed to beset and ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... or two, or a half dozen, events in that year—perhaps not one, in the absence of a diary, or perhaps even with the aid of one. The majority of the happenings of the three hundred and sixty-five days of that year are as a blank—as if they never had happened, so far as the memory is concerned. And yet, the same "I," or Ego, persists, and the person's character has certainly been affected and influenced by the experiences and lessons of that year. Perhaps in ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... only in almost infinitesimal quantities within steel chambers embedded in lead. Beyond the thought of great destruction slumbering in the black spheres between his legs, and a keen resolve to follow out very exactly the instructions that had been given him, the man's mind was a blank. His aquiline profile against the starlight expressed nothing but a ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... a run. Honoria pocketed the half-crown and went back to her fly-fishing. But after a few casts she desisted, and took her rod to pieces slowly. The afternoon was hot and sultry. She sat down in the shadow of the balustrade and gazed at the long, blank facade of the house baking in the sun; at the tall, uncurtained windows; at the peacock stalking to and fro like ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... awakening. From twilight deeply shaded, she passed into utter darkness. While, with her face to a window, she tried to see where she was and make out what had happened, the chair stopped, and next moment was let drop to the ground. The jar and the blank blackness about renewed her fears, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... the fact that the book was originally published using only the right-hand side pages of the book, leaving the left-hand side blank to allow for and ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... the bewildered air of one who had lost her way, with the dazed appearance of one from beneath whose feet the bank of safety has been withdrawn. Hope was dead, and the past a blank. ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... and sob; for, having no experience of life beyond her long labour and care for them, it seemed to this foolish Shenac that really and truly her life's work was done. No, she did not say it in words, even to herself; but the future looked blank and bare to her. Any future that seemed possible to her looked rather dark than bright; and she feared—oh, so much!—to take her destiny in her ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... avoided by a theory given by Su Shih and other scholars influenced by Buddhism, which maintains that man is neither good-natured nor bad-natured. According to this opinion man is not moral nor immoral by nature, but unmoral. He is morally a blank. He is at a crossroad, so to speak, of morality when he is first born. As he if; blank, he can be dyed black or red. As he is at the cross-road, he can turn to the right or to the left. He is like fresh water, which has no flavour, and can be made sweet or bitter ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... and faded for an hour. The man sat quiet. There was not much in the years gone to soften his thought, as it grew desperate and cruel: there was oppression and vice heaped on him, and flung back out of his bitter heart. Nor much in the future: a blank stretch of punishment to the end. He was an old man: was it easy to bear? What if he were black? what if he were born a thief? what if all the sullen revenge of his nature had made him an outcast from the poorest poor? Was there no latent good in this soul for which Christ died, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... no answer, nor moved, for I was at a loss altogether, she turned to Dalfin, who still knelt beside me, watching her in blank amaze. The Norse gods were all but unknown to him, save perhaps as he had heard their names now and then from the ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... With a look of blank amazement, the young man mechanically put out his hand to greet the beautiful woman who ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... reiterated to himself, it was better than a bedroom off the blank corridor of a second-rate hotel and the crowded streets that were more merciless to a stricken man than these silent places. Eventually he would have to go back. But for the present,—well, he occupied himself wholly with the present, and ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the sights of Edinburgh, telling it that to be weeping with discontent in such a place was a scandalous turning up of the nose at good mercies. Now the Castle Esplanade, that all day had proudly supported the harsh virile sounds and colours of the drilling regiments, would show to the slums its blank surface, bleached bonewhite by the winds that raced above the city smoke. Now the Cowgate and the Canongate would be given over to the drama of the disorderly night, the slumdwellers would foregather about the rotting doors of dead men's mansions and brawl among the not less brawling ghosts of ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... the summer and autumn mouths; but the summer and autumn of 1065 were taken up by the building and destruction of Harold's hunting- seat in Wales and by the greater events of the revolt and pacification of Northumberland. But the year 1064 is a blank in the English annals till the last days of December, and no action of Harold's in that year is recorded. It is therefore the only possible year among those just before Edward's death. Harold's visit ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... Cranch, who was born at Alexandria, Va. (then D. C.), in 1813. He has written some well-known children's stories, besides numerous poems; but his greatest literary work is "The AEneid of Vergil, translated into English blank verse." He died ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... times it was simply in order to please the king. If the Court subsisted after her it was only to languish. Never was princess so regretted, never one so worthy of it: regrets have not yet passed away, the involuntary and secret bitterness they caused still remain, with a frightful blank not yet filled up. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... huge difference the absence of a blank space, which is nothing, or next to nothing, may make! The words here should have been printed, "God is all, and yet is no thing;" For what does 'thing' mean? Itself, that is, the 'ing', or inclosure, that which is contained within an outline, or circumscribed. So ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... shooting up between the stacks of the Good Hope marked her end. The Monmouth sheered away to westward and then northward with a heavy list that prevented the use of her port guns. An hour later, at 9.25, with her flag still flying defiantly, she was sunk by the Nuernberg at point blank range. The Glasgow, which had fought throughout the action, but had suffered little from the fire of the German light ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... office to the cell in which he—John North—faced the gallows. But the oftener he trod this path the more maze-like it became, until now he was hopelessly lost in its intricacies; discouraged, dazed, confused, almost convinced that in some blank moment of lost identity it was his hand that had sent the old man on his long last journey. As Evelyn Langham had questioned, so now did John North: "If not I, then who did murder ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... ordered, producing from the tattered pocket a small, soiled blank-book, whose pages appeared to be closely written. He handed it to Dixon, who took it mechanically, and, opening it, appeared to glance ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... blacker, days to come. O, I would I had but known of the wide world's many ways, But youth is ever blind, so I e'en must meet my doom. Joy once gave brightest forecasts of prospects that are past, But now, like a looking glass that's turned to the wall, Life is nothing but a blank, and the sunny shining past Is overcast in glooms that my every hope enthrall, While troubles daily thicken in the wind ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... choose invariably that alternative, even though the least probable, which would enable him to score a point against his adversary. For the rest I disclaim any personal bias, as against any personal opponent. The author of 'Supernatural Religion,' as distinct from the work, is a mere blank to me. I do not even know his name, nor have I attempted to discover it. Whether he is living or dead, I know not. He preferred to write anonymously, and so far as I am concerned, I am glad that it was so; though, speaking for myself, I prefer taking the responsibility ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... and powers the newborn infant possesses little more than the simplest unicellular animalcule, that is, about all it can do is to scent and swallow food. Its cerebral hemispheres are as yet blank slates, to be inscribed gradually by its conscious and voluntary exertions. Before it can think, reason, speak, walk or do anything else, it must first develop in its brain special centers for each and every one of these voluntary faculties ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... it wasn't only the possibility of anything of that sort happening, you know, which attracted me. It was the tragedy of the man himself, with his numbed, helpless life, set down here in the midst of us, with a great, blank chasm between him and his past. What is there left to drive the wheels? The events of one day are simple and monotonous enough to us, because they lean up against the events of yesterday, and the yesterdays before! How do ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the alphabet, but changes their value. His apparatus has the form of a large album glued at the back to a sloping desk. Each silvered letter, glued to a piece of black cloth, is seen in relief upon the open register. A sort of index along the side, as in commercial blank-books, permits of quickly finding any letter at will. Such is the manipulator of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... with all the paraphernalia that doubles the casualty of a tenement fire, but she cleared a space with her foot and sat down on the top step. Beside her loomed the blank warehouse wall, and from the narrow passage-way below came the smell of garbage. The clanging of cars and the rumbling of trucks mingled with the nearer sounds of whirring sewing machines in Lavinski's sweat-shop on the floor below. From somewhere around the ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... maps, and letters, and figures, in an endeavor to produce a sketch that would pass as a prospector's hastily prepared field map. At last she produced several that compared favorably with her father's and taking a blank leaf from an old notebook she found in the pack sack, drew a very creditable ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... House a conspicuous and interesting figure was Henry Luttrell. It was known that he must be getting on in life, for he had sat in the Irish Parliament, but his precise age no one knew. At length Lady Holland, whose curiosity was restrained by no considerations of courtesy, asked him point-blank—"Now, Luttrell, we're all dying to know how old you are. Just tell me." Eyeing his questioner gravely, Luttrell made answer, "It is an odd question; but as you, Lady Holland, ask it, I don't mind telling you. If I live till next year, I shall ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... had all this trouble due to the incompetency of the previous superintendent, a man came in and said to him: 'Did Mr. Blank have charge of this station?' 'Yes.' 'Did he know anything about running a station like this?' Chinnock said: 'Does he KNOW anything about running a station like this? No, sir. ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... appeared to want to keep the site of her house a secret from all her friends. When they asked her, point-blank, where her house was, she always pretended not to hear the question and left them. Or she would begin to ask questions of her own ...
— The Tale of Mrs. Ladybug • Arthur Scott Bailey
... from the stanch friendship and support of the Republicans of Massachusetts, which never failed me during the very height of this storm. Whittier sent me a volume of poetry which he had just published, with the inscription written on the blank leaf in his own hand, "To George F. Hoar, with the love of his old friend, John G. Whittier." I think I would have gone through ten times as much objurgation as I had to encounter for ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... stroke of club or swish of tail or fin bled in blue and red fire, as if the very sea was wounded. The enemy's line of battle was broken and scattered, but not until more than one of the assailants had looked point-blank into the angry eyes of a shark and beaten it off with actual blows. It was the Thermopylae of sharkdom, with numbers reversed—a Red Sea passage resonant with psalms ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... feeling the slightest sensation of pain, but with a sickening dizziness in the head I can just vaguely remember that I sank down on the oil and grease of the floor. I did not fall. It seemed as if I had time to catch myself and save, perhaps, a fractured skull. But then it was all blank. ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... know whether the sentence is original with O'Meara or a quotation; it is certainly new to me. One other book I brought with me, and the two were the whole worldly possession of the dead man. This is a small but pretty thick blank-book, written over almost to the last page. I have not examined the contents carefully, but I can see that they are made up of miscellaneous passages copied from books and of reflections on a great variety ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... round the room with blank eyes. He could not believe that he had not fallen asleep and dreamed it all. His gaze was arrested by Cynthia's portrait on the shelf—it seemed to be watching him ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... In his Tales there is too much coarseness, with too little care of language, and not sufficient rapidity of narration. His great work is his Chase, which he undertook in his maturer age, when his ear was improved to the approbation of blank verse, of which, however, his two first lines give a bad specimen. To this poem praise cannot be totally denied. He is allowed by sportsmen to write with great intelligence of his subject, which is the first requisite to excellence; and though it is impossible to interest the common readers of ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... knowingly, adopted a single expression, tending to warp the judgement of the learned or unlearned reader, in favour of my own hypothesis. I attempted this translation, chiefly because I could find no other equally close and literal. Even the Version of Roscommon, tho' in blank verse, is, in some parts a paraphrase, and in others, but an abstract. I have myself, indeed, endeavoured to support my right to that force and freedom of translation which Horace himself recommends; yet I have faithfully exhibited in our language several passages, ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace |
