"Sharp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... being eaten by hungry cattle, the rose goes armed into the battle of life with curved, sharp prickles, not true thorns or modified branches, but merely surface appliances which peel off with the bark. To destroy crawling pilferers of pollen, several species coat their calices, at least, with fine hairs or sticky gum; and to insure wide distribution of offspring, ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... passive instruments in his hands. Under this idea they could not be answerable for their sins, because they would have no means of avoiding them. Under this notion they could neither have merit or demerit; they would be like a sharp instrument in their own hands, which whether it was applied to a good or to an evil purpose, it would attach to themselves, not to the instrument: this would annihilate all religion: it is thus that theology is continually occupied ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... the street, he climbed, by the aid of the joists, to an aperture in the half-rotten roof, and passing through it, crept like a cat along, until he reached the spout, down which, at the risk of his neck, he climbed. He was now safe in the public street. Picking up a sharp stone, he scratched some marks, such as he could easily recognize again, upon the gateway. He then knocked at a barber's shop, nearly opposite, where he saw a light, and asked the name of the street, and his route to the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... law of political warfare, which unless a different system be proclaimed, it was weakness and cowardice to murmur at. But the long habit of victory has made them generous. They know how to spare when they see occasion; and when they strike, the axe may be sharp indeed, but its edge is seldom poisoned with ill-will; nor is it their custom ignominiously to kick the head which they ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... A whaler bound for New Bedford was coming up Cape Cod one night long after dark. There was no fog, and the lights of approaching vessels could easily be discerned. The man on the lookout felt no uneasiness at his post, when, without any warning of bells or lights, the sharp bow of a brigantine suddenly loomed up, hardly ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... first course is grape fruit, it is cut across in half, the sections cut free and all dividing skin and seeds taken out with a sharp vegetable knife, and sugar put in it and left standing for an hour or so. A slice of ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... with me for an immediate balancing of the budget, by a sharp curtailment or even elimination of government functions, I have asked the question: "What present expenditures would you reduce or eliminate?" And the invariable answer has been "that is not my business—I know nothing of the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... be just as your Ladyship says," he rejoined; "but the interest of my kingdom, and a large family at home, make it necessary that I should look sharp to my rights. Was there a flag in ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... real coincidence. True, he had read his writings to her and she had appeared to speak comprehendingly and to the point; but what can a man do who, having assumed that another sees as he does, is suddenly brought up sharp by something that falsifies and discredits all that has gone before? He doubted all now.... It did for a moment occur to him that the man who demands of a friend more than can be given to him is in danger of losing that friend, but he ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... rare age, indeed! When last I saw him, his long and thick white hair had reached to the middle of his back, and his long untrimmed beard flowed down to his girdle, and was the colour of hemp. His eyes were as sharp as those of any young man, and he did his reading and writing without an eye-glass. Even his grafting he did without an artificial help to his vision. I remembered well the old custom for guests arriving at his house: coach and servants had to be left at the inn, and dinner had to be ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... urban point of view with regard to a common rustic occurrence, and yet that language showed the sharp, the inelastic limits of her thought. She was provincial in the extreme; she thought even more narrowly than in the terms of a city; she thought in the terms of an hotel. In proportion as we are confined within the walls of one ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... the love and grief in his doggish heart welled over, and with a sharp cry of pain, which was like a prayer to me, he drew himself along the ground to my feet, yelping and wagging his tail ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... human freedom. Gersonides, who objects to Maimonides's treatment of the divine attributes, and insists that they must resemble in kind though not in degree the corresponding human attributes, can avoid the difficulty only by a partial blunting of the sharp points of either horn of the dilemma. Accordingly he maintains freedom in all its rigor, and mitigates the conception of omniscience. God's omniscience extends only to the universal and its consequences; the contingent particular is by definition not subject to foreknowledge, and hence ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... sharp instinctive belief that he could put his arm around her, but he rebuked himself and with excessive politeness he saw her to the car, drove her home. All the way back ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... plate. The vibrator frame itself is secured to the machine structure by the four larger bolts, the holes for which are shown in the inner corners. These bolts are, as shown in Fig. 7, surrounded by thick bushings. These bushings are elastic to such a degree as to absorb the sharp vibrations of vibrator frame and patterns, while so firm and well fitted as to hold patterns ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... it only just to the late Mr. Hagerman to add, that the sharp discussions between him and me did not chill the friendliness, and even pleasantness, of our personal intercourse afterwards; and I believe few men would have more heartily welcomed Mr. Bidwell's return to Canada than Mr. Justice Hagerman himself. Mr. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... balls of fire—blue, green, yellow, crimson. They lit up the garden so vividly that each separate leaf on the laurustinus bushes cast its own sharp shadow. "O—oh!" breathed Mrs Bosenna, but now on a very different note, and as though her whole spirit drank deep, quenching a celestial desire. Cai, stealing a look, saw her profile irradiated, her gaze uplifted ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... during the same month, were folded on Italian rye-grass. "Four days ago," writes the Alderman, "it was sewaged, having been prior to the former growth also guanoed. In four days it had grown from four to five inches, was of an intense green, and pronounced to be, by sharp practical men, just the food for lambs. Well, we put on our lambs, taking care to do so in the evenings after they had been well fed. My bailiff accompanied them, and, within five minutes, turning accidentally ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... do—how will you reward me?" His voice was very deep; the tones of it sent a sharp quiver through her. She felt unspeakably small ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... sharp start of surprise, and then of wonder. Here was Clara again seeking her out! Here she stood, brushed and polished, and finished to a pitch of virtue, again taking Flora at a disadvantage, hiding behind her own door. But at the least she was grateful ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... to have had much of his care. In the civil wars he lent his personal estate to the parliament; but when, after the contest was decided, he solicited repayment, he met not only with neglect, but "sharp rebuke;" and, having tired both himself and his friends, was given up to poverty and hopeless indignation, till he showed how able he was to do greater service. He was then made Latin secretary, with two hundred pounds a year; and ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... marked improvement in speed became manifest. Before this we had been darting along at a very respectable speed, passing some smart-looking schooners as though they had been at anchor; but now the little craft fairly rushed through the water, making it hiss and smoke under her sharp bows, and leaving a long wake of bubbles behind her. She heeled over still more, of course, but it was with a steady kind of resistance to the force of the wind which did finally away with any lurking fears we might have had that we were ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... little times. They spoke straight to the heart, easing it of its weight of tragedy. A splendid man, Mr. Cradock, with his shrewd, penetrating sympathy, his kind firmness. He would listen with interest to everything; the sharp words she had had with Grandmama, troubles with the maids, the little rubs of daily life (and what a rubbing business life is, to be sure!) as well as to profounder, more tragic accounts of desolation, jealousy, weariness and despair. He would say "Your case is a very usual one," so ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... one side and the sharp rocks on the other made it no easy matter to draw the boys up safely. But at length they were dragged forth into the daylight, to be embraced and shouted over by the whole town, and to receive, a few ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... will easily be understood that we kept a sharp look-out, on board the brig, for enemies. We saw a great many sail, particularly as we approached the Straits of Dover, and kept as much aloof from all as circumstances would allow. Several were evidently English vessels-of-war, and I felt no small concern on ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... are ready, we must trek," said one of the Boers in Dutch, suiting the action to the word by giving the near wheeler a sharp cut with his riding sjambock that made him jump nearly out ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... Its limits are sharp and clear. Only suitable persons may enter the parlor; only one's acquaintances and friends. Thus the social intercourse of women, for long years has been rigidly confined to parlor limits; they have conversed only with their own class and kind, forever rediscussing ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... cutter, and, holding up the lantern, looked down, to find an oldish man with sharp features, dark eyes, and grizzled beard, lying under a tarpaulin in the bottom of the boat. He was clothed only in a dressing gown and a blood-stained nightshirt, groaning ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... frightened by the stranger rushing so abruptly past him, or whether she gave some nervous jerk to the reins, was not apparent; but a sharp cry rang from her lips, the horse made a simultaneous spring, and though a good rider, Elizabeth was unseated and thrown from her saddle. Mellen sprang from his horse ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... something, and the head nurse, her chief duties performed, drew herself upright for a breath, and her keen, little black eyes noticed an involuntary tremble, a pause, an uncertainty at a critical moment in the doctor's tense arm. A wilful current of thought had disturbed his action. The sharp head nurse wondered if Dr. Sommers had had any wine that evening, but she dismissed this suspicion scornfully, as slander against the ornament of the Surgical Ward of St. Isidore's. He was tired: the languid summer air thus early in the year would shake any man's nerve. But the head ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Wren's chamber with him, reading over my draught of a letter, which Mr. Gibson then attended me with; and there he did like all, but doubted whether it would be necessary for the Duke to write in so sharp a style to the Office, as I had drawn it in; which I yield to him, to consider the present posture of the times and the Duke of York and whether it were not better to err on that hand than the other. He told me that he did not think it was necessary for the Duke of York ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... was rejoiced to find that Becky was out, though he had hoped to find her in. The courtship made great strides that afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Belcovitch being more amiable than ever to compensate for Becky's private refusal to entertain the addresses of such a Schmuck. There had been sharp domestic discussions during the week, and Becky had only sniffed at her parents' commendations of Shosshi as a "very worthy youth." She declared that it was "remission of sins merely to look ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... terror, outcry, and confusion Caesar had no time to draw his sword, but fought a moment with his style, a sharp instrument of iron with which they wrote, in those days, on waxen tablets, and which he happened then to have in his hand. With this instrument he ran one of his enemies ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... of the 28th. Being short of provisions we commenced our journey though the points of land were not discernible beyond a short distance. The surface of the ice, being honeycombed by the recent rains, presented innumerable sharp points which tore our shoes and lacerated the feet at every step. The poor dogs too marked their path with ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... at once see the truth. Stamboul and Welsley were beautiful; each possessed an enticing quality; but the one enticed by its grandiose mystery, by its sharp contrasts of marble stability and matchboard frailty, by its melancholy silences and spaces, by its obscure peace and its dangerous passion; the other by its delightful simplicity, its noble homeliness, its dignity and charm of an old faith and a smiling unworldliness, its ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... shift of position brought the moonlight full upon the man's front—upon a scarf of robin's-egg blue caught together at the throat with the polished tip of buffalo horn. No other horsemen were in sight, but an occasional sharp report sounded from the opposite side of the herd. "Vil!" she screamed. "Vil Holland!" The form stiffened in the saddle and the girl caught the flash of his eyes beneath the hat brim. The next instant the gun ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... fashion. It was late Friday afternoon. The members of the house-party had just returned from a tramp through the woods and had joined Ainsley on the terrace, where he stood watching the last rays of the sun leave the lake in darkness. All through the day there had been sharp splashes of rain with the clouds dull and forbidding, but now the sun was sinking in a sky of crimson, and for the morrow a faint moon held out a promise of ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... before the landing, the big yellow coaches were actively making themselves bigger, and piling up boxes and bags on their roofs in a way to turn nervous people's thoughts to the sharp corners of the downward twists of the great road. I climbed into my own banquette, and stood eating peaches—half-a-dozen women were hawking them about under the horses' legs—with an air of security that might have been offensive to the people scrambling and protesting below between coupe and ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... to this time these people had been dependent upon implements made of stone and of bone roughly fashioned to serve their purposes, and these implements were very crude and inferior compared with the sharp steel tools of ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee
... stirrup and went over to examine the damage. Both of the quarter straps on the off side had given way. I found that they had been cut nearly through with a sharp knife. My eye strayed to Ramon's chestnut horse standing ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... 50.) Foiled Rascality burns its 'Mannikin of osier,' under his windows; 'tears up the sentry-box,' and rolls off: to try Brienne; to try Dubois Captain of the Watch. Now, however, all is bestirring itself; Gardes Francaises, Invalides, Horse-patrol: the Torch Procession is met with sharp shot, with the thrusting of bayonets, the slashing of sabres. Even Dubois makes a charge, with that Cavalry of his, and the cruelest charge of all: 'there are a great many killed and wounded.' Not without clangour, complaint; subsequent criminal trials, and official persons dying of heartbreak! ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... own ambition and self-interest, Sir Duncan," answered Montrose, "who brought the country to the pass in which it now stands, and rendered necessary the sharp remedies which we are now reluctantly about ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... special training and profession, and which marks the manners, the language and looks of a lawyer. They have the excellence of the lawyer, and also his defects. Commonly they are learned in their profession, acute and sharp, circumspect, cautious, skilful in making nice technical distinctions, and strongly disposed to adhere to historical precedents on the side of arbitrary power, rather than to obey the instinctive promptings of the moral sense in their ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... a little about the bamboos; but before gunpowder became familiar, no sharp explosive sounds of this kind were known to ordinary experience, and exaggeration was natural. I have been close to a bamboo jungle on fire. There was a great deal of noise comparable to musketry; but the bamboos were not of the large kind here spoken of. The Hon. Robert Lindsay, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... made by the popping of the cork is not agreeable to most persons. To remedy these inconveniences there has been devised the simple apparatus which we represent in the accompanying cut, taken from La Nature. The device consists of a hollow, sharp-pointed tube, having one or two apertures in its upper extremity which are kept closed by a hollow piston fitting in the interior of the tube. This tube, or "tap," as it may be called, is supported on a firm base to ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... the taxi-driver to come up and carry down your baggage," pursued Penelope. "You'll have to look fairly sharp if you're ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... paper lantern. Until a late hour he continued to read and pray: then he opened a little window in his little sleeping-room, to take a last look at the landscape before lying down. The night was beautiful: there was no cloud in the sky: there was no wind; and the strong moonlight threw down sharp black shadows of foliage, and glittered on the dews of the garden. Shrillings of crickets and bell-insects (3) made a musical tumult; and the sound of the neighboring cascade deepened with the night. ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... we followed Ranjoor Singh, without one word spoken or order given. The Kurd led straight up the defile for a little way, then sharp to the right and uphill along a path that wound among great boulders, until at last we halted, pack-mules and all, in a bare arena formed by a high cliff at the rear and on three sides by gigantic rocks that fringed it, making ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... gave one glance and uttered a sharp cry. It was a miniature painted on ivory; painted years ago, but she ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... the day. Every morning the hill rang from one end to the other with the sharp commands of the company officers to "Order arms!" "Shoulder arms!" as the men exercised by squads. Besides the regular drill in the manual of arms, some of the companies delighted in that system of military gymnastics ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... poke her keeper: then succeeds a quick motion in the flank; she begins to stagger, falls, but recovers herself again. This is repeated several times, till she is at length no longer able to rise. Her head will be turned to one side; she loses the sense of feeling, and although pricked with a sharp instrument gives no sign of pain; and if not relieved, death closes the scene. If the sense of feeling returns, it is the first sign of recovery. The moment that milk-fever is observed the veterinary surgeon should be called in. There ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... charged at a run, Masistius, the leader of the enemy, a man of great bodily strength and beauty, seeing them, wheeled round his horse, and rode to attack them. They sustained his attack and closed with his horsemen, and a sharp struggle took place, both parties fighting as though the issue of the war depended on their exertions. The horse of Masistius was at length wounded by an arrow and threw his rider. Encumbered by ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... that fairly sharp blades could be wrought from this timber, he had knives and hatchets made for private use, his own trusty pocket knife being glorified by promotion. He whetted the blade to the keenest possible edge and used it as a razor. ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... prophecy Geirrod hastily drew his sword, intending to slay the insolent singer; but when he beheld the sudden transformation he started in dismay, tripped, fell upon the sharp blade, and perished as Odin had just foretold. Turning to Agnar, who, according to some accounts, was the king's son, and not his brother, for these old stories are often strangely confused, Odin bade him ascend ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... darker outside and began to snow a little, the peculiar sharp, small snow of Alaska. The two women could hardly see each other's faces in the gloom, when Katrine rose and offered ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... nature not hitherto noticed, that the edge of a partially transparent body is often darker than its central surface, because at the edge the light penetrates and passes through, which from the centre is reflected to the eye. The sharp, cutting edge of a wave, if not broken into foam, frequently appears for an instant almost black; and the outlines of these massy clouds, where their projecting forms rise in relief against the light of their bodies, are almost always marked clearly and firmly by very dark edges. Hence we have ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... I took a stuffed and coiled-up snake into the monkey-house at the Zoological Gardens, and the excitement thus caused was one of the most curious spectacles which I ever beheld. Three species of Cercopithecus were the most alarmed; they dashed about their cages and uttered sharp signal cries of danger, which were understood by the other monkeys. A few young monkeys and one old Anubis baboon alone took no notice of the snake. I then placed the stuffed specimen on the ground in one of the larger compartments. After a time all the monkeys ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... to see the sunset, and, what was more marvellous, the heavy thunder-cloud, which was beating up against the wind; and I left the young folks to themselves, only aspiring to be a Youth's Companion. I got Will to bring me Mrs. Van Astrachan's black furs, as it grew cold, but at last the air was so sharp and the storm clearly so near, that we were all driven in to that nice, cosey parlor at the Tiptop House, and sat round the hot stove, not sorry to be sheltered, indeed, when we heard the heavy ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... toward her whereas she stood flashing and gleaming in the sun like an image of the God of Love turned warrior. Now Birdalone deemed for sure that this was a woman; she saw her come a little nigher to her, and then stand looking at her under the sharp of her hand; then she turned about and ran back to the brake whence she came; and presently Birdalone heard the sound of voices coming thence, and in a little while thereafter came forth from the said brake a rout of women ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... 'find any occasion against him, except we find it concerning the laws of his God.' God is working in us in order that our lives should be such that malice is dumb in their presence. Are we co-operating with Him? We are bound to satisfy the world's requirements of Christian character. They are sharp critics and sometimes unreasonable, but on the whole it would not be a bad rule for Christian people, 'Do what irreligious men expect you to do.' The worst man knows more than the best man practises, and his conscience is quick to decide the course for other people. Our weaknesses ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... than by a Parliament, which is again summoned; the Long Parliament, which did not finally vanish till 1660. In which is Oliver again, "very much hearkened unto," despite "linen plain and not very clean, and voice sharp and untuneable." ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... counties, and a headstone marks the grave where his body rests. I never saw, or heard, any harm of the man. He was a quiet and inoffensive man, and worked industriously as a tinman within a short time of his death. If he had rather a sharp eye for a little gift, that is a trait of character by no means confined to Gipsies. One of his daughters was married here to a member of the Boswell tribe, and another, who rejoiced in the name of Britannia, I buried in ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... of course," General Chanzy said, warmly. "I am very glad to have you with me, Captain Barclay. You will not be long before you are at work, for the affair is just beginning. I have just got news that there has been some sharp fighting, ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... talking at once and telling each other about their private affairs—about a dispute with a coachman, a projected picnic and innumerable complex stories of lovers stolen or restored. Meanwhile a young man near Georges, having evinced a desire to kiss Lea de Horn, received a sharp rap, accompanied by a "Look here, you, let me go!" which was spoken in a tone of fine indignation; and Georges, who was now very tipsy and greatly excited by the sight of Nana, hesitated about carrying ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... to be seen that Bess Keats was very much disturbed about something. She sat in the couch hammock on the porch, talking to herself and occasionally giving a sharp punch to the sofa pillow ...
— Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens • Margaret White Eggleston
... erat, quam spes. {133c}—Sexus faemin.— If men may by no means write freely, or speak truth, but when it offends not, why do physicians cure with sharp medicines, or corrosives? is not the same equally lawful in the cure of the mind that is in the cure of the body? Some vices, you will say, are so foul that it is better they should be done than spoken. But they that take offence where no name, character, or signature doth blazon them seem to ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... with virtue fraught, The pious glorious saint besought. But the good speech with poignant sting Pierced ear and bosom of the King, Who, stabbed with pangs too sharp to bear, Fell ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... surgeon did his work. The pale face showed its pain, but was still and silent. Rab's soul was working within him; he saw that something strange was going on,—blood flowing from his mistress, and she suffering; his ragged ear was up, and importunate; he growled and gave now and then a sharp impatient yelp; he would have liked to have done something to that man. But James had him firm, and gave him a GLOWER from time to time, and an intimation of a possible kick;—all the better for James, it kept his eye and ...
— Rab and His Friends • John Brown, M. D.
... which prevented a rush after us. On arriving, as I had nothing else to do, I proposed a ride through the town, to the considerable consternation of our attendants. We set off on saddles made of hard and rather sharp bits of wood, stirrups which I can't undertake to describe, and our knees in our mouths. However, we made our way to the quarter of the Palace or Castle. As we approached it, we passed through streets inhabited by princes. I did not enter any of their houses, but ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... skeleton of the vessel, which was to be rigged as a schooner, lay in the dockyard. The ribs were almost entirely completed, and, all the timbers having been sustained by a provisional band, the shape of the vessel could already be seen. The schooner, sharp in the bows, very slender in the after-part, would evidently be suitable for a long voyage, if wanted; but laying the planking would still take a considerable time. Very fortunately, the iron work of the pirate brig had been saved after the explosion. From the planks and injured ribs Pencroft and ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... laughed to the budding flowers. Anon were heard the dreamy voices of summer with its myriad insects, the gentle pattering of rain, the wail of the cuckoo. Hark! a tiger roars,—the valley answers again. It is autumn; in the desert night, sharp like a sword gleams the moon upon the frosted grass. Now winter reigns, and through the snow-filled air swirl flocks of swans and rattling hailstones beat upon the ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... with a turban, and a sharp chisel, at work on a kind of panel or niche, the back of which is of ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... manners, without any pretence or affectation. 'Each of the Austins,' says Mr. Stevenson, in his memoir of Jenkin, to which we are much indebted, 'was full of high spirits; each practised something of the same repression; no sharp word was uttered in the house. The same point of honour ruled them: a guest was sacred, and stood within the pale from criticism.' In short, the Austins were truly hospitable and cultured, not merely so in form ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... the Resolutioners and the Protesters for Kirk-Supremacy: Independency and Quakerism in Scotland: More Extreme Anomalies there: Story of "Jock of Broad Scotland": Brisk Intercourse between Scotland and London: Mission of Mr. James Sharp.—Ireland from 1654 to 1656.—Glimpse of ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... appear; he opened the kitchen door, and stood for a moment leaning against the frame, a huge, gaunt figure, blackened with dirt and smoke, and so wet that the water dropped in little pools all about him. He glanced up and down the room, and gave a sharp exclamation. ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... different degrees of hardness and softness, the harder varieties being capable of quite a fine point. A chisel-shaped point is the most convenient, as it does not wear away so quickly. And if the broad side of the chisel point is used when a dark mass is wanted, the edge can constantly be kept sharp. With this edge a very ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... their sitting-room on the ground floor. The cloth had not been removed from the dinner-table, around which we were chatting, when a certain strange sound reached our ears—a sound not to be identified with the distant roar of the motor-busses in Pall Mall, nor with the sharp bark of the taxi-horns, although not unlike them. We sat listening intently, and heard the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the line a sharp cross-fire from the blockhouses was directed against us; but we all reached the fence safely and began cutting the ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... But in shot the sharp prow of the Bonnie Annie, and in glided after it the stooping form of Alec Forbes. She gave one wailing ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... death are in themselves so sharp and final, and so terrible and melancholy in their consequences, that the thing stands alone in man's experience, and has no parallel upon earth. It outdoes all other accidents because it is the last of them. Sometimes it leaps suddenly upon its victims, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... behind his grandfather, and as soon as the host's attention was turned from him he escaped. He seated himself carefully upon a box of red herring, and his eyes wandered wonderingly around the shop. It was a marvellous place for a boy with sharp eyes and an inquiring mind. Down one side ran a counter made of smoothed pine boards and behind it rose a row of shelves reaching to the raftered ceiling and containing everything the farmers could need, from the glass jar of peppermint drops on the top shelf to the web of factory cotton ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... pillars to the right of the nave, on entering from the western extremity, are doubtless old; perhaps of the beginning of the thirteenth century. The arches are a flattened semicircle; while those on the opposite side are comparatively sharp, and of a considerably later period. The ornaments of the capitals of these older pillars are, some of them, sufficiently capricious and elaborate; while others are of a more exceptionable character on the score of indelicacy. But this does not surprise a man who has been accustomed ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... instead of handing you over the money as I did—suppose I'd got up on my hind legs and said, 'Look yer, Bill Wethersbee, you're a d——d fool. If I give ye that twenty thousand you'll throw it away in the first skin game in 'Frisco, and hand it over to the first short card-sharp you'll meet. There's a thousand—enough for you to fling away—take it and get!' Suppose what I'd said to you was the frozen truth, and you knowed it, would that have been the square thing to play ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... little band, which was not much larger than his collar. His hat was without a hat-band. His stature was of a good size; his sword stuck close to his side; his countenance swoln and reddish; his voice sharp and untuneable, and his ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... But this immediate contest, sharp as it was, proved brief; a turn in the river enabled us to use our stern gun, and we soon glided into the comparative shelter of Wiltown Bluff. There, however, we were to encounter the danger of shipwreck, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Lichfield; lying south from the latter place, its name is supposed to be derived from South Town, and by corruption, Sutton. There is a very considerable portion of land near this town, where travellers say the air is equally sharp and cold as it is upon the highlands of Scotland, and from this circumstance the latter part of its name originates. Independant of this tract of land, there is another contiguous to it, which is denominated ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... was almost low water, and in every direction he perceived reefs of coral rock, and large banks of sand, with deep channels between them, through which the tide flowed rapidly. The reef upon which the brig had been grounded was of sharp coral; and, in the deeper parts, the trees could be discerned, extending a submarine forest of boughs; but it was evident that the reef upon which the vessel lay was, as well as most of the others, covered at high water. As a means of escape, a small boat was ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... were somewhat stronger, or they somewhat weaker," Sir Eustace said; "were it so, we would make a sally, and give the knaves a sharp lesson, but with only two hundred men against their eight thousand it would be madness to try it; we might slay a good many, but might lose a score before we were back in the castle, and it would be a ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... States a sharp line of division is drawn between courts of law and courts of equity. This distinction was inherited from England, though it has been for most purposes abolished there by the Judicature Acts of 1873 and 1875. It originated in the royal ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... cities, courageous, Tritogeneia. From his awful head wise Zeus himself bare her arrayed in warlike arms of flashing gold, and awe seized all the gods as they gazed. But Athena sprang quickly from the immortal head and stood before Zeus who holds the aegis, shaking a sharp spear: great Olympus began to reel horribly at the might of the bright-eyed goddess, and earth round about cried fearfully, and the sea was moved and tossed with dark waves, while foam burst forth ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... excessive scribbling as in the calamopapyrus [Pen-paper] pedagogy of to-day and in this country. Not only has the daily theme spread as infection, but the daily lesson is now extracted through the point of a pencil instead of from the mouth. The tongue rests and the curve of writer's cramp takes a sharp turn upward, as if we were making scribes, reporters, and proof-readers. In some schools, teachers seem to be conducting correspondence classes with their own pupils. It all makes excellent busy work, keeps the pupils quiet and orderly, and allows the school output to be quantified, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... the men were working in silence. The low and steady roar of the flames was varied by the occasional sharp click of iron or the soft sound of hot glass rolling on the marver, or by the hiss of a metal instrument plunged into water to cool it. Every man had an apprentice to help him, and two boys tended the fire. The foreman sat at a table, busy with an account, a ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... Courts: Justice of the Peace.*—In French practice the distinction which is drawn between private law and public law is so sharp that there have been built up two hierarchies of courts—the ordinary and the administrative—each of which maintains practically exclusive jurisdiction within an independent field. The ordinary courts comprise civil and criminal tribunals, together with certain special tribunals, ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... than five minutes after them mules began to worry, stopped eating, and had their ears pricked up a trying to look over the ledge towards the river, we heard a sharp firing down on the Trail, which didn't appear to be more than a hundred yards off. You ought to seen us grab our rifles sudden, and run out from behind them rocks, where we was a camping, so comfortable-like, and just going to light our pipes ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... remained silent, willing to allow time for the situation to take its full effect. The wisdom of the serpent is black ignorance compared with the cunning of a girl in Dorothy's situation. God gives her wit for the occasion as He gives the cat soft paws, sharp claws, and nimbleness. She was teaching John a lesson he would never forget. She was binding him to ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... Criticism. See note, p. 101. Cf. Johnson's criticism of Edwards as recorded by Boswell: "Nay (said Johnson) he has given him some sharp hits to be sure; but there is no proportion between the two men; they must not be named together. A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse, and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still" (ed. Birkbeck Hill, ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... prince had been a mere beginner, and allowed the latter to recover himself before he replied. A full two seconds after Sant' Ilario had resumed his guard, Spicca's foil ran over his with a speed that defied parrying, and he felt a short sharp prick in his right shoulder. Spicca sprang back and ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... at that gathering, no one to raise a quarrel or bring out any grudge against another through the whole of the time it lasted. And the king and his chief men, and Goll, son of Morna, that was now Head of the Fianna, and Caoilte, son of Ronan, and Conan, son of Morna, of the sharp words, were sitting at a feast in the great house of the Middle Court; and the young lad came in and took his place among them, and none of them ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... to the water, especially at night in the glow of hidden lighting. The planting about the niches and the trailing green on the walls are component parts of the fountains' beauty. The sculptor has felt the Seasons in their gradual changes, as found in California, rather than in the usual sharp divisions. He has infused them with a wistful sadness, however, as at the passing of time. In "Spring," here illustrated, for example, we feel something more than the Youth, Flowers, Love and Promise obvious in the composition ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... had never heard anything like that whine. It swept through the line of dogs, from throat to throat, and the beasts stood stiff-legged and stark in their traces, staring with eight pairs of restlessly blazing eyes into the wall of darkness ahead. The Cree had turned, but the sharp command on his lips had frozen there. David saw him standing ahead of the team as silent and as motionless as rock. From him he looked into the Missioner's face. Father Roland was staring. There was a strange suspense ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... start to the sound of smashing glass, a sharp rattle of imprecations and a sense of being turned upside down. The front nearside wheel of the taxi was in a ditch, the wind screen broken and a large dray horse was trying to put its fore hoof through the buckled bonnet. ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... mess by companies. At this time we were virtually occupying alarm quarters. The men had been behaving splendidly. The inhabitants took to them kindly and of course relieved them of all their spare change. The people of the town are mostly old Flemish. The Flemings have the proverbial long noses, sharp features and have fair complexions. Occasionally a stocky, swarthy individual shows Wallon extraction. Some of the peasants speak nothing but Flemish, which is one of ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... Bacon's answer, which is still extant. It seems that the old Lord, whose temper, age and gout had by no means altered for the better, and who loved to mark his dislike of the showy, quick-witted young men of the rising generation, took this opportunity to read Francis a very sharp lecture on his vanity and want of respect for his betters. Francis returned a most submissive reply, thanked the Treasurer for the admonition, and promised to profit by it. Strangers meanwhile were less unjust to the young barrister ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... de), wife of the preceding, born Mademoiselle Natalie Evangelista, non-lineal descendant of the Duke of Alva, related also to the Claes. Having been spoiled as a child, and being of a sharp, domineering nature, she robbed her husband without impoverishing him. She was a leader at Paris as well as at Bordeaux. As the mistress of Felix de Vandenesse she disliked his dedication to a story, for in it he praised Madame de Mortsauf. Later, in company with Lady Dudley and ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... take turn about at tending camp, and you'll have to stay to-night, Chris," he said. "It won't do to leave the camp alone. You'll have to keep a sharp lookout to guard against any possible surprise from wild animals or men. Keep up the fire so we can find our way back, and have some hot coffee ready. We'll need it when we get back. Keep a sharp eye out, Chris," he concluded. "It isn't everyone I would choose ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... out quickly enough, but I was as sharp as she, and trod on the tail of her dress so that she could not shut the door after her. So we went out together, and I left her at the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... mine-owner stood out saliently as he gave short, sharp orders to men in the crowd. One was to get the coroner, a second Wally Selfridge, another the United States District Attorney. He divided the rest into squads to guard the roads leading out of town and to see that nobody ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... the Apostles Direction, Excommunicated one of their Society, who had married his Mother-in-law, & this, as it is thought, while his own Father was Living too; the Apostle encourages them to Re-admit that man, upon his very deep and sharp Repentance. He gives divers Reasons of his propounding this unto them; whereof one is, Lest Satan should get advantage of them; for, had the man miscarried, under any Rigour of the Sentence continued upon him, after his Repentance, 'tis well if the Church itself ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... river widens to about 11/2 miles. Seven canoes of Indians came out from this large village to view and trade with us, they appeared orderly and well disposed, they accompanied us a fiew miles and returned back. about 111/2 miles below this village on the Lard Side behind a rockey Sharp point, we passed a Chanel 1/4 of a mile wide, which I take to be the one the Indian Canoe entered yesterday from the lower point of Immage Canoe Island a Some low clifts of rocks below this Chanel, a large Island Close under the Stard Side opposit, and 2 Small Islands, ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... readable book, beautifully illustrated, ... and in many of its life-histories much fuller, fresher, and more interestingly written than any other work on animals that I know. DALLAS LORE SHARP. ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... of the eye takes but little time, and a penetrating look was returned me by Aunt Polly, in which the beaming affection of her sanguine nature, and the scowl of scarce restrained impatience to get hold of me, were mixed so strangely as to give her naturally sharp black eyes an expression almost fearful to a child; but on surveying her unique apparel, and indescribably uneasy position on the chair—for she remained seated while the rest of us knelt, giving me thus an opportunity to scrutinize her through the interstices of my chair-back—so ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... no knowledge of the technical details necessary to mining, with no previous history of the Blue Poppy to guide him, and with no help against the enemies who seemed everywhere. Now he saw that it was impossible. More, the incidents of the night showed how swiftly those enemies were working, how sharp and stiletto-like ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... sharp-tongued, hoity-toity young woman; Babsy's rival in good looks and her superior in tidiness] They shoot for the love of it. Look at them at a lynching. Theyre not content to hang the man; but directly the poor creature ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... neither in the ingredients of the composition, nor in the manner of treating them: it is merely the direction of the whole that gives them the stamp of Tragedy. Romeo and Juliet is a picture of love and its pitiable fate, in a world whose atmosphere is too sharp for this the tenderest blossom of human life. Two beings created for each other feel mutual love at the first glance; every consideration disappears before the irresistible impulse to live in one another; under circumstances ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... peaceful park. They lost two of their boats and several guns in Red Canyon, and Ashley left there a mark to identify the time of his passage. He wrote his name and the date, 1825, on a large rock above a sharp fall, which was (later, 1869,) named in his honour. I saw this inscription in 1871 and made a careful copy of it, which is given here. See also the illustration of Ashley Falls on page 113. The location of it is just west of C in the words "Red Canon" on the map, ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... a Norman who was armed and riding on a war-horse, and tried with his hatchet of steel to cleave his helmet; but the blow miscarried, and the sharp blade glanced down before the saddle-bow, driving through the horse's neck down to the ground, so that both horse and master fell together to the earth. I know not whether the Englishman struck another blow; but the Normans who saw the stroke ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... no. But for amends, what she is capable of for her defence and warning of danger, she has very eminently conferred upon her; for she is exceedingly quick of hearing. And then her short tail and short legs, but broad forefeet armed with sharp claws, we see by the event to what purpose they are, she so swiftly working herself under ground, and making her way so fast in the earth as they that behold it cannot but admire it. Her legs therefore are ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... in use [4242]are three, first is that opening a vein in the arm with a sharp knife, or in the head, knees, or any other parts, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... and rose to go. David's voice changed to passion; memories of things he had seen came over him as in a red mist: an old man scalped with a sharp ladle; a white-hot poker driven through a woman's eye; a baby's skull ground under a True Russian's heel. 'Bourgeois!' he thundered, 'I will save you despite yourselves.' The landlord signalled in a frenzy, but David continued recklessly, ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... they climbed; and, when the ridge of the foothill was surmounted, a world of peacock-blue lakes lay below, fringed by forests. The cataracts looked like wind-blown ribbons of silver. Instead of dipping down, the trail led to the rolling flank of another great foothill, and yet another, round sharp saddlebacks connecting the mountains. Here, ox-carts were dangerous and had to be abandoned. It was with difficulty that the oxen could be driven ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... Americans coming over the crest and making straight for the gun. He was astounded; and well he might be, since the fisherman's path had been reported impassable by troops. But he instantly changed the order he happened to be giving from 'Try a longer fuse!' to 'Spike the gun and follow me!' With a sharp clang the spike went home, and the gunners followed Brock downhill towards Queenston. There was no time to mount, and Alfred trotted down beside his swiftly running master. The elated Americans fired hard; but their bullets all flew high. Wool's three hundred then got into position on the ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... four horses, dashed round the turn of the road. Within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the physiognomy of a little old man, with a skin as yellow as if his own Midas-hand had transmuted it. He had a low forehead, small, sharp eyes, puckered about with innumerable wrinkles, and very thin lips, which he made still thinner by pressing them ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... being sold by the quantity—or MANEL, to pass, to exceed. Tekel, weighed, would correspond to TEC, light. To-day it is used in the sense of lightness in motion, brevity, nimbleness: and Upharsin, dividing, seem allied to the words PPA, to divide two things united; or uppah, to break, making a sharp sound; or paah, to break edifices; or, again, PAALTAL, to break, to scatter ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... made enormous use of clay and its products for building materials, utensils, and also writing material. The early inhabitants of this region very soon found that a permanent record could be made by marking a lump of soft clay with a sharp stick and then drying it in the sun or baking it in an oven. Naturally the picture very soon degenerated into a series of marks made by holding the stick, or pointed implement, nearly parallel to the clay and then thrusting it into the surface. The resultant ...
— Books Before Typography - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #49 • Frederick W. Hamilton
... sorter modist-like to tell me if she was sot on any perticler thing about the new place," he confided wistfully to Amarilly, "You're so sharp I wish you'd kinder hint around and find out what she wants. Jest put ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... bent towards her as if to clutch her; an angry whisper seemed to pass from one to the other; and an utterly unreasoning terror fell upon the girl. She stood for a moment as if paralyzed with fear, when suddenly the little dog gave a sharp yelp, and leaped up on her impatiently. The sound startled her into new terror; but in a moment the revulsion came, and she almost laughed aloud. Here was she, a great girl, almost a woman, cowering and shivering, while a tiny puppy, who had hardly any brains at all, was eager to go on. She patted ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... well remembered. The old tower on the Narenta at Mostar used to look grim with the distorted heads of the prisoners whom he had captured on the Montenegrin frontier. The habit of decapitating the dead was revolting enough, but this aged sinner was not satisfied with that: he used to drive sharp wooden poles through their living bodies, and then leave them to die a lingering and agonising death. Some are said to have survived their impalement as much as forty-eight hours. The example set by the Pacha was readily followed by those about him. ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... culture. They cultivated maize, manioc, yams, potatoes, corn, and cotton. The latter they wove into what scanty apparel they required. Their arms were bows with reed arrows, pointed with fish teeth or stones, stone axes, spears, and a war club armed with sharp stones called a macana. They were a simple hearted, peaceful, contented race, "all of one language and all friends," says Columbus; "not given to wandering, naked, and satisfied with little," says Peter Martyr; "a people very poor in all things," ...
— The Arawack Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and Ethnological Relations • Daniel G. Brinton
... that it is surrounded by a raised bund, or bank, artificially made, with hewn granite slabs as steps going down at one end. We are glad of the shade of the trees falling across the short turfy grass, and we are seated on some broken blocks of granite, keeping a sharp look out for snakes. They will hardly be likely to trouble us here, but in that jungly bit behind it wouldn't be at all safe to rest like this. Even to sit on the short grass might be unpleasant, as there are all sorts of unknown insects here which bite and sting and stab, ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... this brave Robin Hood, Still ready at his call, that bowmen were right good, And of these archers brave, there was not any one But he could kill a deer, his swiftest speed upon, Which they did boil and roast, in many a mighty wood, Sharp hunger, the fine sauce to their more kingly food. Then taking them to rest, his merry men and he Slept many a summer's night under the greenwood tree. What oftentimes he took, he shar'd amongst the poor, From wealthy Abbot's chests, and churl's abundant store, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... the man.' It needed a prophet to do that, with divine authority. Nothing less would suffice to get through the thick bosses of the buckler of self-conceit and ignorance which he had to penetrate. As God's messenger, he gathered up, as I said, into one sharp-pointed, keen-edged, steel-bright sentence, the very spirit of the whole ancient Law, which seeks to individualise the sinner, and to drive home to the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... and they looked at him. The two men in the runabout resembled each other, and were evidently brothers. Carroll's eyes on the men were sharp, so were theirs on him. Carroll's eyes were looking for knavery, and the men's were looking ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the unusual whiteness of their hands. Those hands, en passant, showed a family feature common to all—namely, the feature that the flesh of the palm on the outer side was rosy in colour, and divided by a sharp, straight line from the pure whiteness of the upper portion of the hand. Still more was the character of this feminine circle expressed in the manner in which the three ladies spoke Russian and French—spoke them, that is to say, with perfect articulation ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... suggesting the circular action of the sea—some of these holes no more than a foot wide, and some as wide as an ordinary-sized well—and in these was the only soil to be found. In them the strange and savage trees—spined, and sown thick with sharp teeth—found their rootage, and writhed about, splitting the rock into endless cracks and fissures with their fierce effort—sea-grape, with leaves like cymbal-shaped plates of green metal; gum-elemi trees, with trunks of glistening bronze; and seven-year apples, ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... grandfather, you seem all at once to have taken me as a subject for a practical joke," said the young man, stiffly. The interlude had taken the sharp edge off his indignation, but he was still bitter. "It may seem a joke to you. To me it seems insult and persecution. I have attended to business, I've worked hard and made money for both of us. To-day ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... and as he did so, he heard the sharp rattle of rifles, and when the echo of it had ceased, he could not hear the noise of heavy treading any more. He stood still in the centre of the room, listening, and presently he heard a groan. He ran to the window and looked out. In the ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... rush forward they retook the principal positions with the bayonet. As they saw the Pontificals swerve back they uttered cries of joy. It was two o'clock. The enemy's fire slackened; something was going on which the volunteers could not make out. All at once there was a sharp unfamiliar detonation, resembling the whirring sound of a machine. The French had come ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... afternoon, it happened he was playing at small cricket with Maud, and made a sharp cut into the great greenhouse. There was a crash of glass, followed by ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Mr. Sharp," replied Mrs. Davies between a smile and a cry; "but being a lawyer, that is of course natural, and, as I am not here to consult you as ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... it, with a very vague apprehension of what he was about to do. The sharp, stinging stroke of the ruler the next moment upon her open palm, made her understand very thoroughly. It drew from her one cry of mixed pain and terror; but after that first forced exclamation Daisy covered her face with her other hand and did not speak ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... Dale, she said: 'Now must I give thee that gift to go along with the gift of the lover, the King's son; and I think thou wilt find it of avail before many days are gone by.' Therewith she took from her pouch a strong sharp knife, and drew it from the sheath, and flashed it in the afternoon sun, and gave it to me; and I took it and laid it in my bosom and thanked her; for I thought that I understood her meaning, and how it would avail ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... architect of St. Peter's at Rome, and for its size, which is much greater than that of any other church in Christendom. [In this cathedral is the Tomb of Johannes Acutus Anglus, which a man would naturally interpret as John Sharp; but his name was really Hawkwood, which the Italians have corrupted into Acut. He was a celebrated General or Condottiere who arrived in Italy at the head of four thousand soldiers of fortune, mostly Englishmen who had served with him in the army of King Edward III., and were dismissed at the ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... half-past nine, I put the book into my pocket, and strolled leisurely towards the haunted house. I took with me a favourite dog—an exceedingly sharp, bold, and vigilant bull-terrier—a dog fond of prowling about strange ghostly corners and passages at night in search of rats—a dog ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... and a boy, set for that purpose, read aloud the names of the presents, appointed for the guests, to carry home with them. Wicked silver, what can it not? Then a gammon of bacon was set on the table, and above that several sharp sauces, a night-cap for himself, pudding-pies, and I know not what kind of birds: There was also brought in a rundlet of wine, boiled off a third part, and kept under ground to preserve its strength: There were also several other ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... sunken eye, And features sharp and wan, He heav'd a deep and heavy sigh, And down ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... the evidence of this lead infilling, dates the church as late as the fifteenth century. But it is equally possible that the letters were marked out by drill holes which were then connected with the chisel, and that the carver, pleased by the effect given by the sharp points of shadow in the drill holes, deliberately left them. The grooves do not seem ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... used the Greek language, and was never so complete as he says. The Logos-Christology, to which he justly attributes the greatest importance, is already present in St. Paul's epistles; the name only is wanting; and the sharp contradiction which he finds between the Christian idea of a revelation made through a person at a certain date, and the Greek idea of an apprehension of timeless and changeless truth, always open ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... a great part of every afternoon on the trolley, and one lady has achieved celebrity by spending four dollars a week in trolley-rides. The exhilaration of these is varied with an occasional apprehension when the car pitches down a sharp incline, and twists almost at right angles on a sudden curve at the bottom without slacking its speed. A lady who ventured an appeal to the conductor at one such crisis was reassured, and at the same time taught ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... little piece of turf, fluttering and looking up for a glimpse of blue sky; a dejected robin, with no tail to speak of, and sundry other sad-looking specimens met my pitying gaze, and I suppose I had caught their sorrowful expression, for I was startled by a sharp voice near me, saying, "What's the matter?" I turned to reply, and found the inquiry was made by a grey parrot, who introduced himself as "Pretty Poll," and was ready to make friends to any extent. But ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... reached our objective with less fearful slaughter, but at the moment when there should have been the sharp clash and clang of steel on steel, the cries and groans of men fighting for their lives, we heard the bugles from far and near, sounding the "stand by," and friend and enemy dropped wearily to the ground for a ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... she tried to rest, but the taper which she had lighted threw such ghastly shadows upon the walls, which seemed to wave and beckon her, that she leaped from the bed in agony, and almost screamed outright. Hours passed slowly and sadly, and the short, sharp ringing of the watchman's club upon the pavement beneath her window, mingled with the chimes of the old cathedral clock as it struck midnight—and still the poor frightened girl could neither sleep nor compose herself. Once, indeed, she ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... good deal of self-will. But he has fine qualities. I wish he had a better mother. I am so impatient with him when he is wayward and perverse! What he needs is a firm, gentle hand, moved by no caprice, and controlled by the constant fear of God. He never ought to hear an irritable word, or a sharp tone; but he does hear them, I must own with grief and shame. The truth is, it is so long since I really felt strong and well that I am not myself, and can not do him justice, poor child. Next to being a perfect wife I want to be a perfect mother. How mortifying, how dreadful in all things ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... erect stalk, of medium height; large leaves; flowers freely; bears no fruit. The tuber is quite smooth, nearly cylindrical, varying to flattish at the centre, tapering gradually toward each end. Eyes shallow, but sharp and strongly marked. Skin thin, tough, of a dull bluish color. Flesh white, solid, and brittle; rarely hollow; boils through quickly; is very mealy, and of the best table quality. It is as healthy and productive as the Early Goodrich, matures about ten days earlier, and is its superior for the ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... to go forward, for God was on their side. Shane swore a great oath not to turn his back while an Englishman was alive; and with scream and yell his men came on. Fortunately there were no Scots among them. The English, though out-numbered ten to one, stood steady in the churchyard, and, after a sharp hand-to-hand fight, drove back the howling crowd. The Irish retired into the friars' houses outside the cathedral close, set them on fire, ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... dyed their skin and hair with the juice of the boka the two Army boys next distributed a liberal amount of dirt on themselves, then drew on the borrowed clothing, consisting only of shirts and short trousers. Inside their clothing each tucked a sharp-edged creese, also a ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... are found in sharp conflict concerning them. The line which divides these precedents is generally found to be the same which separates the early from the later days of the republic. The further the Government drifted from the old moorings of equality and human ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... her hands in his own. But the fingers lay with unanswering coldness and lifelessness for a second in his clasp and then were drawn away and took determinate hold of the chair-back. Again the flush came to Fleda's cheeks, brought by a sharp pain,—oh, bodily and mental too!—and after a moment's pause, with a distinctness of utterance that let him know every word, ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... pictures she had made to herself of him were not at all like Lord George Germain. He was to be fair, with laughing eyes, quick in repartee, always riding well to hounds. She had longed to hunt herself, but her father had objected. He must be sharp enough sometimes to others, though ever soft to her, with a silken moustache and a dimpled chin, and perhaps twenty-four years old. Lord George was dark, his eyes never laughed; he was silent generally, and never went out ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... born trader, the beau-ideal of a sharp money-making man. Money flows to his pockets as naturally as water down a steep. No pang of conscience will prevent him from cheating his fellow man. He excels a Jew, and his only rival in a market ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... great army! They do not all knock at area-doors for old clothes and broken victual, nor hold out hats at street-crossings, nor expose sharp-faced babies to win pity, nor send their infant tatterdemalions to torture the ears of the wealthy with scratchy fiddles and wheezing accordions. No, these plagues of society are only the extreme left wing; the right wing is a very respectable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... Hilda, with a sharp frown, "that must be poor old Mr Shushions from Turnhill, and they're guying him! You must stop it. Something must be ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... long looking forward and tremulous hope and fear—still it was pleasant. The maternal instinct was so strong that even imaginary motherhood seemed sweet. She bent forward to embrace the children, with tears in her eyes, when Letitia said, in a sharp, unchildlike voice, ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... grete tabour betyng, Blaweyng of pypes, and ek trumpyng, Stedes lepyng, and ek arnyng, Of sharp speres, and avalyng Of stronge knighttes, and wyghth meetyng; Launces breche and increpyng; Knighttes fallyng, stedes lesyng; Herte and hevedes thorough kervyng; Swerdes draweyng, lymes lesyng Hard assaylyng, strong defendyng, Stiff withstondyng and wighth fleigheyng. Sharp of takyng ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... whose sense of their malignity is so keen, that, whenever he catches a gleam of their treacherous lustre on the carpet, he instantly draws his two and a quarter yards of length into the smallest possible compass, and shrieks until the domestic police come to the rescue, and apprehend the sharp little villains. Do not laugh at this. Years ago he lost his choicest friend by the stab of just such a little dastard lying ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... who had recognized an ecclesiastic, "as, in spite of the sharp tone in which you speak, you seem a man of learning, permit a poor ignoramus to ask you a few details about this Jehu, dead these two thousand six hundred years, who, nevertheless, is honored by followers ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere |
