"Curt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... efforts, was unable to ingratiate himself in the eyes of the population. Most of the people had resented the signature of the Union of Brussels, and when the negotiations with the Northerners broke off and Don Juan asked for troops to fight them, he met with a curt refusal. Alarmed by this veiled hostility and exasperated by his protracted negotiations with Orange, Don Juan shut himself up in the fortress of Namur and recalled the Spanish troops. Nothing better could have happened from the point of view ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... signalers' room all the fluctuations of the fight were translated from the pulsing fever, the human living tragedies and heroisms, the violent hopes and fears and anxieties of the battle line, to curt cold words, to scribbled letters on a message form. At times these messages were almost meaningless to them, or at least their red tragedy was unheeded. Their first thought when a message was handed in for transmission, usually their first ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... curt nod, and departed, in nonchalant good-humour, doubtless considering that to accompany his chum any farther would be to be guilty of girlish sentimentality. And Edwin nodded with equal curtness and made off slowly into the maze ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... repeated and amplified by the waiting-maid, naturally brought a favorable answer. It was a decisive moment for the double ambition hidden in Fraisier's mind. Bold as a petty provincial attorney, sharp, rough-spoken, and curt as he was, he felt as captains feel before the decisive battle of a campaign. As he went into the little drawing-room where Amelie was waiting for him, he felt a slight perspiration breaking out upon his forehead and down his ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... exact shape and height of the bedsteads used by the early colonists, I find no accurate nor very suggestive descriptions. The terms used in wills, inventories, and letters seem too vague and curt to give us a correct picture. What was the "half-headed bedstead" left with "Curtaince & Valance of Dornix" by will by Simon Eire in Boston in 1658? Or, to give a fuller description of a similar one in the sale of furniture of the King's Arms in ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... jail, of punishment, of something final, of absolute judgment. Also it suggests the courtyard of a tenement house, an alleyway or something shut in and confined. The philology is from the old French cort or curt. It is curious that it means something narrow. There are the suggestions of the lists, of heralds, of trumpets, of banners and knights in armor, of prancing steeds, of fair ladies watching, of joust, tournaments, and trials by battle. There is something royal about the word. We think of ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... response at first, just a little convulsive clenching of the hand, an accentuated movement of the shoulder. Then, "I have time enough," was the low, curt answer, face still averted. ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... become smaller and darker, and when Lubov saw him in this state it appeared to her that he was seriously ill, but that he was forcing and restraining himself. Mutely and nervously the old man flung himself about the room, casting in reply to his daughter's questions, dry curt words, and finally ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... bitter, and the reopened wound throbs and burns. Carew strode up to his hut, with only a curt good night to the trooper, and when Stanley arrived back there was no light ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... with a sort of disgusted relief that the blow he had himself suffered from this panting, writhing maenad had somehow changed the situation and that he was an object of horrified sympathy. Mercifully, the room was scantily filled, for it was early, and his curt explanation was accepted in ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... his last interview with Truda fresh in his recollection, asked curt questions. He was a man of direct mind. In less time than one might have supposed from the condition of poor Vaucher, he had elicited some outstanding facts—the note which Truda had sent to the Jewish quarter among them. The keeper of the stage- door added the little he knew. Prince Sarasin ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... this species was entered as P. obrusseum following the Polish text. Miss Lister who has the type of Didymium obrusseum at hand considers it as representing a phase of Physarum polycephalum Schw. D. tenerrimum Berk. & Curt. is judged the same. P. tenerum Rex is, in any event, certain, ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... that cap'n's stateroom alone, even in broad daylight; but 'twan't there the secret of her lay; there wan't nothin' in there to scare anybody. She was trimmed up, I tell you, just elegant. Real mahogany, none of your veneerin', but the real stuff; lace curt'ins to the berth, lace on the pillows, and a satin coverlid, rumpled up as though the cap'n had just turned out; and there was his slippers handy—the greatest-lookin' slippers for a man you ever ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... ensured the success of the program beyond possible dispute. It started with curt conversation between Jones and the pilot, Al—Jones loathed this part of it, but Al turned out to be something of a ham—on the problems of approaching a new solar system. Cut to computers back on Earth. Back to the control-room of the starship. Pictures of the local sun, ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... in using the French language, he had a decided brusqueness of manner and a curt turn of voice not in the least Gallic. True, the soft Virginian intonation marked every word, and his obeisance was as low as if Madame Roussillon had been a queen; but the light French grace was ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... formality as a relief, after awhile she came to think it a little overstrained. It looked as if he thought that she was childishly afraid of him. That seemed absurd. One day, as they met, and with his usual courteously curt salutation he was passing by, she observed that it was delightful weather. As her eye caught his start of surprise, and the expression of almost overpowering pleasure that passed over his face at her words, she blushed. She unquestionably blushed ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... Courbevoie the widow was taken to the office of Mace. There the commissary informed her that she must consider herself under provisional arrest. "But who," she asked indignantly, "is to look after my Georges?" "His family," was the curt reply. The widow, walking up and down the room like a panther, stormed and threatened. When she had in some degree recovered herself, Mace asked her certain questions. Why had she insisted on her lover ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... I got rather belligerent myself. It was just a week after I came. One of his new tenants phoned in that Nesbitt must get the rubbish out of the alley back of his house or he would move out. Mr. Nesbitt tried to evade a promise, but the man was curt. 'You get that rubbish out to-day, or I ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... Yeager low but imperative. Automatically his hands went into the air even as he slewed his head to find out who was voicing the curt command. A rope dropped over his arms and was jerked tight just below the knees. Very cautiously a man emerged from behind a clump of cholla. The first thing he did was to remove the automatic revolver from the cowpuncher's ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... time he remained quite quiet; but when the minutes lengthened into a quarter of an hour he began to fidget. Would the talkers never stop? Why, their chattering seemed to be endless? Even through the door he could hear Mr. Crowninshield's curt tones and the eager rise and fall of his voice. Once he laughed as if pleased, and twice Walter heard a cry of "Good!" When he did appear on the piazza his face was ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... thousands of staring faces or of the millions throughout the world who were watching him and were hearing his words. Chet Bullard clipped those words into curt phrases, and he shot them at his superior officer as if ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... the red-hot lava was always on the flow. The anti-slavery men were like anthracite in the furnace,—red hot,—white hot,—clear through. I have little doubt that the sharpness and ruggedness of my writing is due, in some degree, to the curt, sharp statements of that period. When men were feeling so intensely, and speaking with a force and earnestness unknown in these later years, a reporter would insensibly take on something of the spirit of the hour, otherwise his reports would be limp and lifeless. I was induced ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... from Bond Moore in a manner which was peremptory in the extreme. Bond Moore knew no more of French than he did of Turkish, but my interpreter having explained the position, the Pasha turned round upon the complainant and, after a few curt and angry questions, set about him with the malacca cane until he roared: "Amaan, Eccellenza, amaan!" (which, being interpreted, is "have pity,") and finally took to his heels and ran for it with the irate little Pasha in full cry ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... doubt and curiosity and suspicion at a new-comer, with an obvious disposition to hope and believe that others knew more of the matter than they, and thus were more liable to accusation. Occasionally, a low-toned, husky query would be met by a curt rejoinder suggesting a cautious reticence and a rising enmity, blockading all investigation save the obligatory inquisition of a coroner's jury. An object of ever-recurrent scrutiny was a stranger in the vicinity, who had been ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... no great breadth. Here the driver stopped, and the two travellers descended from the vehicle. The priest exchanged a few words in a low voice with one of the servants who had leapt down from the box, and then turning to Vellacott he said in a curt manner— ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... I was not to be taken to the torture chamber. The night was dark, but I could tell that we were leaving the Bastille. Where were we going? I addressed myself to the officer, but received only a curt ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... first letter, hundreds of the second, I wrote with painful care, pen carefully chosen, the one-inch margin down the left hand side of the paper first portioned off with dots. To three or four I received a curt reply, instructing me to call. But the shyness that had stood so in my way during the earlier half of my school days had now, I know not why, returned upon me, hampering me at every turn. A shy child grown-up folks at all events can understand and forgive; but a shy young man ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... bottled beer in the house." "What could we have for dinner?" inquired one, rather amused at this Hobson's choice state of affairs. "The eatables was only cold meat; and they couldn't cook nothink fresh," was the curt reply. "Can we sleep here?" "Yes—under your drays." As we literally determined to "camp out" on the journey, we passed on, without partaking of their "cold eatables," or availing ourselves of their permission to sleep under our own drays, and, leaving the road to Sydney on our right, ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... the whole situation. The mystery in it, after all, if there was any mystery, was one of my own making. To ask a man who had been dining with you to come to your lodging was neither a suspicious nor an unusual thing. Besides, while he had been often brusque, and at times curt, he had shown me nothing but kindness, and had ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... President's family toward Mr. Justice Hughes, and at the Sayre wedding, held in the White House, one of Justice Hughes' sons had played a prominent part. Owing to the personal feelings of friendship of the whole Wilson family for Mr. Hughes, the curt character of the Justice's letter of resignation to the President deeply wounded the President and the members of his family who had been Mr. Hughes' stout ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... her than if they had never been reunited, especially as another and irreparable loss came upon her immediately after his departure. This was the sudden death of her mother, the news of which arrived one day in a curt note written by her father to Colonel Colquhoun, no previous intimation of illness having been sent to break the shock of the announcement. I can never be thankful enough for the happy chance which ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... cryptic, that is, to any one except Mrs. Brewster and you who have owned an attic. Thus "H's Fshg Tckl" jabberwocked one long, slim box. Another stunned you with "Cur Ted Slpg Pch." A cabalistic third hid its contents under "Sip Cov Pinky Rm." To say nothing of such curt yet intriguing fragments as "Blk Nt Drs" and "Sun Par Val." Once you had the code key they translated themselves simply enough into such homely items as Hosey's fishing tackle, canvas curtains for Ted's ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... coward; and I mentally concluded that he must really have been suffering from shell shock or he would never have left his post as he did, and I sincerely hoped that he would in some way get through. The evidence was short and conclusive and the verdict was curt and decisive:—"held in close confinement for general field court martial at Steenwercke, May 12." And Scotty was led out looking as if he hadn't a friend in the world; there was very little sympathy ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... He had a strange expression on his face. At the moment they were already within the Huk home-planet's atmosphere. From time to time a heavily accented voice gave curt instructions. It was a Huk voice, telling Patrolman Willis how to guide the squad ship to ground where—under truce—Sergeant Madden might hold ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... goods department and have the porters knocking against him. He was always in the way. And when he tried to talk to her as she sat at her desk with the penholder behind her ear, she interrupted him with a curt: ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... impression of being what country folk call a crusty person—curt and forbidding in manner—seems pretty well established. His friend Alcott says he was deficient in the human sentiments. Emerson, who, on the whole, loved and admired him, says: "Thoreau sometimes appears only as a gendarme, good to knock down ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... and very cold in the presence of strangers. His superior and somewhat bored attitude, not exactly relieved by his curt, dry laugh, awakened, at a first meeting, a serious antipathy which he sometimes justified by venomous words, by meaningless silences, by unspoken innuendoes. He was respected and feared at Chantelouve's, but when one came to know him ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... confiding his doubts to Mr. Revelstoke, the bank president, but he had a dread of that gentleman's curt conclusions and remembered his injunction to "hang on to his trust." Since his installation, Mr. Revelstoke had merely acknowledged his presence by a good-humored nod now and then, although Randolph had an instinctive feeling that he was perfectly informed as to his progress. ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... away in that manner, has not the smallest humour to fire! At five o'clock this morning, as he lay dreaming, oblivious in the Ecole Militaire, a 'figure' stood suddenly at his bedside: 'with face rather handsome; eyes inflamed, speech rapid and curt, air audacious:' such a figure drew Priam's curtains! The message and monition of the figure was, that resistance would be hopeless; that if blood flowed, wo to him who shed it. Thus spoke the figure; and vanished. 'Withal there was a kind of eloquence ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Galician campaign that when our troops, after sweeping away the resistance at Lwow and Jaroslau, loudly knocked at the doors of the fortress of Przemysl, they met with a stern rebuff. In reply to the summons of the Russians to surrender the keys the commandant wrote a curt and dignified note remarking that he considered it beyond his own dignity or the dignity of the Russian General to discuss the surrender of the fortress before it had exhausted all its powers of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... wood, leaning on the arm of her partner, a tall, vigorous farm servant, whose Christian name was Tiennou, which, by the way, was the only name he had borne from his birth. For he was entered on the register of births with this curt note: Father and mother unknown; he having been found on St. Stephen's Day under a shed on a farm, where some poor, despairing wretch had abandoned him, perhaps even without turning her head round to look ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... time there had been two superintendents at the academy. The first was Captain C.K. Stribling, a fine seaman of the old school, of rigid Presbyterian stock, stern, grim, and precise, with curt manners, sharp and incisive voice that seemed to know no softening, and whose methods of duty and conception of discipline smacked of the "true blue" ideal of the Covenanters of old in their enforcement of obedience and conservation of morals. The second was Captain L.M. Goldsborough, a man ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... face made a striking contrast with his raven hair. His heavy head was thrust forward, his big hands clenched. He spoke in an oddly, curt, dry voice, which, however did not hide the feeling that ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... very gratefully, for he realized that the curt manner was merely that of an excessively busy man with a thousand things on his mind. A moment later, he found himself in the shut-in office ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... was morbidly sensitive, always imagining insults. Polly was curt and businesslike. The two departments were for ever at war, and Paul was always finding Fanny in tears. Then he was made the recipient of all her woes, and he had to plead her case ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... door to the unrepentant and unashamed General, had cut him in the Club, had returned a rudely curt answer to an invitation to dinner, and had generally shown the offender that he trod on dangerous ground when poaching on the preserves of Mr. Dearman. Whereat ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... hear this respect paid to his master, but Rodriguez was so surprised that he who was never curt without reason found no ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... document produced little effect here, for the ispravnik appeared to regard himself as beyond the reach of even the Tsar's Viceroy, which, indeed, from an inaccessible point of view, he undoubtedly was. "You cannot possibly go," was the curt rejoinder to my request for dogs and drivers to convey us to the Bering Straits. "In the first place, a famine is raging here and you will be unable to procure provisions. Stepan tells me that you have barely enough food with you to last for two weeks, ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... finished, he shrugged his shoulders, gave a short laugh, and, glancing at the clock, went off in his curt, purposeful manner. ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... paper was sent to the President by Gen. Pickett, recommending Gen. Roger A. Pryor for a cavalry command in North Carolina. But the President sent it to the Secretary of War with the curt remark that the command had already been disposed of to Col. Dearing, on Gen. Hoke's recommendation. Thus Gen. P. is again whistled down the wind, in spite of the efforts of even Mr. Hunter, and many other leading politicians. It is possible ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... the girl answered, simply. There was an infinite honesty, an unalterable loyalty, in the curt words. ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... to speak to Kesby when he passed his open office door. Kesby didn't need smiles or praise, he worked loyally just for the rare curt acknowledgement that he had done well. Three years of managing had made him a good lieutenant, completely faithful. When Bryce quit Union Transport ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... FRIEND:—In reply to your question as to what the religious views of the Brook Farmers are, I might, if I wished to be curt, say that they are such as you see by their lives. I am aware, however, that such a reply will not exactly suit you, and that you really mean what are their creeds, as, are they all Baptists, Trinitarians, Unitarians, or what not? And I answer you that I find here ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... She was so touched by his curt story, and by the grotesquerie of his appearance in the faint light from the exterior lamp which lit the dial of the taximeter, that she lost control of herself. And the man gave a sob, or possibly it was only a gulp to hide a sob. And she leaned against him in her thin garments. And ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... answered Lyon. "It is long since we have met, Abram Mordecai." He took his old comrade's outstretched hand and indicated Barrett with a curt nod. "My friend," he said, briefly. "He will help us build ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... ever dreamed possible. To be sure, an old land deal had come to life, just after the discovery of the worthlessness of the mine in Lonesome Cove, and was holding out another hope. But if that, too, should fail—or if it should succeed—what then? Old Judd had sent back, with a curt refusal, the last "allowance" he forwarded to June and he knew the old man was himself in straits. So June must stay in the mountains, and what would become of her? She had gone back to her mountain garb—would she lapse into her old life and ever again be content? Yes, ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... precision of the Colonel, both boys began to wonder at a quarter-past eleven why they had not been summoned, for the Colonel had said in his curt epistle to Glyn—which "looked cross," so the boy said—that he would be at the ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... or allowing him to be anything more than 'the gardener' to her child, though once or twice the boy said, 'That gardener's eyes are so sad! Why does he look so sadly at me?' He sunned himself in her scornfulness as if it were love, and his ears drank in her curt monosyllables as though they were rhapsodies of endearment. Strangely enough, the coldness with which she treated her foreigner began to be the conduct of Lord Icenway towards herself. It was a matter ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... coast, handed over the note, and the Irishman stepped out of the little office already on his way to the world war. He took no pleasure in his resolution, but wandered slowly back toward the hotel with downward head. He would speak a curt farewell and step out of the lives of the two. It would be very simple unless McTee showed some exultation, but if he did—Here Harrigan refused to ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... "On Tuesday the 17th curt.stilo novo, I hold a coenobitical symposion at Monkbarns, and pray you to assist thereat, at four o'clock precisely. If my fair enemy, Miss Isabel, can and will honour us by accompanying you, my womankind will be but too proud to have the aid of such an auxiliary in the cause ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... dictated. On April 20, 1843, while the "enlightenment" propaganda was in full swing, there suddenly appeared, in the form of a resolution appended by the Tzar's own hand to the report of the Council of Ministers, the following curt ukase: ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... lord walk right up to the running-board, with curt little nods to his visitors, and I knew by the trim of his shoulders that there was trouble ahead. Yet they started talking quietly enough. But inside of two minutes my Dinky-Dunk was shaking his fist in the ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... It was curt and sullen, not at all the tone for an Unfortunate Girl to employ toward a young lady anointed with the oil of joy. "She grins just like the Billikens do. Ever since she was a teenty thing." She gave her caller a long, rebellious stare. ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... Vetch's office, there was the burly knight with his hand on the door, flinging a parting word at the lawyer, who sat behind his desk with his wig awry, the picture of harassment and woe. Sir Richard gave a curt nod to the captain, but vouchsafed me not ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... it is used in that way," commented Sir Charles, moving towards the door, where he looked back with a curt, ironic gesture of leave-taking. "It's au revoir then, doctor, and not good-bye. ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... to me, on the steps of the hotel," said Chayne. "It was kind of you. Though I said nothing, I was grateful"; and he was moved to open his heart to her, and to speak of his dead friend. The darkness gathered about them; he spoke in the curt sentences which men use who shrink from any emotional display; he interrupted himself to light his pipe. But none the less she understood the reality of his distress. He told her with a freedom of which he was not himself at the moment quite aware, of a clean, strong friendship which owed ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... mass on the Sundays, and, unheeding rebuffs, sent her a brooch and an apron at Christmas. I wish I could have seen Margret's face and Mary's over that present. It was returned to poor Fanny, with a curt intimation that Mary had no use for it, and ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... lie deep: but they are not—such affections seldom are—wide-spreading; nor do they show themselves on the surface. Indeed, there is little display of any of the amenities of life among this wild, rough population. Their accost is curt; their accent and tone of speech blunt and harsh. Something of this may, probably, be attributed to the freedom of mountain air and of isolated hill-side life; something be derived from their rough Norse ancestry. They ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Minstrel Ballad of the banished and returning Count The Violet The Faithless Boy The Erl-King Johanna Sebus The Fisherman The King of Thule The Beauteous Flower.. Sir Curt's Wedding Journey Wedding Song The Treasure-digger The Rat-catcher The Spinner Before a Court of Justice The Page and the Miller's Daughter The Youth and the Millstream The Maid of the Mill's Treachery The Maid of the ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... importance, as by stating fully what was before only implied, or by adding illustrations to make the meaning more readily apprehended, etc. The chief difficulty of very young writers is to amplify, to get beyond the bare curt statement by developing, expanding, unfolding the thought. The chief difficulty of those who have more material and experience is to condense sufficiently. So, in the early days of our literature amplify was used in the ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... great weight in Marsa Laszlo's reflections, full of anguish, fever, revolt and despair as they were, during the few weeks preceding the day upon which she had promised to tell Prince Andras if she would consent to become his wife or not. It was a yes, almost as curt as another refusal, which fell at last from the lips of the Tzigana. But the Prince was not cool enough to ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... landed there to make his fortune in literature, only too speedily to be disillusioned. Exhibition of manuscripts to a leading literary light merely evoked curt advice to learn a trade or go into business. He would have none of either and studied medicine instead, earning his way by teaching as he learned. In the laboratories, he made the acquaintance of people who more than once were to be his salvation in the ups and ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... drifted into the camp to find Thorpe already out. With a curt nod the Indian seated himself by the fire, and, producing a square plug of tobacco and a knife, began leisurely to fill his pipe. Thorpe watched him in silence. Finally Injin Charley spoke in the red man's clear-cut, imitative English, ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... safety, not for aggrandizement. Grenville thereupon loftily remarked that Chauvelin had no right to express an opinion on a question which concerned solely the King's Government and Parliament. The British reply irritated by its curt correctness. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... He replied to Jenssen's friendly advances in curt monosyllables. To Meriem he did not speak, but on several occasions she discovered him glaring at her from beneath half closed lids—greedily. The look sent a shudder through her. She hugged Geeka closer to her breast and doubly ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... unwilling to smother the reader beneath a mountain of rhetorical flowers,—which accident might happen, should I resolve to be "equal to the occasion,"—I shall contain myself, and state, in the way of a curt preface, in plain prose, and directly to the point, that I entered a remarkably large and populous cemetery, no matter where, very early one morning,—in fact, you have the gate-keeper's word for it that I was the first person there,—that I climbed to the summit of a high hill and enjoyed the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... his hotel, he ground his teeth so audibly that the other two looked at him in wonder. The momentary convulsion of his florid physiognomy seemed to strike them dumb. They exchanged a quick glance. Presently the clean-shaven man fired out another question in his curt, ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... stepped across the difficult passage with the sagacity of a man; but the blooded filly which Miss Temple rode disdained so humble a movement. She made a step or two with an unusual caution, and then, on reaching the broadest opening, obedient to the curt and whip of her fearless mistress, she bounded across the dangerous pass with the ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... silence followed, broken only by the click of instruments and the curt, crisp commands. The minutes, weighted with concentration, ran into the hour. Not a body in that room was aware of fatigue or anxiety. A life was at stake, and every one knew it. It did not matter that the man upon the table was important and useful: had he been the ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... Yet how curt is the version last quoted, and how blundering the sentence! Washington's spelling was always faulty, but it is not characteristic of him to write "abtain" for "abstain." This is one of many signs of haste, suggesting that his pen was following oral instruction. The absence of punctuation ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... headquarters. The thought of his presence sent the blood surging in scarlet waves to her face. There was no longer any question in her mind that she had wounded him too deeply for forgiveness. Her dismissal had been so cold, so curt, it had been an accusation of dishonor. She could see it clearly now. He had poured out his confession of utter love in a torrent of mad words and clasped her in his arms without thought or calculation, an act of instinctive resistless ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... his object and averse to further dalliance, he gave Cimon and his companions the stiffest of nods and deliberately turned on his heel. Speech was too precious coin for him to be wasted on mere adieus. Only over his shoulder he cast at Glaucon a curt mandate. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... that he might have been curt the old man lifted his eyes from his book and looking kindly over his glasses continued: "The Wahoo isn't ablaze, Tom, but you know as well as I that the wage scale has been raised twice in the mines, and once in the glass factory and once in the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... the Vicar had been more silent than usual, he rose, and for a moment stood still, and, looking at his son, seemed about to speak, but appearing to change his mind, after a curt good-night, he walked away through the long stone passage with his usual firm step. He was so regular and fixed in his habits that even this little hesitation in his manner surprised Cardo, but he had not much time for conjecture, ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... creation, still plunged and kicked violently to rid himself of it. The man who had stepped out of the depths of the wheat quickly crossed the road, unhitched the traces, drew back the vehicle, and, glancing at the traveler's dusty and disordered clothes, said, with curt sympathy:— ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... Kate, nice customs curt'sy to great kings. We are the makers of manners, Kate; therefore, patiently, and yielding. (Kisses her.) You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French council; and they should sooner persuade ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... Curt snorted: "Yes. Found 'em couple hours ago. An' now I've lost the Wind Bag. Them mares was grazin' right plumb in plain sight of where I'd sent him circlin', an' doggone if he not only couldn't find 'em, but he's ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... the jarl's son was turning away, with a shrug of his shoulders for the rebuff, the chief added in the quick, curt tone that with him betrayed unwonted interest, "And I am looking at something else. Where are your eyes that you cannot see anything remarkable? Is that a rock or a ship which I ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... chose to quarrel with me," says she. "About ten days ago she sent me a curt note. I could keep her money; she was tired of being dictated to. I needn't write any more, for she had moved to another address, had ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... of not hearing, the young fellow at last rose with an air of great ill-humour; and Pierre, feeling interested in him, tried to draw him out as he had done with the father and uncle upstairs. But Tito only returned curt answers, as if both bored and suspicious. Since there was no work to be had, said he, the only thing was to sleep. It was of no use to get angry; that wouldn't alter matters. So the best was to live as one could without increasing one's worry. As for socialists—well, yes, perhaps there ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... at the mill was unsatisfactory. The elder Gaspard was away, and young Pierre was curt and surly. The sight of Victorine riding familiarly, and with an evident joyous pride, by the side of one of the richest men in the country, and a young man at that,—and a young man, moreover, who looked and behaved as if he were in ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... presumably at his words of endearment, could scarcely expect to be treated otherwise than with disdain by the high-bred girl whom he had previously delighted to honour. As for Edward he was sorely hurt and bewildered. Helene's treatment of him he considered decidedly curt, and natural resentment burned within him at the thought. But before he reached home his anger had passed away, and with it all remembrance of the cold maiden and the unpleasant evening she had given him. In their place lived an intense recollection of a tawny woman, beautiful and warm-blooded; ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... fairly amenable—had given a curt assent, for instance, to the conditions on which Faversham had proposed to relet two of the vacant farms, and to one or two other changes. But Faversham realized that he possessed no true knowledge of the old man's mind and temperament. Exultant ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... just the same!" And the Doctor described a scene he had witnessed in one of the bureaux of the prefecture only the day before. A German official was at his desk. Enter an Alsatian to make an inquiry about some point in a bankruptcy case. The German answered him with the curt rudeness which was the common official tone in old days, and finally, impatiently told the applicant to go. The Alsatian first opened his eyes in astonishment, and then—suddenly—flamed up. "What!—you think nothing is changed?—that you are the masters here as you used to be—that you can treat ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had been started at the armory and Harold took his place in line just in time to answer to his name. Bob and Hugh looked on from the gallery and were greatly impressed by the business-like appearance of the men, and the curt, crisp orders of the officers. The soldiers were divided into squads and presently were marched out of the ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... reserve all Paris news till my next; and begging you to forgive so curt and unsatisfactory a reply to a letter so important that it excites me more than I like to own, believe me your affectionate ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... muttered something, I did not catch what. The abominable notary made a very curt bow to Madame Guerard. The Duc de Morny was very gracious, for the new-comer was so pretty. My godfather merely bent his head, as Madame Guerard was nothing to him. Aunt Rosine glanced at her from head to foot. Mlle. de ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... her. It was obviously best to have destroyed the letter. After all, it was probably nothing more than a curt, formal congratulation, and its coldness would nearly have broken his heart. He feared also lest in his never-ceasing thought he had crystallised his beloved into something quite different from reality. His imagination was very ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... reports, "So it seems that there is an official waiting to see me. Tell him that he may come in." On perceiving Akaky Akakiyevich's modest mien and his worn uniform, he turned abruptly to him, and said, "What do you want?" in a curt hard voice, which he had practised in his room in private, and before the looking-glass, for a whole week before being ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... clothing tent are located two little girls, named Johnson, who lost both father and mother. They had a terrible experience in the flood, and were two of the forty-three people pulled in on the roof of the house of the late General Campbell and his two sons, James and Curt. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... Molly Coddle!" he observed, finally, with a vivid remembrance of the captain's stern visage and curt manner upon a certain uncomfortable occasion. "I think I never looked at the matter quite in this light before, Miss Hosmer. Nearly every one I meet takes wine, and I've been disgusted with myself that I couldn't keep my ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... a holiday, miss!' was Alick's grim rejoinder. 'A pretty long one too, I expect.' Then he added in a curt, sharp tone, as though to stop further questions, 'Now, look here, Queenie! Have you got any of your family that wants mending, eh? Any sick and wounded? Any broken legs or heads lying about? Because if you have, I can ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... he be to posterity? Some admirers have already answered the first question, perhaps as satisfactorily as it can be answered, by saying, "Daudet is simply Daudet." As for the second question, a whole school of critics is inclined to answer it and all similar queries with the curt statement, "That concerns posterity, not us." If, however, less evasive answers are insisted upon, let the following utterance, which might conceivably be more indefinite and oracular, suffice: Alphonse Daudet is one of those rare writers who combine greatness ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... to hell," returned Thornton, and his coolness had grown into curt insolence. "I never saw the man yet that I'm going to do that for." He came on two more quick, long strides, thrust his face forward and cried in a voice that rang out commandingly above the crash of the wind, ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... Augier,—just as the scene in the second act between Hedda and Brack recalls the manner of the younger Dumas, even in its lightness and its wit. Yet we may doubt whether any of the modern French playwrights could have lent the same curt significance to this commonplace interview between a married demi-vierge and an homme-a-femmes;—of their own accord these French terms come to the end of the pen to ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... said of him, he had, in his capacity of the first political journalist in the country, associated so much with gentlemen, that he had learned to be something of a gentleman himself. Accordingly he replied to Mr. Grabster, in a note more curt than courteous, that it was impossible to comply with his request. So the indignant host was obliged to content himself for the time with ordering The Sewer to abuse the incognito. Before many days, however, he obtained the desired information through another ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... fondled with his hand the pretty limb, and even ventured so far as to verify if the polished knee and its surroundings were satin. At this sight the poor child, armed against his desire, so great was his fear, dared only to make brief devotion and curt caresses, and although he kissed softly this fair surface, he remained bashful, the which, feeling by the senses of her soul and the intelligence of her body, the seneschal's lady who took great care not to move, called out to ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... the mountaineer's wholesome face and modest, manly bearing. It was evident that this was no ordinary rake-helly boomer come to town. There was, too, the black bag to witness that the prisoner was an honest voyager. On the way to the station, the constable listened with unusual patience to Zeke's curt account of the misadventure, and the narrative was accepted as truth—the more readily by reason of some slight prejudice against the dog, which had failed as an exploiter of heroism. In consequence, the policeman grew friendly, and promised intercession in his captive's behalf. ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... He found himself wondering why Warde was speaking in this smooth, quiet voice, so different from his usual curt, incisive tones. ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... tribune, followed by a slave with tablets, and by a mounted trooper for the sake of his official dignity, rode out from the city and took the report from the guards' decurion, a half-breed Dacian-Italian, black-bearded and taciturn, who dictated it to the slave in curt, staccato sentences, grudging the very gesture that he made toward the wounded men. The tribune glanced at the report, signed it, turned his horse and rode into the city, disregarding the decurion's salute, his military cloak a splash of very bright red, ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... summons resounded directly in the room occupied by the head clerk of the Lack Vale Coal Company, and that worthy, without waiting to finish the word he begun writing, slipped from his stool and hurried to the office door of his chief, where he knocked softly and entered in obedience to a curt order. The room was a simplified edition of the room on the top floor; everything was there, but in a less luxurious degree, and the result was insignificant. The manager of the Lack Vale Coal Company, who sat at the ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... diplomatist from Mexico at the German Embassy Ball, and, since then, undisturbed and apparently careless of the outcome, he had spent his time in reading and smoking. He had answered questions with only a curt yes or no when he deigned to answer them at all; and there had been no callers or inquiries for him. He had abruptly ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... old sailor led the way into the shop, where on his giving a few short, sharp, and curt directions to an attendant, Dick was taken in hand and twisted this way and that and measured; the whilom ragged runaway being in the end apparelled in a bran-new suit of navy serge that made him look like a smart young reefer, very different indeed to the ragged runaway ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... he dislodged Melchisedek from a seat on his neck, and reached out for the neglected book. Cicely anticipated him and grasped it first. Quickly she dropped her coaxing tone and became curt and matter-of-fact. ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... messenger arrived at Mrs. St John Delo-raine's house with Barton's brief note, and with his own curt statement that "murder was being done at The Bun-house," he found the Lady Superior rehearsing for a play. Mrs. St. John Deloraine was going to give a drawing-room representation of "Nitouche," and the terrible news found her in one of the costumes of the heroine. With a very brief explanation ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... ward Sister with the house doctor at the bed of a patient. She was short, even curt, said over her shoulder she knew nothing about the girl, and then turned back to her work. As John passed out of the ward the doctor followed him and hinted that perhaps the porter might be ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... suddenly resumed in her usual curt manner—"meanwhile you might play fair with one or two of those boys you have trailing around—Kit Raynham ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... Captain Ross, equally curt, and silently thanking the fates that her ladyship was going home for the ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... detective and the man should come into contact with each other; all he wanted was to find out where he was at present, not that he should be meddled with. This he had fully explained in the first instance, and the other had acquiesced in his curt way. ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Peggy, or those of Clarinda or Florabella, or whether engaged in herding flocks by Logan Waters, or dispensing knights' favours under the peacock? But we cannot afford to dispose of our young heroine in this curt way, for her looks formed parts of the lines of a strange history; and so we must be permitted the privilege of narrating that, while Mrs. Hislop's protegee did not come within that charmed circle which contains, according ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... house for a month and had paid him in advance. What more could the agent say? Only one bit of puzzlement: why hadn't the blond stranger appeared? Who was he, in truth, and what had been his game? All this waiting and wondering, and then a curt telegram of the night before, saying, "Release her." So much the better. What his employer's motives were did not interest him half so much as the fact that he had a thousand francs in his pocket, and that all element of danger ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... agree in representing Hartwick as slovenly in his habits, often preaching in his blanket coat, and not always with the cleanest linen; eccentric in his manners, curt, and at times irritable in his intercourse with others—an exceedingly undesirable addition to the social and domestic circle, so that his hosts were accustomed to tell him plainly, at the beginning of a visit, "You may stay here so many days, and then you must go."[21] In some quarters his visits ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... girls and make them look troubled and sad. But, I want to thank you and bless you, dear, for your sweet kindliness to me. Why, you might have sent me flying about my business with nothing more than a curt No. I'm ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... the sentiments of Father Ugo, the reader ought not to be surprised that his reluctance to enter into a theological discussion with Amanda was great, and his answers to that indefatigable she bore rather curt and ironical. After a good deal of conversation about the weather, crops, the telegraph, railroads, thunder storms, electricity, and such other subjects as were suggested by the climate and state of the ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... colour," said Mrs. Gustus severely. She always spoke as though she were sure of the whole of what she intended to say. When she did hesitate, it only meant that she was seeking for the simplest word, and she would cap her pause with a monosyllable as curt ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... unconcerned, caught up their valises and climbed to the deck of the Aroostook. They did not give her more than a glance out of the corners of their eyes, but the surprise of their coming on board was so great a shock that she did not observe that the tug, casting loose from the ship, was describing a curt and foamy semicircle for her return to the city, and that the Aroostook, with a cloud of snowy canvas filling overhead, was moving over the level sea with the light ease of a bird that half swims, half flies, along the water. A sudden dismay, which was ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... in doubt. She had returned his perfunctory bow with a curt nod, and after a brief interval—during which she appeared to be making a communication that was received with joyous hilarity—she left her seat and ran across the room. She might have been in her own house for all the notice she took of the ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... together, but still sententiously, and evidently with no attempt at sustained and fluent connection of style. That Montaigne must have had some influence on Bacon is, of course, certain; though few things can be more unlike than the curt severity of the scheme of the English essays and the interminable diffuseness of the French. Yet here and there are passages in Montaigne which might almost be the work of a French Bacon, and in Bacon passages which might easily ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... word in a curt tone he was already at the door; Godefroid rejoined him on the staircase. The Jew, who was stifling with heat, ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... phrases of the Lawrence agreement furnished the earliest causes of a renewal of the quarrel. "Did you not pledge yourselves to assist me as sheriff in the arrest of any person against whom I might have a writ?" asked Sheriff Jones of Robinson and Lane in a curt note. "We may have said that we would assist any proper officer in the service of any legal process," they replied, standing upon their interpretation. This was, of course, the original controversy—slavery burning to ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... he reached the road and looked back at last, the doorway yawned black, empty, and he set his teeth with a groan and spurred down the road for Alder. He drew rein at Captain Lorrimer's and entered with curt nods in ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... gave him, for the most part, a curt greeting. They glanced more covertly at his wife; he understood exactly what thoughts brought out this condemnation soiled by private speculation; and his disdain mounted at their sleek backs and glossy tile, hats supported on ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... one shall propose in a speech (curt Tuscan, Expurgate and sober, with scarcely an "issimo,") To end now our half-told tale of Cambuscan, 275 And turn the bell-tower's alt to altissimo: And find as the beak of a young beccaccia The Campanile, the Duomo's fit ally, Shall soar up in gold full fifty ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... But I didn't make any comment, as I noticed that at supper, whenever you or I spoke of the Frasers, he answered in curt monosyllables." ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... their spiritual origin, such conviction need not shake the investigator's previous faith. If the clergyman in question really said no more than the printed reports of the Conference represent him to have done, he rather reversed the conduct of Balaam, and cursed those he came to bless. This is the curt ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... that Miss Arnold did not like her. She had had occasion to ask the secretary several questions and the latter's manner of answering had been curt, almost to rudeness. The desired resignation was yet to be written. Marjorie had purposely delayed writing it until the last hour of the afternoon session. She wished to think before writing. It took her the greater part of the hour to compose it, although, ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... impossible for Miss Porter to misunderstand his curt speech and unsocial manner. She stared at him and colored slightly. Lifting her reins lightly, she said: "You certainly do not seem like most of the miners I ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... above us, and a command to "Stop that noise." I looked up and saw a man in semi-uniform and wearing an officer's sash and sword stepping from one rock to another and breaking his way through the laurel. He greeted Aiken with a curt wave of the hand. "Glad to see you, Consul," he called. "You will dismount, please, and lead your horses this way." He looked at me suspiciously and then turned and disappeared ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... rode back to his ruins in a very grim state of mind. He had received from the Emperor a curt and haughty answer to his last appeal for immediate action, and the prospect of another gloomy winter here, with dangers thickening round him, and no motion to enliven them, was almost more than he could endure. The nights were drawing in, and a damp fog from the sea had drizzled ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... enough energy to go on looking for the work which seemed so desperately hard to find. He was growing used now to the long waiting at the back of a shop on the chance that he would be taken on, and the curt dismissal. He walked to all parts of London in answer to the advertisements, and he came to know by sight men who applied as fruitlessly as himself. One or two tried to make friends with him, but he was too tired and too ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... a knock at the door. Miss Brown dismissed him with a curt nod. He sank thankfully into his desk as Sid DuPree sprang forward to admit the newcomer—a new girl and her mother. From the shelter of his big geography, John surveyed the couple with that calmly critical stare which only ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... Mrs. Lowe sat down in one of the plush chairs. To seat herself for a few minutes before announcing dinner was, she supposed, a matter of etiquette. She held up her long rasped chin with a curt air, and, in spite of herself, her voice also was curt. She was too thorough a New England woman to play with any success softening lights over the steel of her character. She disdained to, and she was also unable to. ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... autumn day, old Peter Creed turned up here at the Turner place. I imagine Mrs. Turner knew what was in store for her when his rusty buggy came in sight around the corner of the barn. At any rate, she made no protest, and listened meekly to his curt statement that he held an overdue mortgage, with plenty of back interest owing, and it was time for her to go. She went. Neither she nor anyone else doubted Creed's rights in the matter, and, after all, I believe it got a better home for her ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... I heard Semyonov's curt voice behind me, and turning saw them cover the body on the stretcher ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... War Department to bring two thousand dollars worth of goods to the Sioux Indians in payment for the reservation ceded by them to Pike.[66] Day after day passed. Finally, on July 17th a certain Mr. Shaw came with news that the recruits could be expected soon. On July 31st this curt entry is made in Forsyth's journal: "no boats, no recruits, no news, nor anything else from St. Louis." The next day Major Marston was sent with twenty-seven troops to garrison Fort Armstrong at Rock Island; and on August 2nd Forsyth recorded: "Thank God a boat loaded with ordnance and stores of ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... proved the truth of that axiom by the opposing historic tints that were visible in their faces, in their conversation, in their ideas, and in their clothes. One, abrupt, energetic, with loud, brusque manners, curt, rude speech, dark in tone, in hair, in look, terrible apparently, in reality as impotent as an insurrection, represented the republic admirably. The other, gentle and polished, elegant and nice, attaining his ends by the slow and infallible means of diplomacy, ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... met in some quarters with anything but a cordial reception; the criticisms upon it were curt and depreciatory. Its representation of the Christian life was censured as gloomy and false. It was even intimated that in her expressions of pain and sorrow, there was more or less poetical affectation. Alluding to this in a letter to a ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... now white from age, with her cart; and in it a woman, carefully wrapped up—the carrier leading the horse anxiously, and looking back. When he saw me, James (for his name was James Noble) made a curt and grotesque "boo," and said, "Maister John, this is the mistress; she's got a trouble in her breest—some kind of ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... sitting in her neat little parlor, knitting and singing, when there came a curt, sharp rap ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... thought I, if looking for employment will ever again avail me aught. The frequent re pulses, half-promises, and curt noes, the cherished, deluded hopes, and fresh endeavours that always resulted in nothing had done my courage to death. As a last resource, I had applied for a place as debt collector, but I was too late, and, besides, I could not have found the fifty shillings demanded ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... fall a remark or two upon the Islands. He opined that they were quaint. The poor man meant well, but was a person slightly above his station, and clipped his words. This gave him a patronising tone, which the Commandant, in his impatience, found offensive. He answered in curt monosyllables, which in turn caused the steward to mistake him for ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... shifted the counters, under Gregory's undeviating scrutiny, with the conviction that parchesi was not conspicuously different from the other more resounding movements of the world and its affairs. Gregory easily vanquished him, and Lee rose with a curt, unwarranted ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... well-disposed to approve of any plan of his. In truth he had managed to offend me seriously. Had an English gentleman committed my recent error of supposing him to hint at assassination, General Trant (who can doubt it?) would have flamed out in wrath; but me he had set right with a curt carelessness which said as plain as words that the dishonouring suspicion no doubt came natural enough to a Spaniard. He had entertained me with a familiarity which I had not asked for, and which became insulting the moment he allowed me to see that it came from cold condescension. I have known a ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... well!" replies M'Fadden, with a curt twist of his head. "A man of your cloth can't insult a gentleman like me; you're lawless!" He moves towards the door, stepping sideways, watching Romescos ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... hands. Chauvelin was riding dose beside him, but the two men had not exchanged one word since the moment when the small troop of some twenty mounted soldiers had filed up inside the courtyard, and Chauvelin, with a curt word of command, had ordered one of the troopers to take ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... of this kind which Cicero's correspondence affords us gives token of a kindly heart, and makes us long to know something more. Some have suspected him of a want of filial affection, owing to a somewhat abrupt and curt announcement in a letter to Atticus of his father's death; and his stanch defenders propose to adopt, with Madvig, the reading, discessit—"left us", instead of decessit—"died". There really ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... started without anybody seeing me from the house. I was soon wet to the skin, but I trudged on, saying to myself every now and then You're a Scotchman, never say die. There were few on the road, and when I met a postman and asked how far I was from Dundonald, his curt reply was, You are in it. I was dripping wet and oh so perished with cold and hunger that I made up my mind to stop at the first house I came to. As it happened, it was a farm-house a little bit from the road. I went ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... tone, in temper, and in emphasis. Although entirely original, it reminds one in many ways of the verse of Thomas Hardy. It has his paganism, his pessimism, his human sympathy, his austere pride in the tragedy of frustration, his curt refusal to pipe a merry tune, to make one ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... both curt and angry. "Driver's ticket, registration, and maybe your pilot's license," ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... Holland gheschicht, etc., etc.— Delft, 1574.—This is by far the best contemporary account of the famous siege. The author was a citizen of Antwerp, who kept a daily journal of the events as they occurred at Harlem. It is a dry, curt register of horrors, jotted down without passion or comment.— Compare Bor, vi. 422, 423; Meteren, iv. 79; Mendoza, viii. 174, 175; Wagenaer, vad. Hist., vi. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... had been killed for it he must have smiled. In that last remark the worthy Jake had shown his hand. And the latter saw the smile, and his face darkened with swift-rising anger. But he had evidently made up his mind not to be drawn, for, with a curt "S'long," he abruptly strode off, leaving the other to make his ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... a letter from the District Magistrate which filled him with mingled joy and terror. It contained a curt request to call at once on a matter of great importance. He drove to the great man's bungalow arrayed in his best, but was kept waiting for nearly a quarter of an hour in the porch. When he was ushered into ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... the king. "Thou art wise though thy limbs are crooked and curt; and the stars might ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... fishermen and never worked on the land. Humming away and talking to himself he fiddled about in his shed, around his boat-house or his croft, his hands all grubby with tar and grease. If addressed, he was abrupt and curt in his answers, sometimes even abusive. Hardly ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... moaning and groaning and declaring that he felt very ill, and I went in quest of information. The corporal in command of the gendarmes was exceedingly curt with me at first, but after a time he unbent and condescended to tell me that my landlord had been denounced for permitting a Bonapartiste club to hold its sittings in his house. So far so good. Such denunciations were very ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... just to look at him takes all the life out of you. He is a veritable wet blanket. I have read all his works in the original. I think they lose a great deal in being translated. The Norwegian language is very curt and concise, each word conveying almost the meaning of two in English, which enables the author to paint a whole situation in a few words. I can see the difference, in reading the English translations, and where they fail to convey his real meaning. Strangers who wish to ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone |
