"Gruffness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... liked her visits, however; so, with prayers in her heart and the Bible in her hand, she persevered hopefully, yet with such delicacy that the gruff old man became gruffer daily, as his conscience began to reprove him for his gruffness. ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... don't you think it would be better if, instead of your coming all the way up here, I should come down and stay with you in New York? The railroad trip up here will be very hard on you, as the trains are usually late and the porters and conductors are notorious for their gruffness and it is awfully hard to get parlor-car seats and you know what sitting in a day-coach means. I should love to have you come only I wouldn't want you or father to get some terrible sickness on the train and last month there ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... looked in his companion's face; something in the gruffness of the boy's tone startled him. He was not accustomed to this. He had thought of himself as a passionate person, but never in his life had he wanted ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... pleased," Robin returned gruffly—the gruffness being merely the cloak to conceal his own riotous felicity which every Englishman in similar circumstances thinks it necessary to assume. But Ann saw through it, and was not to be ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... with a mingling of gruffness and dignity that he greeted Mr. Waldemar an hour later. The introduction to Average Jones he ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... undergoing preparation with Old Tring. He had apparently outgrown his fits of unbalanced talkativeness, and had become, with the difficult years, one of those boys who speak with almost comical rarity, and then with unemotional gruffness. This power of reticence never fails to win respect, if of a half-irritated, half-resentful order, and Ishmael held a certain position in the school. Also as the ward of a parson he was supposed to "be good" and know about such things as confirmations. As a matter of fact, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... business that brought you to this country," answered Clubbe, with a sudden gruffness; for he was, like the majority ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... politeness Andrew Malden assumed; how he overlooked all the gruffness of his guest and treated him like a prince. Job fairly stared in wonder. It capped the climax when one night—just as, tucked up snug in his bed, Job was dreaming of his last walk home from school with Jane—to feel a rude shake and to see Andrew Malden with excited face standing ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... a gruffness in the invitation which under ordinary circumstances would have repelled a visitor. But Cecily was so glad to hear the familiar voice that its tone mattered nothing; she followed him, and seated herself where he ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... did not answer. The gruffness of the old man hurt a little. He was quick to understand her silence, and after a while said gently, "I beg your pardon: I did not mean to be angry, I—I—the boy and his future are very ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... going, son?" Endicotts tone had already changed from gruffness to kindly welcome. "Jump in and run down to the wharf with me while you give an account of yourself. I'm going down to see Mrs. Endicott off to Europe. She is taking Starr over to school this winter. I'm late ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... that evening, Penrod Surprised his family by remarking, in a voice they had never heard him attempt—a law-giving voice of intentional gruffness: ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... he managed to say with commendable gruffness. "Assuming that your story is true, why are you in such a tremendous hurry to reach the United States? Skipping out ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... the poor fellow would have gone on with his comments, though he spoke with difficulty and in a feeble voice, in which none of his characteristic gruffness remained, if he had not been cut short by Joe Baldwin and Rooney Machowl lifting him up and ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... stone steps of a temple stained with the blood of victims of the sacrifice;—a little girl standing there with her father asking him in piteous accents: "Father, what is this, why all this blood?" and the father, inwardly moved, trying with a show of gruffness to quiet her questioning. As I awoke I felt I had got my story. I have many more such dream-given stories and other writings as well. This dream episode I worked into the annals of King Gobinda Manikya of Tipperah and made out of it a little serial ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... Huntington's voice sounded from his flagship, the Washington. Somehow its gruffness overrode the mechanical quality of the intra-fleet radio transmission. Almost it seemed he was there in the tiny cabin. "Reports have at this moment been received that our attack fleets have been everywhere successful. Our rocket ...
— When the Sleepers Woke • Arthur Leo Zagat
... for a time. What was passing in his mind, the boys did not suspect, and they feared lest he should refuse. But presently he got up, saying, with gruffness which was assumed to hide a sudden tenderness in the ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord |
