"Sharp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scenery. This road passes through a hill-country, and what it gains in the picturesque it loses in that rectilinear directness most grateful to the traveler with a sensitive stomach. The Bibliotaph often patronized this thoroughfare, and one day it made him sick. As the train swept around a sharp curve, he announced his earliest symptom by saying: 'The conspicuous advantages of this road are that one gets views of the scenery and reviews ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... then the panes rattled a little. Griggs looked at the graceful figure as Gloria sat thinking what she should say. He followed the lines till his eyes rested on what he could see of her averted face. Then he felt something like a sharp, quick blow at his temples, and the blood rose hot to his throat. At the same instant came the bitter little pang he had known long, telling him that she had never ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... And she had heard the middle voice of the Middle Bear, but it was only as if she had heard some one speaking in a dream. But when she heard the little, small, wee voice of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, it was so sharp, and so shrill, that it awakened her at once. Up she started; and when she saw the Three Bears on one side of the bed, she tumbled herself out at the other, and ran to the window. Now the window was open, because the Bears, ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... there was little vim in the movement of the captain. He made an awkward cut at the sergeant, who easily parried it, and brought the sharp edge of his sabre down upon his shoulder, near the neck, and the officer dropped to the ground as though a bullet had gone through his brain. His horse turned, and had nearly upset the major in his flight, and it was evident that ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... you what," said the junior, profoundly. "Old Congers is a very good chap, and all that, but he's not what I should call extra sharp. ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... and clasping his hands behind his head, which rested against the side of the rock. He had no wish to make her talk; her quick-breathing silence seemed a part of the general hush and harmony of things. In his own mind there was only a lazy sense of pleasure, veiling the sharp edges of sensation as the September haze veiled the scene at their feet. But Lily, though her attitude was as calm as his, was throbbing inwardly with a rush of thoughts. There were in her at the moment ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... inconsistencies were readily forgiven. He had denounced duelling as barbarous, yet when sharp-tongued John Randolph referred to him and Adams as having, in 1825, formed "the coalition of Blifil and Black George, the combination of the Puritan and the blackleg"—for Clay gambled—Clay challenged him. They met, the diminutive Randolph being in his dressing-gown. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... make ready a couple of litters on horses. In one of these the younger priests placed the sleeping Lykon with a bag on his head; in the other the high priest himself took his place and, surrounded by a party of horsemen went at a sharp trot ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... thousand into Noyon. That place had to be spared for the Germans themselves to live in, being bigger and more comfortable than others in the neighbourhood; so it was well to have as many of the conquered as possible interned under their own sharp eyes. Noyon was "home" to six thousand souls before the war. After the Germans marched in, it had to hold ten thousand. But a little more room in the houses was thriftily obtained by annexing all the furniture, even beds. Tables and chairs they took, too, and stoves, and cooking utensils, which ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... table-companion with a contempt to which she had long been resigned. He was a short, thin, bald man, with a sharp nose curved like a reaping-hook, iron-grey whiskers and hair, and fierce pale blue eyes. Later on, Christian, in the pride of her first introduction to Tennyson, had been inspired by his high shoulders and black tailed coat to entitle him "The many-wintered ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... sorrows, the beloved Lincoln. Bolvar was insulted and slandered as was Lincoln, and if Lincoln was assassinated by a man, Bolvar escaped the weapon of the assassin only to sink under poisonous treachery and ingratitude. It is true that Bolvar was quick-tempered, at times sharp in his repartee; his intellectual aptness had no patience with stupidity, and occasionally his remarks hurt. But when the storm had passed, he was all benevolence, enduring all, forgiving ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... our need had never been. Our trials of faith have never been so sharp as during this week. Indeed, so much so, that most of the laborers felt to-day considerably tried. Yet neither this day has the Lord suffered us to be confounded. Through a remarkable circumstance one of the laborers obtained some ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... with which the Brazilian first strove to win the Deutsch prize he called Santos-Dumont No. V. It was a cylinder, sharp at both ends, 109 feet long and driven by a 12-horse-power motor. A new feature was the use of piano wire for the support of the car, thus greatly reducing the resistance of the air which in the case of the old cord suspensions was almost as great as that ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... the shallop, woman's wail and man's despair, A crash of breaking timbers on the rocks so sharp and bare, And through it all the murmur ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... she spoke, there passed over her face the sharp frost of the last winter; but even as it passed there broke out a smile, as if a flower had been thrown down from Paradise, ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... case is at once rejected. It only remains to try the remaining case by multiplication, when we find it does not give a correct answer. If we are next trying the factor 12, we see at the start that neither the 8 nor the 3 can be in the units place, because they would produce a 6, and so on. A sharp eye and an alert judgment will enable us thus to run through our table in a much shorter time than would be expected. The process took me a little more ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... soldiers enveloped in the Italian flag; his story was this: the national colours, floating from the mast of the pinnace on which he served, were detached by a ball and dropped into the water; the child sprang in after them, and with a shout of Viva l'Italia, fixed them again at the masthead under a sharp fire. Zorzi was, of course, the small hero of the hour, especially among the women. General Pepe commanded the sortie, with Ulloa, Fontana and Cosenz as his lieutenants; Ugo Bassi, the patriot monk of Bologna, marched ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... the archimandrite allowed you so much as a smell of corn-brandy," continued Taras. "Confess, my boys, they thrashed you well with fresh birch-twigs on your backs and all over your Cossack bodies; and perhaps, when you grew too sharp, they beat you with whips. And not on Saturday only, I fancy, but ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... placing yourself near the stage, you might lose nothing of the truth and variety of his delivery, as well as of the play of his countenance, which is facilitated by his excessive meagreness, and to which his sharp black eyes ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... says the particolored harlequin and all the sharp leaves of the hedge begin to titter as wind runs over them at one of the oldest and least sensible questions in ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... furnace and looked in. The gold was all melted, and its surface as smooth and polished as a river; but instead of reflecting little Gluck's head as he looked in, he saw meeting his glance from beneath the gold the red nose and sharp eyes of his old friend of the mug, a thousand times redder and sharper than ever he had seen ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... to the people of each town her best service, a sharp attack of pneumonia carried Captain Lee away from corps work, and for a time it seemed that a constitutional bronchial weakness, now aggravated, would bring her regular public work ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... offered, at once to go to Damascus and kill the men who are advising Feisul wrongly. They said that if they were given money they could easily hire Damascenes to do the dagger work, there being, as the sahib doubtless knows, a common saying in these parts about Damascus folk and sharp steel. Whereat Yussuf Dakmar suddenly assumed a sneering tone of voice, saying that he preferred men for his part with spunk enough to do such work themselves, and there was an argument, they protesting and he mocking them, until at last ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... be good!" exclaimed Jan in delight. "Nicknack is brave and his horns are sharp. 'Member how he stuck 'em in the ...
— The Curlytops on Star Island - or Camping out with Grandpa • Howard R. Garis
... all was a laborious business; the foot sank and slid, the boots were cut to pieces, among sharp, uneven, rolling stones. When we crossed the platform in any direction, it was usual to lay a course, following as much as possible the line of waggon rails. Thus, if water were to be drawn, the water-carrier left the house along some tilting ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hostilities, with orders to arrest the perpetrators of the outrages if possible, and bring them in. Captain Perry found the Indians in force in White Bird Canyon. They opened fire on him as soon as he came in sight, and he at once assaulted them. After sharp fighting for an hour, he was repulsed and compelled to retreat to Grangeville, a distance of sixteen miles. The Indians pursued him, and a running fight continued all the way. He lost thirty-three enlisted men and one officer killed. Meantime, over twenty white ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... to the eye. The wonderful blue of the Mediterranean, the storms, and the sunsets and clouds behind and above the sharp peaks of the island of Samothrace—some 40 miles away—made believers of those who had seen copies or prints of Turner's pictures. Farther south, and 12 or 15 miles distant, lay the less mountainous island of Imbros, ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... to catch the little beggar daring to tell tales of me!" she exclaimed, clenching her vindictive little fists in a fury. But when her mistress gave her any commands about Fan's meals, or other matters, her tone was so sharp and peremptory, and her eyes so penetrating, that Rosie knew that the hatred she cherished in her heart was no secret. The voice, the look seemed to say plainly, as if it had been expressed in words, "One word and ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... with grapes, welcome he shall thee thither, Where both may rage, both drink and dance together. Then stately Virgil, witty Ovid, by Whom fair Corinna sits, and doth comply With ivory wrists his laureate head, and steeps His eye in dew of kisses while he sleeps; Then soft Catullus, sharp-fang'd Martial, And towering Lucan, Horace, Juvenal, And snaky Persius, these, and those, whom rage (Dropt for the jars of heaven) fill'd t' engage All times unto their frenzies,—thou shalt there Behold them in a spacious theatre. ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... conferred with them, through the interpretation of Gongylus, far more frequently than became the General of the Greeks. Gongylus had one of those countenances which are observed when many of more striking semblance are overlooked. But the features were sharp and the visage lean, the eyes vivid and sparkling as those of the lynx, and the dark pupil seemed yet more dark from the extreme whiteness of the ball, from which it lessened or dilated with the impulse of the spirit which gave ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... a sharp, joyous bark, however, soon told him who the intruder was, and gave him courage to encounter the jumpings and gambols of his own ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... winking at Rochester, 'Our friend is sorrowful.' 'Truly,' said I, seeing they were about to banter me,—for you know they were arch fellows,—'truly, little Sid' (we called Sedley Sid), 'you are greatly mistaken;'—you see, Morton, I was thus sharp upon him because when you go to court you will discover that it does not do to take without giving. And then Rochester said, looking roguishly towards me, the wittiest thing against Sedley that ever I heard; ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... savage warfare. In July, the invasion of the Waikato was ordered. On the very day before our men advanced, the Maoris had begun what they meant to be their march to Auckland, and the two forces at once came into collision. In a sharp fight at Koheroa the natives were driven from their entrenchments with some loss, and any forward movement on their part was effectually stopped. But, thanks to what seemed to the colonists infuriating slowness, the advance up the Waikato was not begun ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... comparison made him 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 ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... Italian gloves of Queen Elizabeth); the princess and her mother-in-law were declared admirers of his poetry; the courtiers caressed the favourite of their masters; Tasso found literary society; he pronounced the very bread and fruit, the fish and the flesh, excellent; the wines were sharp and brisk ("such as his father was fond of"); and even the physician was admirable, for he ordered confections. One might imagine, if circumstances had not proved the cordial nature of the Gonzaga family, and the real respect ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... officer outlined against one of the campfires, lurched and caught at the rails as the men he led crawled over or vaulted that obstruction, overrunning the Union defenders with the vehemence of men determined to make up for the failure of the afternoon. It was a sharp skirmish, but one from which they came away with prisoners and a renewed belief in themselves. Though they did not know it then, they had fought the last battle of the war for the depleted regiments of cavalry of the Army of the Tennessee. The aftertaste ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... I learned freedom of will and undeviating steadiness of purpose; and to look to nothing else, not even for a moment, except to reason; and to be always the same, in sharp pains, on the occasion of the loss of a child, and in long illness; and to see clearly in a living example that the same man can be both most resolute and yielding, and not peevish in giving his instruction; and to have had before my eyes a man ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... the men had fallen to their knees and taken deliberate aim at the flying riders, and the sharp crack, crack of the weapons continued for several seconds. Bullets flew near, ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... days of the summer, when these two would leave the lodge to visit the deserted camp of Moncrossen, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta followed them. Stealthily and unknown she crept upon their trail, and always her sharp eyes were upon them, and in the fold of her blanket was concealed a long, keen blade, and behind the unfailing gaze of the black eyes ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... other adherents of the Huguenot party, was intended to be an expression not only of their own individual views, but also of the sentiments of the churches they represented.[1320] The language is sharp and incisive, the demands are unmistakably bold. For a sufficient justification of their recent words and actions, the Huguenots of Guyenne point the monarch to his own letter of the twenty-fourth of August, 1572, by which constraint was laid upon them to assume ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... line of sparks puts in appearance, seemingly only a short distance away. That is formed by the battalions of the advancing, attacking enemy. Then suddenly a ribbon of flame cuts through the shadows, and the sharp echo of machine guns bites into the night air. But so immensely far spreads the battle panorama that the eye is able to fix only small sections ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... take sides sharp in this war," her father said to Gaunt, "my little girl; 'n fact, she isn't keen till put her soul intill anythin' but lovin'. She's a pore Democrat, David, an' not a strong Methody,—allays got somethin' till say fur t' other side, Papishers an' all. An' ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... absolutely pernicious. Take, for instance, some of our ancient-looking country houses of the last century, which, in America, we call old. See their ample dimensions; their heavy, massive walls; their low, comfortable ceilings; their high gables; sharp roofs; deep porches, and spreading eaves, and contrast them with the ambitious, tall, proportionless, and card-sided things of a modern date, and draw the comparison in true comfort, which the ancient mansion really affords, ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... The "Conversation Club" is a great success. Its members meet once a week, ladies and gentlemen, young and old, single and married, together, at each other's houses, to the number of from fifty to a hundred and fifty; from half past seven or eight, to half past ten sharp, without any of the trouble or expense of food or drink; which it is rationally supposed they have all had or can get at home. Dancing is omitted, and only vocal music is allowed; this being in rooms apart from the main parlors. With those living out of town, afternoon hours are ...
— 1931: A Glance at the Twentieth Century • Henry Hartshorne
... stamping its fore-feet. When it had backed about the same distance as that from which it had delivered the assault it paused again, bowed its head as if in prayer for victory and again shot forward, dimly visible as before—a prolonging white streak with monstrous undulations, ending with a sharp ascension. Its course this time was at a right angle to its former one, and its impatience so great that it struck the enemy before he had nearly reached the lowest point of his arc. In consequence he went flying round and round in a horizontal circle whose radius was about equal to half ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... completely upon her own resources, if she had been compelled to step entirely out of her olden sphere, and earn her daily bread, there would have been a sharp, bitter fight, but the bracing mental atmosphere might have dispelled the thick darkness, the chilling vacuity, and evolved from the discordant elements a questioning and not easily satisfied soul, but one destined to develop into strength ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... drinking. I smell the whiskey above everything. Ah, there is the bottle!" His sharp eyes had seen it behind the tea caddy on the mantelshelf. He took it and flung it upon the shingle as far as his arm could ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... father—standing on the front porch of his boyhood home and had heard him cry the low spoken bids and answer the nodding heads of the buyers in a voice that was hoarse with something more than long speaking in the open air. And then—and then—at last had come the sharp blow of the hammer on the porch railing and from the trembling lips of the old auctioneer ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... to work with were one scraper, one long spike, and some sharp sticks; with these we proceeded in our difficult undertaking. As the hole was too small to admit of more than one person to work at a time we dug by turns during ten or twelve days, and carried the dirt in ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... another word, and presently, with crackle of dry twigs beneath them, plodded into the bush. Dim trees flitted by them, branches brushed them as they passed, and the stillness and shadowiness affected Miss Schuyler uncomfortably. She started with a cry when there was a sharp patter amidst the dusty snow; but Clavering's hand was on the bridle as the horse, snorting, flung up ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... than Baillie could have guessed. After much inquiry and consultation about the Assembly's Petition, the Commons, on the 11th of April 1646, came to two sharp votes. The first was on the question "Whether the House shall first debate the point concerning the Breach of Privilege in this Petition;" and it was carried in the affirmative by 106 Yeas, told by Evelyn of Wilts and Haselrig, against 85 Noes, told by Holles and Stapleton. The question ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... the door leading into the kitchen was just then lifted, which brought our conversation to a close. During the confabulation, our Yankee's sharp grey eyes had glanced incessantly from us to the door; and hardly was the noise of the latch audible, when his face disappeared, and the old ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... society, until in the vast Empire of the first and second centuries, at the climax of her power, with beauty, love, luxury, culture, prodigality, and mysticism she dominated and dissolved a society which in the refinements of wealth and intellectuality had lost the sharp virtues of ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... the autumn and winter in bogs scattered over with bog myrtle, on Chobham and the adjacent common; I never met with it elsewhere. It is solitary. I am unacquainted with its food, and only in a single instance had I ever one in my hand. Its tongue is pointed, sharp, and appearing capable of penetration. Its colour throughout dusky light blue, slightly tinged with yellow about the vent. Tail about one inch, being rather long in proportion to the body, causing the wings to appear forward, with a miniature pheasant-like appearance as it flew, or rather darted, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... bunch,' and six or eight with wrong earmarks. We'll have to catch them." Kate set the example by walking in among them, and immediately a cloud of dust arose as the frightened sheep ran bleating in a circle. Above the din Kate's voice rose sharp and imperative as her trained eye singled out the ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... receiving your unhappy letters! I am sensible how many, many reasons you have to lament your dear brother; yet your long absence will prevent the loss of him from leaving so sharp a sting as it would have done had you seen as much of him as I have of late years! When I wrote to you, I did not know his last instance Of love to you;(743) may you never ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... I heard the rumour, How the Lord of rings[8] bereft thee; From thine arms earth's offspring[9] tearing, Trickful he and trustful thou. Then the men, the buckler-bearers, Begged the mighty gold-begetter, Sharp sword oft of old he reddened, Not to stand in ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... political differences began to appear. Mrs. Stanton complimented the Democrats for the assistance they had rendered; Frederick Douglass objected to their receiving any credit, branding their advocacy as a trick of the enemy, and there were frequent sharp encounters. Miss Anthony made an extended speech, of which there ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... into vogue, making every kind of modulation possible, the old notation was retained. How unsuited it is for modern music appears from the drastic contradictions which it involves. It is quite a common thing to see the same note simultaneously written as F sharp in one part and as G flat in another. This is what makes modern harmony seem so much more difficult than it really is, for when the music comes to be heard, these formidable-looking intervals resolve themselves into something quite natural and generally ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... her arts, is a little faded already; don't you see it, Miriam? There is no corrosive poison equal to envy, and that, by-the-by, is her specialty. She is bitterly envious by nature. Most of those thin-lipped, sharp-elbowed, sharp-nosed women are, if you observe. Faded at twenty-three! Sad, but true of half our American morning-glory beauties. For my part, I love the statuesque in women, the enduring! those exquisitely-moulded proportions ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... she exclaimed, "she will lead better now. Allez!" she cried, giving the cow a sharp rap on her rump. ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... masses of black hair from her brow, looked as for some new revelation. Long and anxiously she perused her features: the wide bony forehead; the eyes deep-set and rounded with the scarlet of recent tears, the thin nose-sharp as the dead; the weak irritable mouth and sunken cheeks. She gazed like a spirit disconnected from what she saw. Presently a sort of forlorn negative was indicated by the motion ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... preference. When there was nowhere else to go, she used to sit for hours in Mrs. Smiley's millinery and notion store, listening to the talk of the women who came in, watching them while they tried on hats, blinking at them from her corner with her sharp, restless little eyes. She never talked much herself, but she knew all the gossip of the town and she had a sharp ear for racy anecdotes—"traveling men's stories," they used to be called in Moonstone. Her clicking laugh sounded ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... minutes, Hawkstone raised his head as if from a sleep, and suddenly exclaimed, "Hey, sir! The wind and the sea have not been idle while we have been talking. We must be sharp now. Shout to your friends, sir. I cannot shout ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... of the reply was sharp, with a dash of irony in it. But where is the modern young man, possessed of health and an independent income, who is capable of understanding that irony can be presumptuous enough to address itself to him? ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... said he got hurt oftener than all the others put together. He was always trying to ride the colts before they were broken, teasing the turkey gobbler, seeing just how much red the bull would stand for, or how sharp ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... the Restoration, discovered to be the trick of one of their own party, who had attended the Commissioners as a clerk, under the name of Giles Sharp. This man, whose real name was Joseph Collins of Oxford, called Funny Joe, was a concealed loyalist, and well acquainted with the old mansion of Woodstock, where he had been brought up before the Civil War. Being a bold, active spirited man, Joe availed himself of his ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... Needle, "extra fine gold-eyed," Was very sharp and full of pride, And thus, methought, she did begin:— You clumsy, thick, short, ugly Pin, I wish you were not quite so near; How could my mistress stick me here? She should have put me in my place, With my ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... level. In addition, the reopening of the country's oil refinery in 1993, a major source of employment and foreign exchange earnings, has further spurred growth. Aruba's small labor force and exceptionally low unemployment rate have led to a large number of unfilled job vacancies, despite sharp rises in wage rates in recent years. Tourist arrivals have declined in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the US. The government now must deal with a budget deficit and ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... they passed had a dark and deserted look; then a light twinkled here and there. The early habitant was making his fire. As daylight began gradually to bring out the landscape, the sharp sound of the distant axe was heard. The early habitant was laying in his day's ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... suddenly, and as if it had been so all the time, every hole, far and near, and there were hundreds of them, seemed to possess its face, coming and going rapidly, all fixing on him glances of malice and hatred: all hard-eyed and evil and sharp. ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... Bluebeard, who had armed himself with a sharp, curved scimitar, stood at the foot of the stairs waiting for his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... I held in my hand. We had a number of blankets, enough food for us all for two days of careful rationing, a knife or two, and a heavy, sharp-edged metal implement ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... was at times acutely sensitive to the thrusts of sharp criticism dealt to him through envy or misunderstanding of his motives. A great writer has said somewhere: "Accusations make wounds and leave scars"; but even the scars were soon worn off his outraged feelings by the remembrance ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... Heimdal the watchman, whose eyes were so keen that he could see for a hundred miles around, and whose ears were so sharp that he could hear the grass growing in the meadow and the wool on the backs of the sheep. "Who goes there! No one can enter Asgard ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... which such use of the mind might bring the too courageous seeker. If there were no other ill effect, this kind of limitation would at least have the radical disadvantage of dulling the edge of responsibility, of deadening the sharp sense of personal answerableness either to a God, or to society, or to a man's own conscience and ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... of character, a good heart and a poetic imagination, made his life joyous and the world beautiful; till at length Death cut down the sweet, blue flower, that bloomed beside him, and wounded him with that sharp sickle, so that he bowed his head, and would fain have been bound up in the same sheaf with the sweet, blue flower. Then the world seemed to him less beautiful, and life became earnest. It would have been well if he could have forgotten the past; that he might ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... one of the crying evils of our day, among both boys and girls. Every thing is done to make labor less, or to turn it completely into pleasure,—to shirk it, or to scorn it. The sewing-machine has made the good sewer a phenomenon. Our grandmothers used to rip their dresses and linings with sharp scissors: a good jump from a carriage will send us right out of a modern costume. Teachers learn the lessons now, and the pupils take notes and cram once in a while. Text-books have gone out of fashion. The next generation will not see any antique furniture: it will all ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... a stream and two roads, then came into a street with many houses which ran south, then, at four corners, turned sharp to the east. And there, across a little brook, we saw a handsome manor house around which some three score ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... told him in confidence was never disclosed, for at that moment Miss Morris interrupted him with a sudden sharp exclamation. ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... almost from the hem of her gown to descend in a point over the high comb to her eyes. The two points of the width were gathered at her breast, defining the outlines of her superb figure, and fastened with one large Castilian rose surrounded by its mass of tiny sharp buds and dull green leaves. As the familiar scent assailed Rezanov's nostrils they tingled and expanded. His lids were lifted and his eyes glowing as he finally compelled her glance, and her own eyes opened with an eager flash; her lips parted and her shoulders lost ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... at Cadiz. By this battle the supremacy of Great Britain at sea was finally established. Nelson, who, during the ship-to-ship engagement which followed his penetration of the enemy's line, was mortally wounded by a sharp-shooter from the mizzen-top of the Redoutable, died before the battle was over, though he was spared to hear that a complete victory was secure. His death is among the heroic incidents of history, and his last achievement, both in its conception ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... thumbs and had nothing to say except to discourse on his new house. Words seemed to choke him; he would get up, try to speak, become frightened, and sit down again, with comical distortion of the lips. Sylvie naively betrayed her natural self at cards. Sharp, irritable, whining when she lost, insolent when she won, nagging and quarrelsome, she annoyed her partners as much as her adversaries, and became the scourge of society. And yet, possessed by a silly, unconcealed ambition, Rogron and his sister ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... enemy, whose position was with the left to the high hill near Offendorf, and their right to Warbourg, into which place they had flung Fischer's corps. The hereditary prince immediately attacked the enemy's flank, and, after a very sharp dispute, obliged them to give way, and, by a continual fire, kept forcing them to fall back upon Warbourg. The army was at this time marching with the greatest diligence to attack the enemy in front, but the infantry could not get up in time: general ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... in his better moments, some dim reflex of childship, some faintly pleasant, some slightly sorrowful remembrance of the father around whose neck his arms had sometimes clung. In my own childhood and boyhood my father was the refuge from all the ills of life, even sharp pain itself. Therefore I say to son or daughter who has no pleasure in the name Father, 'You must interpret the word by all that you have missed in life. Every time a man might have been to you a refuge from the wind, a covert from the tempest, the shadow of a great rock in a weary land, ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... outside the office before his exclamation of surprise had passed away; and within half an hour I sat in the private room of the secretary to the Black Anchor Steamship Company. He was a sharp man of business, keen-visaged as a ferret, and restless as a nervous horse long reined in. I told him shortly that I had reason to doubt the truth of the statement that a warship recently built at Spezia was intended for the purposes set down to her; ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... the world, the sunset of so many hopes. Those words were from "Songs before Sunrise". But Turnbull's songs at their best were songs after sunrise, and sunrise had been no such great thing after all. Turnbull shivered again in the sharp morning air. MacIan was also gazing with his face towards the city, but there was that about his blind and mystical stare that told one, so to speak, that his eyes were turned inwards. When Turnbull ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... high. Closer sounded the panting breath of the ferocious Caesar Napoleon, and his incessant "Woof-woof!" became louder. It seemed to the desperate Hicks that the bulldog was at his heels, and every instant he expected to feel those sharp teeth take hold of his anatomy! Once, the despairing youth imitated Lot's wife and turned his head. He saw a body streaking after him, gaining at every jump, also he lost speed; so thereafter, he conscientiously devoted his every energy to the task ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... entreated them not to kill themselves; and assured them that heaven would be satisfied, and that human nature could not endure beyond a certain point. No answer, but the loud sound of the scourges, which are many of them of iron, with sharp points that enter the flesh. At length, as if they were perfectly exhausted, the sound grew fainter, and little by little ceased altogether. We then got up in the dark, and, with great difficulty, groped our way in the pitch ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... Broadway? I'll be hanged first. We can get off at Harlem, man alive. There are no cabs in Harlem. I don't think we can bribe a sailor to take us ashore and bring a cab to the dock, for the very simple reason that we have nothing to bribe him with. What? No, of course not. See here, Tom Sharp, don't you swear at me like that. I won't have it. What's that? I ain't, either. I ain't. What? I am not. It's no such thing. I ain't. I've got more than you have, anyway. Well, you ain't doing anything so very brilliant yourself—just lying there and cussin'." At length the ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... moreover, that the single number occurs in germlings from the tetraspore, and also in the adult stages of all sexual plants, while the double number occurs in germlings from the oospore, and in adult stages of all asexual plants. It is probable, therefore, that we have here a sharp alternation of generations, both generations being, however, precisely similar to the eye up to point of reproduction. Among Chlorophyceae it is often the case that the oospore on germination divides up ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... abruptly at a sharp, whistled order from their captor. He stood aside with a guard that had followed from the ship, and he motioned the two before him down the gangway. It was the same scarlet one who had faced them before, the one whom McGuire ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... was not the decay of an old age dying, so much as the fermentation of a new age coming into life, that bred the monstrous paradoxes of the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries. The contrast between mediaeval Christianity and renascent Paganism—the sharp conflict of two adverse principles, destined to fuse their forces and to recompose the modern world—made the Renaissance what it was in Italy. Nowhere is the first effervescence of these elements so well displayed as in the history of those Pontiffs who, after striving in the Middle Ages ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... upon him. His complexion was of the muddy and unwholesome kind which tells a tale of bad health, late hours and penury, and almost always of a bad disposition. The best description of him may be given in two familiar expressions—he was sharp and snappish. His cracked voice suited his sour face, meagre look, and magpie eyes of no particular color. A magpie eye, according to Napoleon, is a sure sign of dishonesty. "Look at So-and-so," he said to Las Cases at Saint Helena, alluding to a confidential servant whom ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... tends to translate itself further into the seller making his profit at the expense of the buyer, instead of by a bargain which shall be to the profit of both. It did not seem to me that the law was framed to discourage as it should sharp practice, and all other kinds of bargains except those which are fair and of benefit to both sides. I was young; there was much in the judgment which I then formed on this matter which I should now revise; but, then as now, many of the big corporation lawyers, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... Sharp contest ensues around the body of Patroclus. Hector puts on the armor of Achilles. Menelaus, having dispatched Antilochus to Achilles with news of the death of Patroclus, returns to the battle, and, together with Meriones, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... A sharp pain in his left hand, as it hung carelessly beside him, here interrupted Huldbrand's relation, and drew his eye to the part affected. Undine had fastened her pearly teeth, and not without some keenness too, upon one of his fingers, appearing at the same time very gloomy and displeased. On ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... futility. This is because we have grasped the humanity of the word and missed the divinity of it. We are always doing that. Always gathering the meaning of the moments and missing the meaning of the years. Always smarting under the sharp discipline and missing the merciful design: 'With Him in trouble.' That helps me to believe in my religion. Trouble is the test of the creeds. A fig for the orthodoxy that cannot interpret tears! Write vanity upon the religion ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... Gawin desired him to take some pains to labour betwixt this two parties which was at ane sharp point, and meaning little less than that the bishop had most part the wyte (blame) thereof. But the bishop assured him again with ane oath, chopping on his breast, saying, 'By my conscience, my lord, I know not the matter.' But when Mr. Gawin heard the bishop's purgation, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... place of palms, And all the earth was sandy where she walked,— Sandy and dry,—strewed with papyrus leaves, Old idols, rings and pottery, painted lids Of mummies (for perhaps it was the way That leads to dead old Egypt), and withal Excellent sunshine cut out sharp and clear The hot prone pillars, and the carven plinths,— Stone lotus cups, with petals dipped in sand, And wicked gods, and sphinxes bland, who sat And smiled upon the ruin. O how still! Hot, blank, illuminated with the clear ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... an end, and the second, after some successes of the British arms, by a judicious arrangement designed to secure the neutrality of Afghanistan, interposed by nature as a strong, all but insurmountable, barrier between India and Central Asia. These transactions, the theme of sharp contention at the time, were cast into the shade by events in which we were concerned in Egypt, our newly acquired interests in the Suez Canal making that country far more important to us than of yore. Its condition was very wretched, its government ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... world; he owes it all his best possessions—his talent, time, and effort. And the individual who attempts to throw off this yoke of duty is violating one of nature's great laws. Even the lower forms of life afford example of this supreme law. Solomon startles the sluggard with his sharp admonition to betake himself to the ant. And Sir John Lubbock points men to the insect world to learn real diligence ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... late afternoon, the sun's rays coming slantingly into the forest, and the warmth of the day past and gone. To Haward, riding at a gallop down the road that was scarce more than a bridle path, the rush of the cool air was grateful; the sharp striking of protruding twigs, the violent brushing aside of ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston |
