YOU, for instance, would not care(pray pardon my
bluntness) to unrobe yourself before the public eye; and in the same way, the poor man does not like to be pried at or questioned concerning his family relations, and so forth.
One day Philip, with the
bluntness of his age, asked him if it was true he had been with Garibaldi.
The generosity of Sophia's temper construed this behaviour of Jones into great bravery; and it made a deep impression on her heart: for certain it is, that there is no one quality which so generally recommends men to women as this; proceeding, if we believe the common opinion, from that natural timidity of the sex, which is, says Mr Osborne, "so great, that a woman is the most cowardly of all the creatures God ever made;"--a sentiment more remarkable for its
bluntness than for its truth.
Then he recalled the coarseness and
bluntness of her thoughts and the vulgarity of the expressions that were natural to her, though she had been brought up in the most aristocratic circles.
``Thy language,'' answered Rowena, ``hath in its indifferent
bluntness something which cannot be reconciled with the horrors it seems to express.
I had a man's
bluntness of perception, and I was half maddened by suspense.
As he said good-night to his hostess, Vassenka would again have kissed her hand, but Kitty, reddening, drew back her hand and said with a naive
bluntness, for which the old princess scolded her afterwards:
"Not from you, it doesn't sound natural, and I like your old
bluntness better."
"You'd change your mind," said Wilson, with irritated
bluntness, "if you knew the entire scheme instead of only part of it."
There is an openness, a quickness, almost a
bluntness in Mr.
"When he made it!" (Something of her natura l
bluntness broke out in her man ner as she repeated the answer.) "Does it provide for them now?"
These words, however, had not the inhospitable
bluntness with which they may strike the reader; for the two relatives, in a talk before bedtime, had arrived at a certain degree of mutual understanding.