"Bluff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eager and unselfish hopes of a noble service to be rendered to humanity, the generous soldier embarked with a picked company of one hundred and twenty emigrants, and on the 12th of February, 1733, landed at the foot of the bluff on which now stands the city of Savannah. The attractions of the genial climate and fertile soil, the liberal terms of invitation, and the splendid schemes of profitable industry were diligently advertised, and came to the knowledge of that noble young enthusiast, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... the present moment. Your bluff is perfect, yet there are moments when it cannot aid you, depend upon it. She told me one night long ago, in my own room, when she had disobeyed, defied, and annoyed me, that she would never rest until Sir Henry knew the truth, and that she would place before him proofs of the other ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... bluff, cheerful voice of Captain Spark. "Heave up the anchor, brace around the yards, for we've got a good wind, a free course ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... prate Of statute and state, We once held with these fellows— Here, on the flood's pale-green, Hark how he bellows, Each bluff old Sea-Lawyer! Talk to them, Dahlgren, ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... at this time riding into national leadership on a wave of expansionist enthusiasm. Buchanan and Palmerston mutually shook the stage thunder of verbal extravagance, but probably neither intended war. Poker was at this time the national American game, and bluff was a highly developed art. The American player won a partial victory. In 1856 Great Britain agreed to withdraw her protectorate over the Mosquitoes, to acknowledge the supremacy of Honduras over the Bay Islands, and to accept a reasonable interpretation ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... the 10th French Army and extending thence to the north of Arras. Probably the Germans imagined that this extension had weakened our lines at Ypres; and on 8 February they began a bombardment which developed into a fierce struggle for Hooge and The Bluff on the Ypres-Commines Canal. The ground lost was mostly recovered by counter-attacks on 2 and 27 March and 3 April, but it could not all be held against further German attacks later in the month. Similarly some gains on the Vimy Ridge in the middle of May were lost again on the 21st, and early ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... is, Violet!" answered Peony, in his bluff tone, but a very sweet tone, too,—as he came floundering through the half-trodden drifts. "Here is the snow for her little bosom. O, Violet, how beau-ti-ful she ...
— The Snow-Image - A Childish Miracle • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that broke the sheer face of the promontory, and he bounded once like a rubber ball, struck a second time, caught desperately at a solitary clump of ice-sheathed alders, crashed through the snow-crust just below them, and was held there like a mudlark in its cliff nest, halfway between bluff and river. ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... Dumont was just completing it when he died early in the previous spring. His widow went abroad to live with her daughter and her sister in Paris; so her son and his wife had taken it. It was a great rambling stone house that hung upon and in a lofty bluff. From its windows and verandas and balconies could be seen the panorama of Saint Christopher. To the left lay the town, its ugly part—its factories and railway yards—hidden by the jut of a hill. Beneath ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... pride, in his subtlety one, mocking England and God. Then tyranny's draught—once only—we drank to the dregs!—and the stain Went crimson and black through the soul of the land, for all time, not in vain! We bore the bluff many-wived king, rough rival and victor of Rome; We bore the stern despot-protector, whose dawning and sunset were gloom; For they temper'd the self of the tyrant with love of the land, Some touch of the heart, some remorse, refraining ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... for an hour, connecting and disconnecting, testing and listening and testing still again, before the right wire fell under his thumb. Then he listened intently, with a little start, for he knew he was reading an operator whose bluff, heavy, staccato "send" was as familiar to his long-practiced ear as a well-known face would be ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... old baggage will never be recovered after this war: that's certain. During a little after-dinner speech in a club not long ago I indulged in a pleasantry about excessive impedimenta. Lord Derby, Minister of War and a bluff and honest aristocrat, sat near me and he whispered to me—"That's me." "Yes," I said, "that's you," and the group about us made merry at the jest. The meaning of this is, they now joke about what was the most solemn thing in ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... Lords, Knights, 'Squires and Doctors, yet unborn; Or justly mad to Moloch's burning fane Devote the choicest children of his brain. 190 Judge for yourself; and as you find report. Of wit as freely as of beef or port. Zounds! shall a pert or bluff important wight, Whose brain is fanciless, whose blood is white; A mumbling ape of taste; prescribe us laws 195 To try the poets, for no better cause Than that he boasts per ann. ten thousand clear, Yelps in the House, or barely ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen
... women, came out the next morning with a three-quarter-page picture of a beautiful woman, labeled New Orleans, on a prancing steed named Progress, dashing over a chasm entitled Sanitary Neglect and Commercial Stagnation, to a bluff called A Greater City, while in one corner was a female angel with wings outspread, designated as Victory. The two-page ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... limitless prairie straight on in front of me. I walked for days, and slept at night wherever I could find a bluff. I could hear the little grasses whispering when I lay half-awake, and it was comforting to know that there were leagues and leagues of them between me and the city. I drove a team for a farmer most of that season. Then I went on to a track that they were strengthening and straightening ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... "Bluff!" Var read the words again, but he could make no other meaning from them. Did the fools expect him to believe their flippancy spelled confidence, or were they deceiving themselves? And the hint of surrender terms ...
— Victory • Lester del Rey
... us out of the sky. Suds, you know how he is. Strong bluff. Didn't bat an eye. Laughed at this Donnegan. Got a hold of an old pal of his, named Levine, and he is a mighty hot scrapper. From a knife to a toenail, they was nothing that Levine couldn't use in a fight. Suds sent him out ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... only in comparison with the stormy interview of the day before, when the Superintendent attacked me most fiercely. When I began the second interview by saying I wished to resign, he changed front altogether. It had been purely a game of bluff on his part. ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... more economical to do a thing well, he insisted from force of habit on having it scamped. Then he was almost happy, because he felt that he was doing someone down. If there were an architect superintending the work, Misery would square him or bluff him. If it were not possible to do either, at least he had a try; and in the intervals of watching, driving and bullying the hands, his vulture eye was ever on the look out for fresh jobs. His long red nose was thrust into every estate agent's office in the town in the ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... thought "the jig was up" then, for they had no intention whatever of harming Tato. It was all merely a bit of American "bluff," and it succeeded because the brigand was a coward, and dared not emulate his ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... on, in 1870, the country passed under the rule of Canada, and when the Government of Canada was established in the Province of Manitoba, which included the district of Assiniboia, the Sioux were found living quietly in tents, in the parishes of Poplar Point, High Bluff, and Portage la Prairie, in what became the new Province of Manitoba. Immigrants from Ontario, had begun to settle in that section of the Province, and ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... more reasons for an error in his conduct than one could well have imagined could have been rendered for anything done in life below. Another drawback in the case was, that one could never be very seriously angry with him. If more real than pretended at any time, his broad bright eye and bluff face, magnificently lifted up, like the sun on frost-work, melted down displeasure and threatened to betray all the policy depending on it; for in the main never a bit of ill heart had Colin, though doubtlessly he had in him, deeply established, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the upper parts, paler on the sides, dusky grey, with a tinge of yellowish-rufous on the under-parts; muzzle, feet, and tail flesh-coloured; ears of the same, but rather darker; head short and bluff; muzzle broad and deep; eye moderately large; ears moderate, rounded, clad with minute hairs; fur soft and moderately long, of three kinds, viz. short under-fur, ordinary hairs, and mixed with them, especially on the back and rump, numerous long black hairs ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... you're right and there's no time for argument. But when you said political exigency you said a whole lot—and we'll let this particular skunk cabbage go under that name. Don't try that law-and-order and state-authority bluff with me in such a case as this is. You're right in with the bunch and you know just as well as I do what the game is this time. Probably those folks outside there don't know what they want, but they do know that something is wrong! Something ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... 1759.—Of all the younger generals James Wolfe was foremost. To him was given the task of capturing Quebec. Seated on a high bluff, Quebec could not be captured from the river. The only way to approach it was to gain the Plains of Abraham in its rear and besiege it on the land side. Again and again Wolfe sent his men to storm the bluffs below the town. Every time they ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... old Earth is making about as poor a bluff at being Christmasy as I am. The leaves are all on the trees, many flowers are in bloom, and the scarlet geraniums are warm enough to melt the ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... He was a big, bluff fellow, to whose pride all that befell him seemed to minister. He was proud of his length of limb, and his hundred and eighty pounds of weight, and yet his slim appearance. "Ye wouldn't believe it now, would ye?" he was wont to say when he stepped off the scales at the store of the hamlet down ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... too foxy for that. But the only story he told was so foolish that we laughed at him, and he ain't had the nerve to try to bluff us ever since. He says that he was sitting peaceable with Armstrong when all at once without no warning they was a shot from the window—the east window, I remember he was particular to say—and Armstrong dropped forward on the table, ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... got them. They went off in a wagon that Tate made for his master, Bill Keller. We come to Tupelo, Mississippi from Mobile when I was a little bit of a girl. Then we made one crop and come to Helena. Uncle Tate died there and mama died at Crocketts Bluff. My papa died back in Mobile, Alabama. He was breaking a young horse and got throwed up side a tree. He didn't live ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... ready to take one. It was a fatal mistake to be too candid even with those who were all right—not to look and to talk prosperous, not at least to pretend that one had beautiful sales. To listen to her you would have thought the profession of letters a wonderful game of bluff. Wherever one's idea began it ended somehow in inspired paragraphs in the newspapers. "I pretend, I assure you, that you are going off like wildfire—I can at least do that for you!" she often declared, prevented as she was from doing much else by Mr. Highmore's insurmountable ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... from next morning's breakfast the Meadowcrofts sat next to us. Hilda was on one side of me; Lady Meadowcroft on the other; and beyond her again, bluff Yorkshire Sir Ivor, with his cold, hard, honest blue North Country eyes, and his dignified, pompous English, breaking down at times into a North Country colloquialism. They talked chiefly to each other. Acting on Hilda's instructions, ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... onything better than ane of her own fried chickens," said Dannie. "And its no true about hunters. We've the river on ane side, and the bluff on the other. If we keep up our fishing signs, and add hunting to them, and juist shut the other fellows out, the birds will come here like everything wild gathers in National Park, out West. Ye bet things know where they are taken care ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... other Member of Parliament who had not bent the knee to its occult omnipotence was to be run out of public life without cause assigned. All this while there was rumour and counter-rumour about Mr O'Brien's return. The Dillonites up to the last moment believed we were playing a game of bluff and went on right merrily with their preparations for making a clean sweep of every man who was "suspect" of possessing an independent mind. Then on one winter's night, shortly before the election writs were issued, the doubters and the ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... it, too. Well, let me see. How was it? Oh, yes! Lunch-time to-day it was, and your papa was smoking his cigar and looking out to sea all by himself. It was very quiet, with all the donkey-engines stopped and the men eating inside the walls. On the bluff beyond the fort I was sitting, with my feet hanging over the edge, and the mango-tree I've told you so often about was shading me from the sun. The wind was blowing just a wee mite, and every time the wind would blow ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... finger stiffened to send a bullet into Reid's brain, for he considered only that such depravity was its own warrant of death. But Reid was unarmed, and there was something in his attitude that seemed to disclose that it was a bluff. Joan ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... The bluff doctor insisted that the whole party come ashore and lunch with him. He had arranged for Polly's tuition at the Denton Academy, had bought her text-books, and when the party left for home that day he thrust into Polly Jolly's hand a silver chain purse with more money in it ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... to King Henry the Eighth, whom it has been too much the fashion to call 'Bluff King Hal,' and 'Burly King Harry,' and other fine names; but whom I shall take the liberty to call, plainly, one of the most detestable villains that ever drew breath. You will be able to judge, long before we come to the end of his life, whether ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... who was not to be moved from a fixed purpose as ever I saw. It was in vain that we all three talked to him and endeavoured to persuade him; he listened with that gentleness which went so well with his bluff bearing, but was evidently no more shaken by our representations that ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... guest from the bar parlor; he could not do so without entering into an explanation with its other tenants, which he was not prepared for, or without devising some excuse far beyond his powers. Notwithstanding his bluff ways, he could tell a lie without moving a muscle; but he was incapable of any such ambitious flight of deceit as the present state of affairs demanded. He had, indeed, no aptitude for social diplomacy of any kind, and suffered his change of feeling toward the young ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... one hundred and twenty-five versts up the Vaga River from its junction with the Dvina River. It is by far one of the most substantial and prosperous in the province of Archangel. It differs very materially from all the surrounding country in that it is located on good sandy soil on a high bluff overlooking the river and is comparatively dry, even in wet weather. It is quite a summer resort town, has a number of well constructed brick buildings, half a dozen or more schools, a seminary, monastery, saw mill, and in many others respects ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... mouth; but I felt my only chance was bluff, and walked steadily towards him. He turned again, and vanished into the dusk. Once more I thought I caught the glint of his eyes, and that ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... with me. It was this last thought, improbable as it surely was, which put me on my mettle. If that was has little scheme, and to my suspicion it looked like it, I was not unwilling to play a hand in the game. I might not hold trumps, yet I could bluff ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... I wonder whether he is in earnest about the divorce this time, or whether the whole scene was just bluff, to ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... mishap in no wise hindering him from following the allurements of the next fair object that fluttered across his path. He had heard of the wit and beauty of Kate Anderton, only daughter to Justice Anderton of Lostock Hall, a bluff and honest squire who spent his mornings in the chase and his evenings in the revel incident thereto; a man well looked upon by his less distinguished neighbours, being of a benevolent disposition, and much given to hospitality. Kate's ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... certificate all ready but the date! Let him get wind of this business, and you mark my words, Uncle Masterman will die in two days and be buried in a week. But see here, Johnny; what Michael can do, I can do. If he plays a game of bluff, so can I. If his father is to live for ever, by God, so ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... her. Just when she felt that she could not endure the strain another minute, grinding brakes, the blast of a huge Klaxon, and the sound of a great voice arose from the street. Eileen rushed to the window. She took one look, caught up the suitcase and raced down the stairs. At the door she met a bluff, big man, gross from head to foot. It seemed to Eileen strange that she could see in him even a trace of her mother, and yet she could. Red veins crossed his cheeks and glowed on his nose. His tired eyes were watery; his thick lips had an inclination to sag; but there was heartiness ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... at Washington, but it had done nothing to efface the memory of the Bull Run defeat. On the contrary, a practical blockade of the Potomac by rebel batteries on the Virginia shore, and another small but irritating defeat at Ball's Bluff, greatly heightened public impatience. The necessary surrender of Mason and Slidell to England was exceedingly unpalatable. Government expenditures had risen to $2,000,000 a day, and a financial crisis was imminent. Buell would not move into East Tennessee, and Halleck seemed powerless ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... "A bluff! Some of my friends secured that old unused van and wished to make the attempt. But I considered it impractical without the concurrence of a number of unusual circumstances. However, I found it useful to carry out that attempted escape and give ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... hands, close to his mouth. Evidently the pitcher intended to use the spit ball. Nevertheless, something warned Bart that Dale had turned the ball over and grasped the dry side. His pretense of trying a spit ball was all a bluff. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... Far West made slow progress. The dead and broken snags, the "sawyers" of river parlance, fast in the sand-bars, seemed waiting to impale the steamboat. The lead-man called unceasingly from his position. One bluff yielded to another, a flat succeeded to a grove where wild roses burst into riotous bloom, and over all lay the enchantment of the gay, ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... fast descending. Delia Prince went out to the corner of the house and shaded her eyes to look at the sunset. The white clouds turned to a flaming red, and the reflection dyed to crimson the surface of the creeks; the sun descended toward the wooded bluff that flanked the bay, sent a thousand shattered, dazzling rays through ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... it then, man. That's what a bluff is for. And you don't need the money in the pocket. This house is yours; your cellars are always full of expensive liquors; there is money in your till and something in your safe yet, I'll bet my ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... that relentless spirit, no one who is blessed with the ordinary amount of reasoning power looks for mercy even if it be promised. And Uncle Billy Rhodes did well to run his bluff down there in the willows by ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... of Uncle Bobbie's, gladly welcomed the young man, of whom his old partner, Wicks, had written so highly. When Dick left the train at Armourdale, a little village in the lead and zinc field, he was greeted at once by his host, a bluff, pleasant-faced, elderly gentleman, whom he liked at first sight, and who was completely captivated by his guest before they had ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... bordering the flood-plain, which is many miles wide. Then they bend to the south-west, and, abutting upon the lower Tapajos, merge into the bluffs which form the terrace margin of that river valley. The next high land on the north side is Obidos, a bluff, 56 ft. above the river, backed by low hills. From Serpa, nearly opposite the river Madeira, to near the mouth of the Rio Negro, the banks are low, until approaching Manaos, they are rolling hills; but from the Negro, for 600 m. as far up as the village of Canaria, at the great ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... any, Miss Marian. What I said about Virginia was mere bluff,—merely made an excursion or two on the Virginia side of the ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... in the obscurity, the pioneers soon found a sheltered nook close under the bluff, and built their fire and made their camp very near the spot where a little wharf now lies, and where generation after generation of their children has stood to meditate, to dream, to drink in the glory of summer seas and skies, or beneath the August moon to whisper in each others ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... plantations were Conacanarra, Feltons, Looking Glass, Montrose, Polenta, and Barrows, besides a large body of land in the counties of Jones and Hyde. His residence was at Conacanarra, where the dwelling stood upon a bluff commanding a fine view of the Roanoke river, and, with the pretty house of the head overseer, the small church, and other minor buildings, looked like a small village beneath ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... am damned!" the politician remarked, with unwitting veracity. "Did the dern Dago bluff me, does he want more, er did he reely didn't un'erstand fer honest?" Then, as he took up his way, crossing the street at the warning of some red and green smallpox lanterns, "I'll git those seven votes, though, someway. I'm out fer a record this ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... occupations. As he passed the house, the negroes all suspended operations, and stared at him till he was out of sight. He soon reached the Gap; but he had advanced only a short distance before he discovered a battery of light artillery stationed on a kind of bluff, and whose guns commanded ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... of the Red Cross men had papers or passes. What was to be done? We were conniving at an almost unlawful expedition, and Jan was very doubtful if we could cross the Montenegrin frontier. But after a consultation we decided to bluff it into Montenegro if necessary, and then telegraph to Cettinje ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... in more leisurely fashion now, and soon reached the foot of a high grassy bluff on the left-hand side of the river. They climbed the steep slope here, and so weary were they that that night they did not put up the tents at all, but lay down, each wrapped in his blanket, as soon as they had completed ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... holding his seat by leaving a pile of chips at the place. When he cashed in his winnings and went downstairs it was still early. As a card-player he was not popular. He was too keen on the main chance and he nearly always won. In spite of his loud and frequent laugh, of the effect of bluff geniality, there was no genuine humor in the man, none of ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... native cheekiness faded into most unwonted humility. For he was increasingly conscious of being, to put it vulgarly "up against something pretty big." Conscious of a personality altogether too secure of its own power to spread itself or, in the smallest degree, bluff or brag. Sir Charles Verity struck him, indeed, as calm to the confines of cynicism. He gave, but gave of his abundance, royally indifferent to the cost. There was plenty more where all this came from, of knowledge, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... our way down past the intervening barriers of water and wood, and were walking on the fjord shore. Rounding a bluff, we had suddenly opened out a small cutter of some six-and-twenty or thirty tons, riding to her anchor in the mouth of the river. One concluded that she was a yacht, as she was flush-decked, and had a skylight instead of a cargo-hatch amidships; but her lines were a good deal ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... inspected by the new G.O.C. of the Division, Major-General Fanshawe, enjoyed the sun, and endured a violent thunderstorm. Thence returning to the wood we sampled White Lodge, the Warwick's home under the steep wooded bluff of Hill 63, where the rats made merry among the dirt and unburied food; also La Plus Douce, a pastoral but dangerous spot, where the Douve flowed muddily amidst neglected water-meadows stretching along to Wulverghem with its battered ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... of the bluff he took a survey of the great bay, a couple of figures crossing the strand in the distance arrested his attention; he reined in his horse behind a clump of bushes ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... this is a bluff game, intended to deceive me," said Vernon, showing symptoms of anger. "I can assure you that it will ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... as it rustled and roared through the dark woods lining the shore, and then it would pipe afar off as if a reserve were advancing to aid in holding the ground already occupied; anon the echo of a force would be heard close in by the bluff bordering the stream, and in a moment more, it was sweeping with all its strength and pride of power down the broad surface of the glittering ice, as if the rightfulness of its invasion scorned resistance. Sullen old winter with his frosty beard and snow-wreathed ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... Ben, my boy," said the bluff old fellow. "Sometimes not too much to eat either, except fish and biscuit, and not much room to sleep in when you turn in to your hard wooden bunk and pull a rough blanket over you to ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... really believe that Lupin is coming to-night?" said the Duke, with a sceptical laugh. "The whole thing is sheer bluff—he has no more intention of coming tonight to steal that ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... jungle of over-hanging willows and littered with a spoil of leaves; departing from these "points" she regularly crossed the river every five miles, avoiding the "bight" of the great binds and thus escaping the strong current; sometimes she went out and skirted a high "bluff" sand-bar in the middle of the stream, and occasionally followed it up a little too far and touched upon the shoal water at its head—and then the intelligent craft refused to run herself aground, but "smelt" the bar, ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... 'Poplar Avenue! That's a street to live on! It only runs two blocks and then falls off a bluff. You can throw a keg of nails the whole length of it. Don't talk to me ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... Yokohama for a week to visit Dr. and Mrs. Hepburn on the Bluff. Bishop and Mrs. Burdon of Hong Kong were also guests, and ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... Secretary, smiling, glanced at his watch. "A quarter to nine!" he said. "He has fifteen minutes in which to make good his bluff. But I do not ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... which contains 783/4 per cent, of silica, and l73/4 per cent, of alumina; from this clay is made the delicate, translucent eggshell ware, without the addition of any other matter. From an adjoining bluff a clay is taken which has 50 per cent, of silica, and 38 per cent, of alumina; from this ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... jutting spur of a bluff a horde of shadows sweep forth upon the open prairie towards the trail on which the solitary rider has disappeared. Here and there among them swift gleams, like silver streaks, are plainly seen, as the moonbeams glint on ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... twenty stalwarth natives and a priest, who had taken high orders, such an one being held necessary to the safety of the expedition. Well, they descried the island, and having landed, found the bones of the priest and Matura in a cave, on the side of a steep bluff. And when these were brought home, the people of Kalorama went into deep mourning, and had them buried with great ceremony in a grove of cocoanut trees, where all girls of tender years were taught to go at early morning and lay offerings of flowers ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... the wheel. "Get your anchor up, Han. Give him a hand, someone. Wink, open a box of those cartridges and load the revolvers, will you? But keep them out of Perry's way! All right now. Settle down, fellows, and we'll try a bluff." ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Billy bade her a bluff and friendly farewell, and he was practically driven from the room by Isabel; who then returned to her charge, gathered her close in her arms, and sat with her so, rocking her gently till ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... a flight of wooden stairs, leading somewhere into the club. It was our last chance, or we should indeed be obliged to stay all night in some bin; for it would not be long before they searched the cellars. If this flight led into the kitchen, we were saved, for I could bluff the servants. We paused. Presently we ascended, side by side, with light but firm step. We reached the landing in front of the door without mishap. From somewhere came a puff of air which blew out the candle. I struck a match viciously against the wall—-and blundered into a string ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... falling behind. The train hooted its defiance as it swept down toward Woody Point. The girls shot in toward the shore, where the shadow of the high bluff lay ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... course he had adopted, the party and their adventurous leader on the 3rd of August, at 11 o'clock a.m., rounded a high bluff cape, which they called after the lady of Sir John Henry Pelly, Bart., Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. It is situated in latitude 67 deg. 28' 00" north; longitude, by ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... journey wherever chance might lead me. As confidence came, my enjoyment increased. I began to believe I could take care of myself. I reasoned out that, as the peaks were snow-capped, I should find water, and very likely game, up higher. Moreover, I might climb a foothill or bluff from which I could get ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... 'round, the sailors did vigorous Indian club exercises with their paddles. The grass in the little yard and the tall hollyhocks in the beds at its sides swayed and bowed and nodded. Beyond, seen over the edge of the bluff and stretching to the horizon, the blue and white waves leaped and danced and sparkled. As a picture of movement and color and joyful bustle the scene was inspiring; children, viewing it for the first time, almost invariably ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Demorest, dryly; "but if people choose to believe this bluff gotten up by the petty thieves themselves to increase their importance and secure their immunity—they can. But here's Manuel to tell ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... June, 1769, the figure of a stalwart, broad shouldered man could have been seen standing on the wild and rugged promontory which rears its rocky bluff high above the Ohio river, at a point near the mouth of Wheeling Creek. He was alone save for the companionship of a deerhound that crouched at his feet. As he leaned on a long rifle, contemplating the glorious scene that stretched before him, a smile ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... be afraid! Nobody'll getcha here! I know how to bluff 'em. Even if a policeman should come after yeh, I'd get around him somehow, and I don't care what you've done or ain't done, I'll stand by yeh. I'm not one to turn against anybody in distress. My mother always taught me that. After you've et a bite and had a cup of my nice tea with cream and sugar ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... rushing torrents—drenched to the skin, on she passed toward the railroad to the well remembered foot-log, only to find the waters rushing along high above and beyond the place where it had been. Then she thought of the great bluff rising to the west of her home and extending southward toward the railroad track, and she determined to ascend it and reach the bridge over this barrier to the waters. Need I recount how she struggled on and up through the thick oak undergrowth, that, being storm-laden ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... instant, as they went on, they were face to face with the big bluff engine-driver, who ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... boldly into the light, and no more shots were fired at them. They ran up the slope to the crest of the bluff, leaped over a fresh earthwork, and fell among a crowd of soldiers in blue. Dick quickly raised himself to his feet, and saw soldiers about him, many of them wounded, all of them weary and drawn. Others were hard at work with pick and spade, and from ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... a very consequential speech, and, to tell the truth, it was what in the girl's own country would be termed pure "bluff," but to Captain Stewart it rang harsh and loud with evil significance, and he went out of that room cold at heart. What plans were they perfecting among them? What invisible nets for ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... July the Union forces were routed at Bull Run with terrific loss of life and many wounded. Two months later the battle of Ball's Bluff occurred, in which there were three Massachusetts regiments engaged, with many of Clara Barton's lifelong friends among them. By this time the hospitals and commissaries in Washington had been well ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... suggestions in regard to the different rivers along the coast, and gave vivid descriptions of the last previous trip up the St. Mary's undertaken by Captain Stevens, U.S.N., in the gunboat Ottawa, when he had to fight his way past batteries at every bluff in descending the narrow and rapid stream. I was warned that no resistance would be offered to the ascent, but only to our return; and was further cautioned against the mistake, then common, of underrating the courage of the Rebels. "It proved impossible to dislodge those fellows from the ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... it. To a few—very few—it matters—but in most cases unfaithfulness is not a psychological thing at all; it is simply a temporary excess like getting drunk—squalid, if you like—but not touching your real relationships. Women bluff a lot on the subject and many are fools. They believe in the same law for both sexes. It is a ridiculous fallacy. Only Edmond was different. He loved women—psychologically. He was therefore inconstant, which is the real sin against ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... BLUFF. But? Look you here, boy, here's your antidote, here's your Jesuits' powder for a shaking fit. But who hast thou got with thee? is he of mettle? [Laying his ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... in the morning of Sunday the 18th we made sail, and at noon, being about two miles from the shore, Cape Froward bore N. by E. a bluff point N.N.W. and Cape Holland W. 1/2 S. Our latitude at this place, by observation, was 54 deg. 3' S. and we found the streight to be about six miles wide. Soon after I sent a boat into Snug Bay, to lie at the anchoring-place, but the wind ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... had reached a higher spot of bluff than the rest, Wharton, who was an active rather than an athletic man, challenged me to follow him. He made the leap having little space to spare. I had not done such a thing for some years. But my boyhood had been one of daring. The school in which I had grown up had given ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... weather set fair, and but for the sea-mist the power of the sun would have been enough to dazzle all beholders. Already this vapour was beginning to clear off, coiling up in fleecy wisps above the glistening water, but clinging still to any bluff or cliff ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... He enters: a bluff stern warrior, in his undress, that is, without his panoply of armour and arms, in the long flowing robe affected by his Norman kindred at the festal board. She, with the comely robe which had superseded ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... foreigners, the hatred of all metaphysics as inconsistent with common sense, the desire to let things be on the ground that the effort after change is worse than the evil of which men complain. His Treatise on Civil Government (1781) is in many ways a delightful book, bluff, hardy, full of common sense, with, at times, a quaint humor that is all its own. He had really two objects in view; to deal, in the first place, faithfully with the American problem, and, in the second, ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... meagre information about the A. R. U. convention. One day there was a meeting in which a committee of the Pullman strikers set forth their case. At the close of that meeting the great boycott had been declared. "Mere bluff," said the newspapers. But the managers of the railroads "got together." Some of them had already cut the wage lists on their roads. They did not feel sure ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... High Bluff, Manitoba, in 1880. Two months later his father continued his journey west to Shoal Lake, Manitoba, where he took up a homestead. Received his education partly at the village school, partly from the Anglican clergyman who ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... opposed to the conclusions upon which it broadened. One secret of the belief in his love of his country was the readiness of Rockney's pen to support our nobler patriotic impulses, his relish of the bluff besides. His eye was on our commerce, on our courts of Law, on our streets and alleys, our army and navy, our colonies, the vaster than the island England, and still he would be busy picking up needles and threads ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... soon be around again," said the captain in his bluff, cheery way; "Ma'amselle Labesse has crossed with me many times, and though she usually succumbs for two or three days, she is a good sailor after that. She is passionately fond of music, too, and when she is about again ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... a creek which ran through a forest of scattered juniper trees. The plateau rose in two gentle slopes to a height of about five or six hundred feet above the valley level, and was thus half as high as the bluff to the westward, which formed the base of the semi-circle. Near the northern part of the plateau the rocks were elevated in a series of irregular broken peaks, like the jagged ice hummocks of the higher latitudes. The whole plateau was covered ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... may never have to re-live the horrors of the next hour. In spite of my bluff and hearty ways, in times of trouble I am as reticent as a clam. I was determined to hide my agony and anxiety from the well-meaning people of the Moose Hotel. I hurried to the railway station to send a telegram to the Professor's address in Brooklyn, but ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... fourteen years old, the Princess Woo was missing from the Nestorian mission-house, by the Yellow River. Her troubled guardian, in much anxiety, set out to find the truant; and, finally, in the course of his search, climbed the high bluff from which he saw the massive walls, the many gateways, the gleaming roofs, and porcelain towers of the Imperial city of ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... expected every man to do his duty. Forward the Light Brigade, and so on to where glory and an express train were waiting, or would be waiting, before you had time to knock a tenpenny nail on the head twice. The company on the platform comprised the elite of the sporting world. "Bluff" TOMMY POPPIN, the ever courteous host of "The Chequers," "BILL" TOOTWON, by his friends yclept the Masher, JAKE RUMBELO, the middle-weight World's Champion, were all there, wreathed in silvery smiles, and all on the nod, on the nod, on the nod, as the poet hath it, though why "hath it" ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... and threw two tons of rocks every day, and he has no idea how many tons the six families of Patmos heaved at and after the goats. When they weren't going headfirst into barrels of water they were chewing something not meant to be chewed. Casey asserts that it is all a bluff about goats eating tin cans. They don't. He says they never touched a can all the while he had them. He says devastated Patmos wished they would, and leave the two-dollar lace curtains alone, and clotheslines and water barrels and baggage. He says many a party ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... brakeman heard the leader tell his men to make for the south trail. That was either bluff—or a mistake. They sometimes make mistakes, and that's how we get our chances. The south trail is the road into Rocky Springs. Rocky Springs is twenty-two miles from White Point. They've probably had an hour's start with a heavily loaded ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... to resent Charlton's manner—bluff, unceremonious, candid, at times rude. He treated women exactly as he treated men, and he treated all men as intimates, free and easy fellow travelers afoot upon a dusty, vulgar highway. She had found charm in that manner, so natural to the man of no pretense, of splendid physical proportions, ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... frequently described is that known as the Basket trick, which is in my opinion the chef d'oeuvre of the Indian Jadoo-wallah. It is a wonderful bluff ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... Jove would cuff, He's so bluff, For a straw. Cowed deities, Like mice in cheese, To stir ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... bluff of a democratic crusade must be called, so must the knight-leader of the crusade be exposed to the critical eyes of the world. Here was the President, suddenly elevated to the position of a world leader with the almost pathetic trust ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... was a fortress in Bessarabia, captured from the Turks by Suvorov in 1790, after a peculiarly bloody siege. (Byron chose this episode for treatment in Don Juan, cantos vii and viii.) Mickiewicz makes Rykov give the name as Izmailov; Rykov is a bluff soldier, not a ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... a prettier place than this as we beheld it by the morrow's light. The house stands on a high bluff, worthy the name of hill, which slopes steeply but greenly down to the South Prong of Black Creek, better deserving the name of river than many a stream which boasts the designation. We crossed it upon a boom, pausing midway in sudden astonishment ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... which you know nothing, learn to conduct the conversation so that you abstract the necessary enlightenment from the questioner himself (while appearing to be perfectly conversant with what he is talking about), and, if possible, get him to suggest the answer to his own conundrum. In other words, bluff as in poker (which I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... blue, heaving water, passes slowly round an open-hearted, good-tempered-looking pulley, five feet in diameter, aft past a vicious nipper, to bring all up should anything go wrong, through a gentle guide on to a huge bluff drum, who wraps him round his body, and says, "Come you must," as plain as drum can speak; the chattering pauls say, "I've got him, I've got him; he can't come back," whilst black cable, much slacker and easier in mind and body, is taken by a slim V-pulley and passed down into the huge ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... without a trace of the same sea-taste that had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front was in the likeness of a ship's bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Reventlow and the other naval writers began to refer to everything President Wilson did as a "bluff." When Col. E. M. House came to Berlin early in 1916, he tried to impress the officials with the fact that Mr. Wilson was not only not bluffing, but that the American people would support him in whatever he did in dealing with ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... of rock and flashed away in a gleaming line of foam, a horseman appeared bending low in the saddle for better protection against the storm. He rode along the edge of the stream on the farther bank, opposite the steep bluff on the northern side, forcing his wounded and jaded horse to keep fetlock deep in the water which swirled and sucked about its legs. He was trying his hardest to hide his trail. Lower down the hard, rocky ground extended to the water's edge, and if he could delay his pursuers for ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... me," he said sternly. "Your bluff and bluster won't do you any good. I am going to hand you over to the authorities, and that is all there is to it. You've got to behave yourself and stop threatening me, or I'll give you something ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... live through it. They usually do, and don't lose many meals at that. I think he's running a bluff, myself." ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... fine, handsome young man, and—no offence, miss—it would not be a great honour for my little maid to have his love or the likelihood of it—and out of temptation is out of danger, miss, and if so be I do speak plain and bluff, you will not put it down against me, ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... afford to let his people think that he was afraid. The man who, dwelling alone among Malays in an unsettled country, shows the slightest trace of fear, signs his own death-warrant. No people are more susceptible to 'bluff,' and, given a truculent bearing, and a sufficiency of bravado, a coward may pass for a brave man ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... angrily, and old Neb, who had listened, stepped quickly up to him. "Marse Frank," he pleaded, "don' yo' let dat white-trash bluff yo'!" The old darkey's voice was tremulous, his eyes were moist with feeling for his humiliated master. A great resolve thrilled through him. "See heah, honey, I's be'n sabin' all mah life. I's got a pile o' money in de bank. Take ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... may well be significant. He was married to a wife who evidently lacked refinement, and who appears in the drama almost in the relation of a servant to Desdemona. His manner was that of a blunt, bluff soldier, who spoke his mind freely and plainly. He was often hearty, and could be thoroughly jovial; but he was not seldom rather rough and caustic of speech, and he was given to making remarks somewhat ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... in due time reached, and the procession of stages whirled along the narrow street beneath the bluff, swaying heavily with the irregularities of the road. The steamboats lay at India Point, just below the town, where immense quantities of wood were piled up, for each boat consumed between thirty and forty cords on a ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... before her mother. "Fifteen o' them every month! See the pictures that's on it, of the two grand old men. See the fine chin-whiskers on His Nibs here! Ain't it a pity he can't write his name, Ma, and him President of the Bank, and just has to make a bluff at it like this. Sure, and isn't that enough to drive any girl out to teach school, to see to it that bank presidents get a chance to learn to write. Bank presidents always come from the country; I'll be having a row of them at Purple Springs—I'm sure. They ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung |
