"Sharpness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with red bunches of flowers, or, O king, like the Kinsuka tree when clad in its flowery attire! Taking up then another bow, Rama, filled with wrath, showered upon me numerous arrows of excessive sharpness, furnished with golden wings. And those fierce arrows of tremendous impetus, resembling snakes, or fire, or poison, coming at me from all sides, pierced my very vitals and caused me to tremble. Summoning all my coolness I then ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... "lurid flames," or "untiring efforts," or "specimens of humanity"—who "views with alarm," or has a "native heath," or is "to the manner born"—does more than advertise the scantness of his verbal resources. He brands himself mentally indolent; he deprives his thought itself of all sharpness, exactness, and power. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... teachers whom it will not hear. The best talents of all our English painters have been spent either in endeavours to find room for the expression of feelings which no master guided to a worthy end, or to obtain the attention of a public whose mind was dead to natural beauty, by sharpness of satire, or variety ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... face slanted to a sharpened chin. Her hair, drawn to the corner of either eye, left a white triangle whose apex pointed to the highest reach of the forehead. Thus the face, in all its contour, was rising, or falling, to a point. This sharpness of feature was in her verylaugh itself; while in that hair-encircled oval was the light of elfish mockery, but of no ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... up Miss Flora, with unusual sharpness for her. "I think your mother is just right. I'm sure the least we can do in return for this wonderful gift is to show our respect and appreciation by going into the very deepest black we can. I'm sure ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... more refined and beautified her character. By degrees the sharpness of the grief wore away, and it became a sweet, though saddened memory. Eight years after her loss, she became the wife of Samuel C. Pomeroy, of Southampton, Massachusetts. "They were of kindred feelings in life's great work, had suffered alike by ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... nonsense, Cecily," cried the Story Girl with unwonted sharpness, a sharpness we all understood. All of us, in our hearts, though we never spoke of it to each other, thought Cecily was not as well as she ought to be that spring, and we hated to hear anything said which seemed in any way ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and I knew by the sharpness of his reply my words had stung, "and it might be well for you to keep a civil tongue in your head. I overheard what you said to those men in the cabin. So you are going to take care of me, are you?" There was a touch of steel in the low voice. "Now listen, you brainless meddler. Joe ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... had replied with insolent sharpness to a legitimate claim advanced by a certain princeling of the Confederated States—the Regent of Lippe-Detmold, Count Ernest von Lippe-Biesterfeld, has had occasion to see that public opinion severely condemns his unjustifiable ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... the purple moors, is very poetical to look back upon; but when such life actually touches on our own days, and we can hear particulars from the lips of those now living, there come out details of coarseness—of the uncouthness of the rustic mingled with the sharpness of the tradesman—of irregularity and fierce lawlessness—that rather mar the vision of pastoral innocence and simplicity. Still, as it is the exceptional and exaggerated characteristics of any period that leave the most vivid memory behind them, it would be wrong, and in my opinion faithless, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... persons, (except the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon, and certain other illustrious men, and a few besides,) were put the sword, to prevent their becoming our ruin in the approaching struggle. And, after a little while, the enemy, (by the Almighty's will,) having tasted the sharpness of our arrows, and seeing that our King was approaching them, left us a field of blood, with chariots and many other carriages filled (p. 178) with provisions and weapons, lances ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... of sharpness if you would be a good prospector for your best chances to succeed. Avoid "the cutting edge" in your voice and manner when you make inquiries about opportunities you seek. You are likely to be most effective in prospecting ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... wrong or right," Rachael said one autumn day when they were walking slowly to the beach. Over their heads the trees were turning scarlet; the days were still soft and warm, but twilight fell earlier now, and in the air at morning and evening was the intoxicating sharpness, the thin blue and clear steel color that mark the dying summer. Alice's three younger children were in school, and the family came to Clark's Hills only for the week- ends, but Rachael and her boys stayed on and on, enjoying the rare warmth and beauty ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... of the Redclyffe temper, I was hardly prepared to find it so ready to flash forth on the most inexplicable provocations. It is like walking on a volcano. I have seen him two or three times draw himself up, bite his lip, and answer with an effort and a sharpness that shows how thin a crust covers the burning lava; but I acknowledge that he has been very civil and attentive, and speaks most properly of what he owes to you. I only hope he will not be hurt by the possession of so large a property so early ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and made a face at him, as if she wished to show him that she really was some horrible fiend; the unusual sharpness of her mobile and youthful features gave her a particular facility for doing so. And she fully attained her end, for he drew back with a look of horror, stretched out his arms to repel her, and exclaimed as he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... manner that the pressure on the flat roof was entirely avoided.—With regard to the Transit Circle, the new Collimators with telescopes of seven inches aperture had been mounted. When the Transit Telescope directed vertically is interposed, the interruptions in the central cube impair the sharpness of definition, still leaving it abundantly good for general use. It had been regarded as probable that the astronomical flexure of the telescope, after cutting away small portions of the central cube, would be found sensibly ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... sufficient! he leaped from his seat, and rushed wildly forward, threading a wood in his way, and turning in and out—in and out —with the sharpness and facility of a needle in the heel of a worsted stocking—he never stayed his flight, 'till he fell plump into the centre of a group of Indians, who received him with a yell!—loud enough to split the drums of a whole drawing-room full of ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... with a touch of sharpness at the sound of his companion's laugh. "Billy! Did I not tell you to go ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... of their time out of doors in the pure, fresh air. Their eyes and ears were trained to every sign of the forest, for upon the sharpness of their senses ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... for all the world like a yellow, shrivelled parchment himself. Regular gimlet eyes, too, and a very fitch for sharpness, though younger than his appearance might make ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... struggles. God's blessing follows such an one at every step, and he will succeed in the end, whatever trials may beset his path at first. It is a great mistake to suppose that a man's success depends on his "sharpness." Shrewdness is a valuable quality, but it must be coupled with a plain, practical honesty, or it will amount to nothing in the end. A man must be faithful to his God if he would have his ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... up her persistent nagging and remonstrances, and tried to receive her husband with affectionate words, the sharpness of the bigot showed through, and one speech would often undo the ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... favorites and his family, and his unblushing nepotism were the subjects of frequent satire. The Farnese palace, built in great part with stone taken from the Colosseum, is a standing monument of the justice of Pasquin's rebukes, the sharpness of which is concentrated in a single telling epigram. "Let us pray for Pope Paul," said Pasquin, "for zeal for his house is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... this personification of Death the story differs from all the others which we have examined and marks an intellectual advance upon them; since the power of picturing abstract ideas to the mind with all the sharpness of outline and vividness of colour which are implied by personification is a faculty above the reach of very low intelligences. It is not surprising that the Baganda should have attained to this power, for they are probably the most highly cultured and intellectual of all the many Bantu ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... such, as they are in effect meat and drink both: so that divers, especially in age, do desire to live with them, with little or no meat or bread. And above all, we strive to have drink of extreme thin parts, to insinuate into the body, and yet without all biting, sharpness, or fretting; insomuch as some of them put upon the back of your hand will, with a little stay, pass through to the palm, and yet taste mild to the mouth. We have also waters which we ripen in that fashion, ...
— The New Atlantis • Francis Bacon
... course, a singularly intelligent child, and so must often have wondered what has become of all the interesting things that you read about in the old fairy-tales—the shoes of swiftness, and the sword of sharpness, and the cloak that made its wearer invisible, and things like that. Well, the fact is all these things are still in the world, hidden about somewhere, only people are so busy with new inventions, wireless telegraphs and X rays, and air-ships, that they don't trouble any more to look for ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... became so unaccustomed to talking that it was only with difficulty that he could ask a hotel-keeper about the price of his room. This unrelieved silence chiselled his lips into ghastly sharpness. ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... sweetness, and general warpiness of the English climate, sparkling one day with the dew-drop-on-the-grass-freshness of an early summer morning, to hang the next as passing heavy on the hand as the November fog upon the new hat brim; veering within twelve hours to the sharpness of the East wind, which braces skin and temper to cracking point, and to make up for it all, for one whole hour in the twenty-four, resembling the exquisite moment of the June morning, in which you find the first half-open rose upon the bush just ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... ("Thou art the King of Glory"), leading without break into a stately choral enunciation of the same words. The eighth is a slow and plaintive bass solo, usually sung by a tenor ("When Thou tookest upon Thee to deliver Man"), followed by a grave and impressive chorus ("When Thou hadst overcome the Sharpness of Death"). The next number is a trio for alto, tenor, and bass ("Thou sittest at the Right Hand of God"), closing with a beautiful adagio effect. A fanfare of trumpets introduces the next four numbers, all choruses, set to ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... matter, there is ready welcome for you now at my brother's house," said Mistress Fitzooth, repenting of her sharpness at once. "Montfichet bade us all to Gamewell; but here is his scroll, and you may read it for yourself." She took a scroll from her bosom as she spoke and offered it ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... his slight but active form, altogether with the air of some implement, not meant for ornament but for use, and yet absolutely beautiful, through perfection of polish, finish, applicability, and a sharpness never meant to wound, but deserving to be cherished in ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... At long intervals were uncomfortable refreshment-rooms, made more uncomfortable by the scorn of Beauty towards Beast, the public (but to whom she never relented, as Beauty did in the story, towards the other Beast), and where sensitive stomachs were fed, with a contemptuous sharpness occasioning indigestion. Here, again, were stations with nothing going but a bell, and wonderful wooden razors set aloft on great posts, shaving the air. In these fields, the horses, sheep, and cattle were well used to the thundering meteor, and didn't ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... roughly, with a sharpness in his tone which was its apology. "She has done what she always meant to do—and that is ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... drawn face and blanched cheeks that would have struck dismay into her very soul; but, as it was, she attributed the question purely and simply to his eagerness for service, and answered with a suggestion of sharpness that was not lost ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... follow from this position. The first is that our surface consciousness is somewhat illusory and does not possess the sharpness and definiteness of outline which we are accustomed to take for granted when thinking of ourselves. To ordinary common sense nothing seems more obvious than that we know most that is to be known about ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... up to you in her own fashion, caring little whether it be correct or the reverse. And the more vivaciously she talks, the more likely she is to be dangerously insincere and cold-hearted, for the very sharpness of her wit is apt to spoil the more delicate perceptions of her nature. Show me a brilliant woman noted for turning an epigram or pointing a satire, and I will show you a creature whose life is a masquerade, full of vanity, sensuality and pride. ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... time that must be will depend entirely upon the sharpness of the break in the economic life of Europe, and the amount of supplies they have on hand, which, as they will not now need them at home, they will be anxious to sell in the United States. Indeed, ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hoar come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;— Go forth, under the open ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... which weakened them and rendered them ridiculous. The current of her life was simple, smooth, with a natural gaiety even, which sparkled through the eternal restraint of her existence; and despite the ill- temper and the sharpness which this restraint without rest gave her, she was a woman ordinarily without ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... cried Mrs. Brinkley. She looked up with whimsical pleasure in the uncertainty of an old gentleman who is staring hard at her through his glasses. "Well," she said with a pleasant sharpness, "do ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... known it, craving the food with the keen craving of the man who has lunched too lightly, she looked at her hands, from which the white gloves were now removed. A pang, not altogether new, but of renewed sharpness, shot through her, as she looked down at the reddened, hardened fingers with the slight vegetable stains upon them, clasped together on the table edge. Where were the nails trained and kept to an exquisite filbert shape? The ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... two valuable prizes that had slipped through the frigate's hands, the story was too good not to be told. Thus, Bob's exploit became generally known among the officers of the garrison; and Captain O'Halloran was warmly congratulated upon the sharpness, and pluck, of his ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... good deal of her mother's sharpness in the way she said this, and plucked Bobby by the strings of his pinafore, until he took an uncomfortable seat upon an ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... pinions creeps and crawls; Who hopes by strange variety to please Puts dolphins among forests, boars in seas. Thus zeal to 'scape from error, if unchecked By sense of art, creates a new defect. Fix on some casual sculptor; he shall know How to give nails their sharpness, hair its flow; Yet he shall fail, because he lacks the soul To comprehend and reproduce the whole. I'd not be he; the blackest hair and eye Lose all their beauty with ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... finds that silver, because of overproduction, becomes uncertain and erratic in value, and with the same instinct it chooses gold as a standard of value. A coin of unsteady value is like a knife of uncertain sharpness. It is thrown aside for one that can do all that is expected of it. Gold is such a tool. It is the standard of all first-class nations. It is to-day, and it will remain, the standard of ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... long. At the summit of a little rise the riders had plainly stopped for a few moments, then had turned and galloped fast for the southwest. The lengthening tracks, the sharpness of them, the carelessness with which the riders took the rougher ground to follow a straight line, all suggested an ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... him with a straight, clear, vigorous glance. He liked the medallion sharpness of her features—their ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... after the winter storms, early, in March, with all the strength and sweetness of spring in it; though there was sharpness enough in the air to make my veins tingle. The sun was shining with so much heat in it, that I might be out-of-doors all day under the shelter of the rocks, in the warm, southern nooks where the daisies were growing. The birds sang more blithely than ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... in their own image; and it is therefore logical, orderly, and clear. Sainte-Beuve declared that a 'philosophical thought has probably not attained all its sharpness and all its illumination until it is expressed in French'. As the French are noted rather for their intelligence than for their imagination, they are the acknowledged masters of prose; and their achievement in poetry is more disputable. As they are governed by the social instinct, their ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... held over the woman's face, and administered drop by drop on the handkerchief. The handkerchief should be placed over the face at the beginning of the pain and be taken away as soon as the pain is stopped. The woman inhales the chloroform during the pains and their sharpness is blunted. Given in that way it is not considered dangerous. It should only be pushed to unconsciousness during a forceps delivery, and even then it is not always necessary to render the woman unconscious. I have used the forceps without giving an anesthetic. They ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... he wore better clothes, had learned slightly better manners, and spoke better English. As a gambler and a man-trampler he had developed remarkable efficiency. Also, he had become used to a higher standard of living, and he had whetted his wits to razor sharpness in the fierce, complicated struggle of fighting males. But he had hardened, and at the expense of his old-time, whole-souled geniality. Of the essential refinements of civilization he knew nothing. He did not know they existed. He had become cynical, bitter, and brutal. Power had its effect ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... to take him by the hand, he made great mistakes. His wife and he cared nothing for one another, but she was jealous to the last degree. I never saw such jealousy. It was strange that, although she almost hated him, she watched him with feline sharpness and patience, and would even have killed any woman whom she knew had won his affection. He, on the other hand, openly avowed that marriage without love was nothing, and flaunted without the least modification the most ideal theories as to the ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... often powerful in scaring women, are somewhat blunted. Indeed, they do not infrequently injure assailants more than assailed. So it was not in the days of Galileo. These weapons were then in all their sharpness and venom. The first champion who appears against him is Bellarmine, one of the greatest of theologians and one of the poorest of scientists. He was earnest, sincere, learned, but made the fearful mistake for the world of applying direct literal interpretation of Scripture to science. ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... the woods beat themselves out noisily, seemed to favor closing the door behind him. It was she who had brought him to this pass. It was she who had locked his door upon herself and, in her wantonness, as good as thrown away the key. Let her stay outside. But he was not equal to even that sharpness of decision and Tira, after she found the door swinging free, ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... guests, yet so indifferent to their personal demeanour towards him—so respectfully distant to the Queen, yet so patient of her harassing displeasure—that Elizabeth changed her manner to him, and, though cold and distant, ceased to offer him any direct affront. She intimated also with some sharpness to others around her, who thought they were consulting her pleasure in showing a neglectful conduct to the Earl, that while they remained at Kenilworth they ought to show the civility due from guests to the Lord of the Castle. In short, matters were so far changed in twenty-four hours that some ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... hereafter, I may be a trifle unjust in my recollection of him; but I seem to see again a weasel face, with a pair of little restless cunning eyes, and lips that were shaped to a perpetual sneer. As to the sharpness of his tongue I know my memory does not play me false: Dick Cludde's taunts ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... two days there came down to the shore quite one hundred and fifty Moors on foot, and thirty-five mounted on camels and horses, and though they seemed to be a race both barbarous and bestial, there was not wanting in them a certain sharpness, with which they could cheat their enemies, for at first there only appeared three of them on the beach, and the rest lay in ambush till our men should land and they could rush out and master them, ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... was in hopeless peril. He knew that he was physically defenceless and at the mercy of twelve armed and lawless men. But he retained a preternatural clearness of perception, and audacity born of unqualified scorn for his antagonists, with a feminine sharpness of tongue. In a voice which astonished even himself by its contemptuous distinctness, he said: "My name IS Ford, but as I only SUPPOSE your name is Harrison perhaps you'll be fair enough to take that rag from your face and show it to me like ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... you still had, or might get, and draw uses from, if you could. Wait till the Book on the Logos were done;—alas, till your own terrene eyes, blind with conceit and the dust of logic, were purged, subtilized and spiritualized into the sharpness of vision requisite for discerning such an "om-m-mject."—The ingenuous young English head, of those days, stood strangely puzzled by such revelations; uncertain whether it were getting inspired, or getting infatuated into flat imbecility; and strange effulgence, of ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... on his coat of darkness, and his shoes of swiftness, and was there before her. When the lady came, she gave the handkerchief to the magician. Jack with his sword of sharpness cut off his head with one blow; and the enchantment was ended ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... oar, and he is so attracted by bright and gaudy colours that he will shoot down recklessly on to the pennants of ships as they flutter in the wind, swinging to and fro with the roll of the vessel. He soars to an immense height, like the eagle, and no telescope can match the sharpness of his eyesight. Up aloft he can see the smallest fish disporting itself on the surface of the water. Especially he looks out for flying-fish, and catches them in the air just as they are hovering on expanded fins above the waves, or else dives ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... was patient as well as cunning. In no other way could Basterga explain his dupe's inaction. And presently, when he had almost brought himself to accept the former conclusion, on an evening something more than a week later, a thing happened that added sharpness to his anxiety. He was crossing the bridge from the Quarter of St. Gervais, when a man cloaked to the eyes slipped from the shadow of the mills, a little before him, and with a slight but unmistakable gesture of invitation proceeded in front of him ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... try the sharpness of my tooth; Instead of poison, I will eat Rabbits, capons, and such meat; And so, as Pythagoras says, With wholesome fare prolong my days. But, sir, will Mistress ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... boarded and captured the poetess is strong upon me yet. I saw it in the rascal's eye the very first time they met—an' he thinks I'm as blind as a bat, I'll be bound, with his poetical reef-point-pattering sharpness. But it's a strange discovery he has made and must be looked into. The young dog! He gives me orders as if ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... The metal being much softer than copper, is liable to scratches, which detain a small portion of the ink. This is the reason of the dirty appearance of printed music. A new process has recently been invented by Mr Cowper, by which this inconvenience will be avoided. The improved method, which give sharpness to the characters, is still an art of copying; but it is effected by surface printing, nearly in the same manner as calico-printing from blocks, to be described hereafter, 96. The method of printing music from pewter plates, although by far the ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... trace of sharpness in Michael's tone, and the light had faded out of his eyes. After all, there was no cause for him to rejoice; she had not left off her mourning of her own accord. What a fool he had been! Of course, she had only done it ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... own roof at last, my man!" she said, with a touch of the sharpness that she could put into her tongue on occasion. "There's them would say you'd forgotten the way to it, judging by experience—why did you not let me know you were not coming home last night, and you in the town, as I ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... done so at all with s's to it," exclaimed the Reverend OCTAVIUS, exasperated by so many plurals. "He did it but once, and then he was strongly provoked. EDWIN mentioned the sharpness of his sister's nose to him, and reflected casually upon the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... adverse criticism was unpleasant to Miss Fenimer. She was not accustomed to it; and she answered with some sharpness: ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... of the Diamond K ranch, near Manti," said the stranger, with blunt sharpness that made the Judge blink. "I've a case on in the Manti court at ten o'clock tomorrow—today," he corrected. "They are going to try to swindle me out of my land, and I've got to have a lawyer—a ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... De Foe, if we may imitate the language of the 'Arabian Nights,' was given a tongue to which no one could listen without believing every word that he uttered—a qualification, by the way, which would serve its owner far more effectually in this commonplace world than swords of sharpness or cloaks of darkness, or other fairy paraphernalia. In other words, he had the most marvellous power ever known of giving verisimilitude to his fictions; or, in other words again, he had the most amazing ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... of the index and thumb stroking the two sides of the nose from base to point. This means astute, attentive, ready. Sharpness of the nasal organ is popularly associated with subtlety and finesse. The old Romans by homo emunctae naris meant an acute man attentive to his interests. The sign is often used in a bad sense, then signifying too ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... so much verse is of the memory and fancy more than of the heart and imagination. Inward impulse not being dominant, the words, however shiny, are touched with coldness. Under the inward dominance (supposing always that the intellectual tool be of due temper and sharpness) the poet mounts springily on a ladder self-wrought out of the brain as he ascends; and thus there is a prompt continuity and progressiveness, a forward and upward movement towards the climax which ever awaits you in a subject that has a poem in it. In a genuine poem, a work of inspiration ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... mild and gracious clemency, and their slanderous lewdness to be the more condemned, that have in favor of heinous malefactors and stubborn traitors spread untrue rumours and slanders, to make her merciful government disliked, under false pretence and rumors of sharpness and cruelty to those against whom nothing can be cruel, and yet upon whom nothing hath been done but ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... The oldest was a venerable widow, who confessed to being 96 years old, the next was another lady of 94 years, and then came two old fellows who had each attained 93 years. Many of the recipients were too infirm to appear, but the oldest of them all, the lady of 96 came into court despite the sharpness of the wind and the ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... change, and Beth could scarcely repress a gasp of surprise and apprehension. The trail was laid upon the merest granite shelf, above that terrible chasm. She was terrified, frankly. The man and pony in the lead were cut with startling sharpness against the gray of the rock—the calico coloring, the muscular intensity, the bending of the man to every motion—as they balanced with terrifying slenderness above the pit ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... to flag through being obliged to divide itself among many districts. The same results, both good and bad, are observable in Thukydides, whom Dio follows in constructive theory as well as style. It has already been said that our historian sacrifices sharpness of dates to the Onkos, depending, doubtless, on his chronological arrangements to make good the loss. Usually it does so, but occasionally confusion arises. Whether because he noticed this or not, he begins at the opening of the fifty-first book to be accurate in his ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... hide itself no longer: to answer Joan's mother with anything like temper was impossible, and, knowing this, her only refuge was in flight. "I don't want to hear any more you may have to say, Mrs. Tucker;" and though Eve managed to keep under the sharpness of her voice, she could not control the indignant expression of her face, which Mrs. Tucker fully appreciating, she speeded her departure by the inspiriting prediction that if Eve didn't sup sorrow by the spoonful before her hair was gray ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... at him with some sharpness; but finding his blue eyes fixed abstractedly on Karen Woodruff exonerated him from intending to be disagreeable. "Her childlessness has been a final grief," she added; "a child, as she has often told me, would be a resurrection ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... gaily, genially, in his roundest tones and with his easiest gestures; never had he conveyed a completer sense of unhurried power; but Ralph noticed for the first time the crow's-feet about his eyes, and the sharpness of the contrast between the white of his forehead and the redness of the fold of ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... precious to him. In this instance he was myopic. He did not see Beth Truba as other women, and failed to realize this. His penetration faltered before her, for she lived and moved in the brilliant light of his love, blended with it, so that her figure, and her frailties, lost all sharpness of contour. ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... February, 1555. In education he was erudite; in person, comely and of good stature; in manners, a gentleman, and a sincere Christian. A little before death, several of Mr. H's. friends, terrified by the sharpness of the punishment he was going to suffer, privately desired that in the midst of the flames he would show them some token, whether the pains of burning were so great that a man might not collectedly endure it. This he promised to do; and ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... earth. The uttermost simplicity obtains. And every stroke is decisive and meaningful. Moussorgsky seems to have crept closer to life than most artists, to have seized emotions in their nakedness and sharpness, to have felt with the innocence of a child. One of his collections is entitled "La Chambre d'Enfants." And that surprise and wonder at all the common facts of life, the sharpness with which the knowledge of death comes, characterize not ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... organ. These men, personal friends of the President, came to be called the "Kitchen Cabinet;" and at least three of the four were shrewd enough to justify any President in consulting them. Hill and Kendall were both New England men by birth, and had all the industry and sharpness of mind proverbially characteristic of Yankees. Even Major Lewis did not surpass Kendall in political cleverness and far-sightedness; he was a "little whiffet of a man," but before long the opposition learned to see his hand ...
— Andrew Jackson • William Garrott Brown
... Morris from her favorite aunt, who was a Methodist exhorter, and the power and spontaneity of this novel came from the sharpness and clearness of her early impressions, joined to her love of living over again her girlhood days, before doubt had clouded her sky. Also read Silas Marner with its perfect picture of Raveloe, "an English village where many of the old echoes lingered, undrowned by new voices." These descriptions ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... help saying "Ho—hum!" in a rather bored way, though he politely placed his hand over his mouth. "There's nothing great about it," he said, "when you're fixed for it. I've my seven-league boots, and my invisible cloak, and my sword of sharpness. You can't help winning with them. Of ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... with alacrity, glad to escape for the moment from the sharpness in his father's voice and the sadness in ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... your contest of wit with the boatswain, and I remarked the way you spoke to your superior officers at dinner. You are now in plain clothes, and the Captain's guest, but do not presume on their present freedom. You will find the drawing-room and the quarter-deck very different places. Sharpness and wit are very well at times, but modesty is never out of place." I thanked Mr Bryan, and promised to remember ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... freshets; then hit on a lane skirting the water, and reached an amphibious village; five miles from Storling, he was informed, and a clear traverse of lanes, not to be mistaken, 'if he kept a sharp eye open.' The sharpness of his eyes was divided between the sword-belt of the starry Hunter and the shifting lanes that zig-tagged his course below. The Downs were softly illumined; still it amazed him to think of a woman like Diana Warwick having ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hesitated. Carroll waited, smoking as he sauntered along. The other man held his cigar, which had gone out, in his mouth; evidently he was nervous about his proposition. Finally he blurted it out with the sharpness of a pistol-shot. "Arthur, I want to defray the expenses of ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... McEwen, indeed, could only limp along, with mingled curses and lamentations, supported by Anderson. In the excitement of his son's appearance he had forgotten his injury. The pain and annoyance of it returned upon him now with added sharpness, and Anderson realised that here was yet another complication as they ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... practice of focussing their eyes sharply upon objects farther off than the length of the vessel or the top of the mast, say at a distance of fifty paces. The horizon itself as seen from the deck, [4] and under the most favourable circumstances, is barely four miles off, and there is no sharpness of outline in the intervening waves. Besides this, the life of a sailor is very unhealthy, as shown by his growing old prematurely, and his eyes must be much tried by foul weather and ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... to be 'shy,' and if a man has once deceived us by flaming professions and ice-cold acts, never to trust him any more. And we think that is 'worldly wisdom,' and 'the bitter fruit of earthly experience,' and 'sharpness,' and 'shrewdness,' and so forth. Jesus Christ, even whilst reminding Peter, by that 'more than these,' of his utterly hollow and unreliable boasting, shows Himself ready to accept once again the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... write these things being absent, that when present I may not use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord gave me for ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... tyrants of the forest sprang up, wide awake, and bared their angry teeth, and the untried youths of Thrace ran to beg their fathers to let them taste battle, while the scarred warriors felt on their thumbs the sharpness of their sword blades, and smiled, well content. While he played it would seem as though the very stones and rocks gained hearts. Nay, the whole heart of the universe became one great, palpitating, beautiful thing, an instrument from whose trembling strings ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... was still falling in the mountains, keeping the streams up to bank level. And Forrest was also on the move. After the Memphis raid there had been a second honing of his army into razor sharpness, a razor to be brought down with its cutting edge across those railroads which carried the lifeblood of supplies to the ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... as the people of the North; but for nigh three generations they gave themselves up to morbid and fanatical anxieties upon the subject of slavery. To that one single subject they gave the whole bent and sharpness of their intellect, ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... be known by the length and sharpness of their spurs; in young ones they are short and blunt. The cock bird is generally reckoned the best, except when the hen is with egg. They should hang some time before they are dressed, as, if they are cooked fresh, the flesh ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... poor creature! She was old and feeble, and crippled. He had forgotten. He had only thought of her, Kaya, the girl with the flower-like face. He shook himself, as if out of a dream, and his hand patted the woman's shoulder soothingly. His voice lost its sharpness. ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... narrated of a well-known English lady (who is noted on the other side of the Atlantic for the sharpness of her wit) that on one occasion, when a vainglorious American was boasting of his country's prowess in digging the Panama Canal, she calmly waited until he had finished and then replied, with an indescribable smile, "Ah—but ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... if not consummately attained. In a word, Borgognone was a true Lombard of the best time. The very imperfection of his flesh-painting repeats in colour what the greatest Lombard sculptors sought in stone—a sharpness of relief that passes over into angularity. This brusqueness was the counterpoise to tenderness of feeling and intensity of fancy in these northern artists. Of all Borgognone's pictures in the Certosa I should select the altar-piece of S. Siro with S. Lawrence and S. Stephen and two ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... window, deepening the pallour of her face, gave to its delicate lines the sharpness of a tragic mask. "Nothing will, I am sure; but while there's even a doubt left, how can you think I would ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... on. My mother grew sleepless and pallid. She laughed often, in a nervous, shallow way, as unlike her as a butterfly is unlike a sunset; and her face settled into an habitual sharpness and hardness unutterably painful ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... walls of the hall itself into the more central parts of the instrument, where a smoother harmony of outline is predominant. For in the great towers, which step forward, as it were, to represent the meaning of the entire structure, the lines are all curved, as if the slight discords which gave sharpness and variety to its less vital portions were all resolved as we approached its throbbing heart. And again, the half fantastic repetitions of musical forms in the principal outlines—the lyre-like shape of the bases of the great towers, the harp-like figure ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... cots, cloisters, an entanglement of stairways, galleries, and arches falling to the precipices below: all this in miniature; built up in a tiny space; all this encompassed with formidable ramparts, and hooked on to the flanks of gigantic Sinai! From the sharpness and thinness of the air, we know that we are at an excessive height, and yet we seem to be at the bottom of a well. On every side the extreme peaks of Sinai enclose us, as they mount and scale the sky; their titanic walls, all of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... to be noted that I was earning two pounds ten shillings a week from Messrs. J. Canning and Son at that time. I do not think there was anything dishonest in what I said to Foster; but it certainly indicated a kind of business sharpness which has been rather noticeably lacking in my later life. The editor nodded ready agreement, and it was in this way that I ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... and there were no signs of the enemy. Our horses had approached us once or twice, but as we paid no attention to them, they had wandered off, and were standing in the shade of the west bank for the purpose of getting rid of some of the insects which were hovering in the air, and biting with a sharpness that proved they had been without ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... astonishing sharpness of the prick, she gave a cry and awoke to a sense of undeserved escape. A little ruby spot of blood was the reward of that great act of desperation; but the pain had braced her like a tonic, and her whole design of suicide had ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and great depth to take hold of the water and prevent drifting; long, low in the waist, with lofty raking masts, which tapered away till they were almost too fine to be distinguished, the beautiful arrowy sharpness of her bow, and the fineness of her gradually receding quarters, showed a model capable of the greatest speed in sailing. Her low sides were painted black, with one small, narrow ribband of white. Her raking masts were clean scraped, her ropes were ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... calls Satyrs, and but rarely mentions. The dwarf Miming, who lives in the desert, has a precious sword of sharpness (Mistletoe?) that could even pierce skin-hard Balder, and a ring (Draupnir) that multiplied itself for its possessor. He is trapped by the hero and ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... hung over her lest repinings might bring on them all the judicial punishment of a terrible break-up of the home she loved, even while the tedium of the daily round oppressed her. Alternate plaintiveness and weary sharpness of course aggravated both Alda and Bernard, and they knew nothing of the repentant wretchedness that rather weakened than ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... night-enshadowed heath. But she became gay. She could not keep in the medium, nor be, as was usual with her, placidly content. Every one remarked her exhilaration of spirits; as all actions appear graceful in the eye of rank, her guests surrounded her applaudingly, although there was a sharpness in her laugh, and an abruptness in her sallies, which might have betrayed her secret to an attentive observer. She went on, feeling that, if she had paused for a moment, the checked waters of misery would have deluged her soul, that her wrecked ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... leaning pensively on one of the travelling carriages. "Guten Morgen, Ihro Konigliche Hoheit!" [Ranke, 1. 305.] —Fancy such a salutation to the young man! Page Keith, at this moment, comes with a pair of horses, too: "Whither with the nags, Sirrah?" Rochow asked with some sharpness. Keith, seeing how it was, answered without visible embarrassment, "Herr, they are mine and Kunz the Page's horses" (which, I suppose, is true); "ready at the usual hour!" Keith might add.—"His Majesty does not go till five this morning;—back to the stables!" beckoned Rochow; ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... as before, and was angry with Lucifer for letting the handkerchief go. "But now," said she, "I will be too hard for the King's son, for I will kiss thee, and he's to show thy lips." Jack, standing near him with his Sword of sharpness, cut off the devil's head, and brought it under his invisible Coat to his master, who was in bed, and laid it at the end of his bolster. In the morning when the lady came up, he pulled it out by the horns and showed her the devil's lips, which she ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... was one would-be clever clown who was perfectly willing to test the power of the battery, but was so clever he never would take hold of both handles at once. He dodged around for two or three days greatly pleased with his sharpness, but I determined to have him some day and have him hard when I got him. So one morning when dancing about as usual he happened to be barefooted. Apparently by accident, I upset the basin of water ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... soon manifest that Mr. Mulready was master in his own house. He still looked pleasant and smiled, for his smile was a habitual one; but there was a sharpness in the ring of his voice, an impatience if everything was not exactly as he wished. He roughly silenced Charlie and Lucy if they spoke when he was reading his paper at breakfast, and he spoke snappishly to his wife when she asked him a question on such occasions. Ned felt his face burn, as with ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... notwithstanding the skill of the engraver, it is impossible to render with accuracy all the details that are seen upon examining the negative. The proofs that have been printed upon paper present much less sharpness than the negative, for there are certain parts of the figures on the glass that do not ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... sweetness and softness of an European. His hair was not curled like wool, as many of the blacks are, but long and black, with the most beautiful, yet careless tresses spreading over his shoulders. He had a very high and large forehead, with a great vivacity and sparkling sharpness in his eyes. His skin was not so tawney, as the Virginians, Brazilians, or other Americans; but rather of a bright dun, olive colour, that had something agreeable in it, though not very easy to give a ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... is you, Dorsenne," replied Madame Steno, with a sharpness contrary to her habitual amiability, which proved to the novelist that first of all he was the "inconvenient third" of the classical comedies, then that Hafner had reported his imprudent remarks of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the fictions of the Middle Age explain themselves as a masked or frolic expression of that which in grave earnest the mind of that period toiled to achieve. Magic and all that is ascribed to it is a deep presentiment of the powers of science. The shoes of swiftness, the sword of sharpness, the power of subduing the elements, of using the secret virtues of minerals, of understanding the voices of birds, are the obscure efforts of the mind in a right direction. The preternatural prowess of the hero, the gift of perpetual youth, and the like, are alike the endeavour ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Abravanel said, tempering the sharpness of his words with a smile. "To put it in the simplest language, they hate our guts. They wish I had never formulated Societics, and at the same time they are very glad I did. They are in the position ...
— The K-Factor • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... and rusty, owing to the presence of iron in the water; but where the necessary precautions had been taken to precipitate this, the casts came out with a highly polished surface, together with a sharpness of outline and a precision of detail, that left no room for competition to Odellis, else unrivalled Roman casts, which, confronted with these, look like impressions of impressions derived through a hundred successive stages; add, too, that ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... to move slowly backward. The sharpness of the odor had ceased with the opening of the eyes, which did not reappear. I could dimly see its huge legs slowly rise and recede and again meet the ground. Soon the ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... The moon was on the wane, golden and mysterious, and now, as she appeared high in the heaven, surrounded by a halo of prismatic light, she threw a cold radiance on everything around, picking out every tree and cottage with unfailing sharpness and casting black, impenetrable shadows which made the light, by contrast, appear yet more ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... these: "Tao is like the emptiness of a vessel; and the use of it, we may say, must be free from all self-sufficiency. How deep and mysterious it is, as if it were the author of all things! We should make our sharpness blunt, and unravel the complications of things. . . . How still and clear is Tao, a phantasm with the semblance of permanence! I do not know whose son it is. It might appear to have ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... fountains splash, while your girls are learning songs and your boys are busy with the contadini, in the vineyards or beside the stream. It is a spirit of pure delight, we find there in that old townsman, in country life, simple and quiet, after the noise and sharpness of the market-place. And certainly, as we pass from Fiesole down the new road where the tram runs, turning into the lanes again just by Villa Galetta, on our way to Maiano, we may fancy we see many places where ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... any feeling of grittiness. Should there be particles of a size to be characterized as "grit," these will after use appear at the surface of the mould, with the result that the mould will have to be abandoned long before it is really worn out, i.e., before the details have lost their sharpness. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... or whatever you may choose to call it. So far as this is concerned the instrument itself makes you a virtuoso—places you on a par with a Liszt, Paderewski or Rosenthal. It does so mechanically, yet without the sharpness and insistent preciseness of a machine. Its action is pneumatic and the effect of the compressed air is to impart to its "touch"—the manner in which its "fingers" strike the keys—an elasticity which at least is comparable with the touch of human fingers. As a friend of mine, a lawyer, who has ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... width and thickness variable; sides strongly furrowed. Fork (fig. 1 a) generally less wide than the widest upper part of the valve, with the two prongs diverging from each other at less than a right angle; their sharpness and precise form variable; rim between them reflexed (figs. 1 a and b), making a slight notch behind. Peduncle smooth, wrinkled, length in proportion to that of the capitulum varying, from barely equalling ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... by writing or in speech; but of his doctrine he could, for conscience' sake, retract nothing. Luther, however, did not humble himself to George as he had done to King Henry, and his letter bears his characteristic sharpness of tone. He assured the Duke, however, that, with all his former severity of language towards him, he was a better friend to him than all his sycophants and parasites, and that the Duke had no need to pray to God ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... D'Artagnan, quite amazed at the resources with which his companion's Gascon sharpness continually supplied him. D'Artagnan took up his camp tin cup, filled it with ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... several gradations downwards, till you come to the smallest, which, to my sight, were almost invisible; but nature hath adapted the eyes of the Lilliputians to all objects proper for their view; they see with great exactness, but at no great distance. And, to show the sharpness of their sight, towards objects that are near, I have been much pleased with observing a cook pulling[29] a lark, which was not so large as a common fly; and a young girl threading an invisible needle with ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... difficulties and scrapes, once, as has been shown, kept from suicide by a mere accident, and was now reduced to the alternative of beggary or of marrying for a living. None of these circumstances, which would have taken the conceit out of most men, at all impaired his opinion of his talent and sharpness. Replying to my observation merely by a slight shrug and smile of pity for the man who thus misappreciated his foresight, he again produced his pocket-book, and extracted from its innermost recesses a fragment of a German newspaper, reputed oracular in matters theatrical. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... sharpness, Ralph Newton got out of a Hansom cab at the door of Alexandrina Cottage. "He's cum in a 'Ansom," said Mrs. Neefit, looking over the blind of the drawing-room window. "That's three-and-six," said Neefit, with a sigh. "You didn't think he was going to walk, father?" ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... proceedings meant. "I hear," said Anne, "that my friends have a mind to make me some settlement." It is said that the Queen, greatly hurt by an expression which seemed to imply that she and her husband were not among her sister's friends, replied with unwonted sharpness, "Of what friends do you speak? What friends have you except the King and me?" [602] The subject was never again mentioned between the sisters. Mary was probably sensible that she had made a mistake in addressing herself to one who was merely a passive ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... very dull to color. "If I liked anything better, it was sculpture a little, and architecture yet a little more"; and it is interesting to note how all his tragedies reflect these preferences, in their lack of color and in their sculpturesque sharpness of outline. ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... oysters in reg'lar desperation." It is certain that some of the eaters look desperate enough; but the seller is a middle-aged, quiet-looking man, who eyes his customers sharply, but serves them with generous cupfuls. The sharpness is evidently acquired, and not native, and he has need of it, the London newsboys, who are his best patrons, being ready to drive a bargain as keen as their fellows on the other side of the sea. His stand is opposite a cat's-meat market, ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... brought chilling airs when evening set in. A century or so ago autumn had the sharpness of coming winter in the early morning and after sundown. There was a cheerful wood fire on the hearth, and its blaze lighted the room sufficiently, as the red light of the sunset poured through a large ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... this occasion joined the standard of Gwenwyn; the arrows of the men of Gwentland, whose skill in archery almost equalled that of the Normans themselves, rattled on the helmets of the men-at-arms; and the spears of the people of Deheubarth, renowned for the sharpness and temper of their steel heads, were employed against the cuirasses not without fatal effect, notwithstanding the protection, which ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... window, this spinster seemed tall from the length and angularity of her face, which recalled the exaggerated proportions of certain Swiss heads. The character of their countenance—the features being marked by a total want of harmony—was that of hardness in the lines, sharpness in the tones; while an unfeeling spirit, pervading all, would have filled a physiognomist with disgust. These characteristics, fully visible at this moment, were usually modified in public by a sort of commercial smile,—a bourgeois smirk which mimicked ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... woods the slate-colored snowbird starts up before me and chirps sharply. His protest when thus disturbed is almost metallic in its sharpness. He breeds here, and is not esteemed a snowbird at all, as he disappears at the near approach of winter, and returns again in spring, like the song sparrow, and is not in any way associated with the cold and snow. So different are the habits of birds in different localities. Even the ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... their revenge, and sparkle with joy, as the sun shines upon their victory. That keel, which, with the sharpness of a scythe, has so often mowed its course through the reluctant wave, is now buried;—buried deep in the sand, which the angry surge accumulates each minute, as if determined that it never will be ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat |
