"Sharp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of this individual were scantily covered with a pair of pantaloons, so tightly fitting as to appear like a second skin to his legs, so short as scarce to touch his ankles, and of such thin stuff as to ill protect the wearer from the sharp air of a November morning. The upper half of this individual was not visible. A little cloak, of coarse shaggy cloth, known as an esclavina, covered him up to the very eyes. In the manner in which he so carefully guarded the upper ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... two cellular systems have been introduced, but a sharp increase in the number of main lines is essential; e-mail and Internet services are available domestic: intercity traffic by wire, microwave radio relay, and radiotelephone communication stations, fixed and mobile cellular systems ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... He took a sharp knife and scalped that Pumpkin—just like an Indian—cut a great hole in his head. Then Mother scooped out his insides and chopped them up fine. Ole Man Pumpkin was very brave, just stood it and said ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... gruffness which the country doctor of the old school so often assumes as if he wished to emphasize his disapproval of the modern suave manner of his city confrere. He had a sardonic humor and a sharp tongue which had at first quite terrified Nora, until she discovered that they were meant to hide the most generous heart in the world. Many were the kindly acts he performed in secret for the very people he was most accustomed ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... fastened in front of him, filled with five-cent pieces, took his stand in the centre of the shed. The thirty shearers, running into the nearest pen, dragged each his sheep into the shed, in a twinkling of an eye had the creature between his knees, helpless, immovable, and the sharp sound of the shears set in. The sheep-shearing had begun. No rest now. Not a second's silence from the bleating, baa-ing, opening and shutting, clicking, sharpening of shears, flying of fleeces through the air to the roof, pressing and stamping them down in the ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... out into the hills, some hundred or more miles from headquarters. He had to keep in touch with the train dispatcher's office, of course; the new machine had often to take a sidetrack. Nor was much of this hilly right-of-way electrified. The Jandels locomotive had been found to be a failure on the sharp grades; so the extension of the trolley system had ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... considering not so much its black-ness, which was intense, the eaves nearly meeting overhead, as the small chance I had of distinguishing between attackers and attacked. But Simon and the men overtaking me, and the sounds of a sharp tussle still continuing, I decided to venture, and plunged into the alley, my left arm well advanced, with the skirt of my cloak thrown over it, and my sword drawn back. I shouted as I ran, thinking that the knaves might desist on hearing ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... the young abbe met his equal. Slight and delicate in appearance, Monsieur Bonnet's face struck the eyes at once as the typical face of passion given to the Apostles. It was almost triangular, beginning with a broad brow furrowed by wrinkles, and carried down from the temples to the chin in two sharp lines which defined his hollow cheeks. In this face, sallowed by tones as yellow as those of a church taper, shone two blue eyes that were luminous with faith, burning with eager hope. It was divided into two equal parts by a long nose, thin and straight, with well-cut nostrils, beneath ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... twisted them till the pain went to the brains. They put them into dungeons, wherein were adders, and snakes, and toads; and so destroyed them. Some they placed in a crucet-house; that is, in a chest that was short and narrow, and not deep; wherein they put sharp stones, and so thrust the man therein, that they broke all the limbs. In many of the castles were things loathsome and grim, called "Sachenteges", of which two or three men had enough to bear one. It was thus made: that is, fastened to a beam; ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... to cut an ounce of the flesh of a Christian upon a penalty of usury; he urged it to the Prince, with as much obstinacy, as perfidiousness towards God. The great Judge commanded a pair of scales to be brought, threatening the Jew with death if he cut either more or less: And this was to give a sharp decision to a malicious process, and to the world a miracle of ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare
... "alarm" is a caution I tell yer; it sounds like some shrill old macaw, Wot's bin blowed up with dynamite sudden; it gives yer a twist in the jaw, And a pain in the 'ed when you 'ear it. I laugh till I shake in my socks When I turn it on sharp on old gurls and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... stood out, sharp and unsightly, in the keen February sunlight. A mile away in a dip of the desert, lay the town, a sorry sprawl of frame buildings, patternless save for the one main street, which promptly lost itself at either end in a maze of cholla, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... more ominous than the crash of rifles or the scream and crack of shells. Finally there was a lull which they knew meant the supreme attempt to storm the position from the town side. They heard the commotion that followed Dellarme's death; the sharp, rallying commands of Feller and Stransky; and then, as Peterkin saw a black object fly free of a hand over the parapet he made a catlike spring, followed by another and another, and plunged face downward at the angle where the face of the redoubt ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... placed in the charge of Dr. Seaward, a good man, who superintended his education, and, besides imparting secular instruction, endeavoured to train his character and make him good as well as clever. George was a sharp, shrewd boy, a keen observer, who would know the why and the wherefore of everything, and his lessons always came to him more as an amusement than a task. He had a horror of being low down in his class, and if he did not retain his place at the top, it ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... Captain Phillips with a sharp gesture ordered the Khan back to the shadowy corner from which he had sprung out. Then he shut the door and, with the shutting of the door, the darkness deepened suddenly in the hall. He shot the bolt and put up the chain. It rattled in his ears with a startling ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... especially at a time when partisan spirit was rampant, and the vitality of the lampoon as a factor in politics so far from extinct. To show his contempt alike for the critical verdict and the popular curiosity, after a quarrel, or at least a sharp coolness with John Murray, he published in two volumes, in May 1857, The Romany Rye, which carries on the story of Lavengro for just about a month further, namely, down towards the end of August 1825, ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... Fuller turned on more power. The blue halo was shot through with tiny violet sparks, the sharp odor of ozone in the air was stifling; the heat of wasted energy was making the room hotter. The power increased further, and the tiny sparks were waving streamers, that laced across the surface of the blue fire. Little jets of electric flame ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... grass with my sons, late in the day, I thought I would try to make a bow and thus save our shot. This I did with a long cane and a piece of string, and then made a dart with a sharp point, which I shot off and found it would go straight. The branch of the tree on which we were to fix our hut was so high that our steps would not near reach it. I tied some strong thread to the dart, and shot it over the branch; then ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... upon beta (Rigel), the white first-magnitude star in Orion's left foot. Observe whether the image with a high power is clear, sharp, and free from irregular wisps of stray light. Look at the rings in and out of focus, and if you are satisfied with the performance, try for the companion. A good three-inch is certain to show it, except in a bad state of the atmosphere, ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... 'em with. That boat isn't made to ride in,—no way to get into her,—and she isn't big enough, anyhow. And as you can't get into her, that brass lever must be what starts and stops her. Wonder what the steel blade's for. 'T isn't a handy shape for a lever,—to be handled with fingers,—too sharp; but it has work to do, or it wouldn't be there. That section o' railroad iron on top must be to hang the boat by,—a traveler,—when she's out ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... thunder followed close upon the sharp crack of the revolvers; the robber's pistol fell with a loud thump upon the floor and he turned and fled along the veranda, this time moving with more haste than caution. They ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... making a flip-flop into the thistles and dancing among them without feeling their sharp points. "I could tell you in half a minute how to get over the thistles, if I ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... he exclaimed in a sharp, piercing voice of authority and conscious power, "Thomas Gourlay, rise up and stand forward, your day of doom ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... had made a large table covered with grass. On one side the ascent was easy, but the other overhung a frightful precipice. They had entered into an animated conversation; Aloysia, down beneath, could hear the sharp, quick answers of Charles, but, as such was usual in the temper of Charles, she ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... him a very sharp lawyer," said Flanders defensively. "They tell me, though, he is on the wrong side of ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... capricious and passionate. "If she were as good as she is wicked," said the sharp-tongued Palatine, "there would be nothing to say against her. She is tranquil during the day and passes it playing at cards, but at its close the extravagances and fits of passion begin; she torments her ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... political axiom that "neglected right is lost right," the Republic sends every year four galleys to Butintro with a gang of galley slaves to fell trees, cut them, and load them on the galleys, while the military keep a sharp look-out to prevent them from escaping to Turkey and becoming Mussulmans. One of the four galleys was commanded by M. F—— who, wanting an adjutant ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... arms encircled her waist; while, kneeling beside her, I endeavored to drag her into my embrace. She repulsed me; smote me to her feet with her open palm; and spurning me where I lay grovelling, retired to her chamber. I know not what I said—I know not what she answered—yet the tones of her voice, sharp with Horror and indignation, are even ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... stepped forward quickly and looked down at the prostrate figure, and the warning gathered emphasis. The sick man's ghastly face was yet more ghastly; his eyes were more sunken, his skin more livid; "his nose was as sharp as a pen," and if he did not "babble of green fields" it was because he seemed to be beyond even that. If it had been a case of disease, I should have said at once that he was dying. He had all the appearance of a man in articulo mortis. Even as it was, feeling convinced that the case was one of ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... thick, velvety folds on the weeds and grass of the open Kansas prairie; it lay, a thin veil on the scrawny black horses and the sharp-boned cow picketed near a covered wagon; it showered to the ground in little clouds as Mrs. Wade, a tall, spare woman, moved about a camp-fire, preparing supper in a sizzling skillet, huge iron ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... with delight—on finding that they had each escaped without a scratch—and then to shake hands heartily with their cousins, whose fortune had been equally good. There was no time for words, however; for Major Tempe's order came, sharp and decisive: ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... punctual,' said the carrier. '"Four o'clock sharp is my time for starting," I said to 'en. And he said, "I'll be there." Now he's not here, and as a serious old church-minister he ought to be as good as his word. Perhaps Mr. Flaxton knows, being in the same line of life?' He turned to the ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... tumbling to the ground. Its lid was open, but the milk was firmly frozen. Jan licked at it, cutting his deep flews as he did so on the uneven edges of the tin. The warmth of his tongue extracted a certain sweet milkiness from this. But the metal edges were raw and sharp; Jan's exhaustion was very great, and presently he sank down upon the twig-strewn ground, and lay there, breathing in weak, sobbingly uncertain gasps, the milk-can ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... said the little man in words that were slow, but with an air that was sharp. "I mean, has anyone ye work ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... out Miss Bunce, turning abruptly from the window. There was a certain sharp emotion in the question, but her face was in the shadow. Joanna regarded her for a moment or two and broke ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... gave me a quick, sharp look. I did not notice it at the time, but I remembered it later. Then he ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... "You are indifferently sharp, my dear sir, for a housebreaker. Come in. Set down those convicting boots, and don't drip pools of water in the very doorway, of all places. If I must entertain a burglar, I ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... that the Germans could call the village, or the ruins which remained of it, their own. Meanwhile, on the other points of their defensive position; at Floing, St. Menges, Fleigneux, Illy, and, on the extreme left, at Iges, where a sharp bend of the Meuse forms a peninsula of the ground round which it slowly rolls; the French had been making a gallant struggle. In their ranks, even in advance of them, attended finally by a single aide-de-camp, all the others having been killed, was the ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... persons who came to them were doubtless at first persons especially empowered to exchange the produce and manufactures of one little village-community for those of another. But, besides the notion of neutrality, another idea was anciently associated with markets. This was the idea of sharp ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Miss! noae, noae, noae! Ye sees the holler laaene be hallus sa dark i' the arternoon, and wheere the big eshtree cuts athurt it, it gi'es a turn like, and 'ow should I see to laaeme the laaedy, and meae coomin' along pretty sharp ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Barton struck a match, and, seeing a candle on the table, lit it The room had been left as it was when last it was tenanted. On the table were an empty bottle, two tumblers, and a little saucer stained with dry colors, blue and red, part of Shields' stock-in-trade. There were, besides, some very sharp needles of bone, of a savage make, which Barton recognized. They were the instruments used for tattooing in the islands of ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... sufficient distance from the full hogshead in order to stretch the hose, now communicating with both. The cock is then turned, and the wine soon finds its level in the empty hogshead; then a large sized bellows, with an angular nozzle, and sharp iron feet towards the handle, which feet are forced down into the hoops of the cask on which it rests, in order to keep this bellows stationary, whilst the nozzle is hammered in tight at the bung hole of the racking hogshead; the bellows is then worked by ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... death she rode! The wide black heavens yawned again, Down came the torrent rushing rain— The icy river clutched her! Shrill in her ears the waters sang, Strange fires from the abysses sprang, The sharp sleet stung ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... common landing. Christophe knocked at the door which had been pointed out to him. The next door opened. A young woman, not at all pretty, very dark, with low-growing hair and a sallow complexion—a shriveled face with very sharp eyes—asked what he wanted. She looked suspicious. Christophe told her why he had come, and, in answer to her next question, gave his name. She came out of her room and opened the other door with a key which she had in her pocket. But she did not let Christophe enter immediately. She ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... mine! Insulted, disgraced, polluted in the face of hundreds, I was capable of any act of desperation. I watched my opportunity, followed Mr. Tyrrel from the rooms, seized a sharp-pointed knife that fell in my way, came behind him, and stabbed him to the heart. My gigantic oppressor ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... Rue! it makes the sight of eyes both sharp and clear; With help of Rue, oh! blear-eyed man I thou ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... an outlook in the lower part of De Chelly, at the point marked 6 on the map. The lower part of the cliff here flares out slightly, forming a sharp slope; where it meets the vertical rock there is a small bench, on which the ruin is situated. It is apparently inaccessible, but close examination shows a long series of hand and foot holes extending up a cleft in the rock, and forming an easy ascent. The site commands ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... a sharp race, and a warm one. After running a mile or more, there was a small stream to be crossed; and with a few well-balanced steps on a half-decayed log that lay at the edge of the water, I reached the opposite bank ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... reclaimed and admirably tilled, the drainage being carried over ingenious turf conduits, the soil lacking firmness to hold stone or brick. The vast bulk of Slievemore soon looms full in front, and after a long stretch of smooth Balfour road and a sharp turn on the edge of a deep ravine on the right with a high ridge beyond it, the Great mountain on the left, Dugort, with Blacksod Bay, heaves in sight. A final spurt up the hilly road and the weary, jolted traveller, or what is left of him, may (metaphorically) fall into the arms of Mr. Robert ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... sheep nor any other animals can live without a shepherd, nor can children be left without tutors, or slaves without masters. And of all animals the boy is the most unmanageable, inasmuch as he has the fountain of reason in him not yet regulated; he is the most insidious, sharp-witted, and insubordinate of animals. Wherefore he must be bound with many bridles; in the first place, when he gets away from mothers and nurses, he must be under the management of tutors on account of his childishness and foolishness; ...
— Laws • Plato
... descended upon the brigantine, and darkness broken only by the paling lights on the schooner and the red glow of the mate's pipe. Then out of the quiet came the sharp twang of a hawser, and the brigantine shivered. Both watchers started up and ran to the side, striving to penetrate the blackness. The lines ran down to their proper bollards, as usual, and the river sluiced swiftly alongside, swirling ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... a sharp fellow. He immediately began to suspect things. He talked awhile with Stipp, and contrived to find out that the portrait over the mantelpiece was that of Godwin Markham. He also found out that ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... at that moment in the shadow of one of the pilasters of the loggia, almost leaning against it, and in the silence of the street I heard distinctly the sharp firm step of somebody ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... my somewhat indifferent reply. It was a keen winter night and snow was packed upon the walks in a way to throw into sharp relief the figures of such pedestrians as happened to be walking alone. "But it seems to me that, so far as general appearance goes, the one in front ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... cheeks would kindle, her eyes would blaze, and eloquence would pour from her—the language of great poetry, fervid and passionate, with swift flashes of insight and illumination, tumultuous invocations and bursts of prophecy. Thyrsis would listen and marvel. What a mind she had—sharp, like a rapier, swift as the lightning-flash! The powers of penetration and understanding, and above all the sheer splendors of language—the blazes of metaphor, the explosions of coruscating wit! What a tragic actress she might have made—how she would have shaken ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... the form of anhydrite. This gypsum contains some foreign particles of stone; it is stained, judging from its action with borax, with iron, and it exhales a strong aluminous odour. The surfaces of the concretions are marked by sharp, radiating, or bifurcating ridges, as if they had been (but not really) corroded: internally they are penetrated by branching veins (like those of calcareous spar in the septaria of the London clay) of pure white anhydrite. ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... the sheet a little, he braced the craft sharp up, and struggled with the elements to clear the headland. He looked anxiously into the green waters for any shoals on the lee bow. Fortunately there was no obstruction in his path, and the boat weathered the headland, though without the fraction of a point to ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... firing of cannon, the huzzaing of the assembling multitude on the announcement in London of the victory of Waterloo, must have seemed a bitter mockery to many a heart, mad with the first sharp agony of bereavement. "The few must suffer that the many may rejoice," say the statesman and the warrior while they plan new conquests. It may be so, but we have at present to do with the sufferings of ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... indeed it will not. Uncle Giles is more stern than Aunt Barbara. Aunt Jane says it used to make her quite unhappy to see how sharp he was with poor ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of plain writing like they do in school," said Richard, "but not this sharp-cornered kind where the m's and u's are alike, and all the ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... it, and Mary V loved it, and Mary V's mother loved whatever they loved. So the Rolling R was home. And that is why the Rolling R boys looked upon Mary V with unglamoured eyes, being thoroughly accustomed to the sight of her and to the sharp tongue of her and to the frequent ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... the next hour were blurred to him. He remembered the arrival of the brisk young surgeon, remembered his irritated greeting at sight of him—"Another drunken row, I suppose"—and the sharp fight he put up against taking ether. He had but one thought in mind—he must not lose consciousness, for he must get back to the girl. So he fought until two strong men came in and sat one on his chest and one on his knees. When he came out of this he was nicely tucked ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... out.' His obstinacy and waywardness are, in every respect, out of the common. After he was allowed to leave school, and to return home, he became, at the sight of the young ladies, so tractable, gentle, sharp, and polite, transformed, in fact, like one of them. And though, for this reason, his father has punished him on more than one occasion, by giving him a sound thrashing, such as brought him to the verge of death, he cannot however change. Whenever he was being beaten, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... that in Borneo, as in other islands of the East Indian Archipelago, the Malays inhabit the coasts and the aborigines the interior, though in some these reach the coast while Malayised tribes have pushed inland up the rivers, a sharp distinction between the two being frequently obliterated where they overlap. The condition, however, is much more complicated as we can now distinguish at least two main races among ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... when there were few to say it. His commanding merit as a reformer is this, that he insisted beyond all men in pulpit—I cannot think of one rival—that the essence of Christianity is its practical morals; it is there for use, or it is nothing: If you combine it with sharp trading, or with ordinary city ambitions to glaze over municipal corruptions or private intemperance, or successful frauds, or immoral politics, or unjust wars, or the cheating of Indians, or the robbing of frontier ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... by thousands of natives, who kept up a continuous fire, and the bushes near at hand were full of sharp-shooters. But the fort was strong, and its defenders fought bravely; the woods were gradually cleared of sharp-shooters, and the natives, ere long, ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... was plain, and not very clean; and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his little band, which was not much larger than his collar. His hat was without a hat-band. His stature was of a good size; his sword stuck close to his side; his countenance swoln and reddish; his voice sharp and untuneable, and his eloquence ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... behind I heard a tumult of howls, and sharp, piercing barks—much the sound that a pack of wolves raises when in full cry. Involuntarily I glanced backward to discover the origin of this new and menacing note with the result that I missed my footing and went sprawling once more upon my ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... events, it is his doing and not mine; and it is his concern; I am not answerable for other people's sins. I would not do such a thing myself, certainly; but as it is done, I may as well make the best of it. If I gain by it, I need not be so very sharp in looking into the matter.' And so you see men who really wish to be honest and kindly themselves, making no scruple of profiting by other people's dishonesty and cruelty. Now the law punishes the receiver of stolen goods almost as ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... upright for a breath, and her keen, little black eyes noticed an involuntary tremble, a pause, an uncertainty at a critical moment in the doctor's tense arm. A wilful current of thought had disturbed his action. The sharp head nurse wondered if Dr. Sommers had had any wine that evening, but she dismissed this suspicion scornfully, as slander against the ornament of the Surgical Ward of St. Isidore's. He was tired: the languid summer air thus early in the year ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... 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 laureat 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: Among which glories, crown'd with sacred ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... is the boy's name, and Cornelius and I walked along with him till we got off the street—Cornel' was sharp enough not to tackle him near the school. As soon as the crowd thinned out, he asked him if he had that locket, and at first Burt put up a bluff. Finally he admitted that he got it from Greg. Simpson; said he swapped a lot of tops and ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... associated with supernatural dangers, arising, according to the common savage explanation, from the presence of formidable spirits which are shunned like an infectious disease. In most savage societies no sharp line seems to be drawn between the two kinds of taboo just indicated, and even in more advanced nations the notions of holiness and uncleanness often touch. Among the Syrians, for example, swine's flesh was taboo, but it was an open question whether this was because the animal ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... from falsehood to truth, and becoming in harmony with the "divine idea." There is much fanciful, grotesque description in "Sartor," with deep thought and beautiful imagery. "In this book," wrote John Sterling, "we always feel that there is a mystic influence around us, bringing out into sharp homely clearness what is noblest in the remote and infinite, exalting into wonder what is commonest in the dust and toil of ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... knowledge outside its own sphere. There are many dangers to be discovered in this process of interpreting the spiritual nucleus. A mode of interpretation whose meaning has very largely passed away is bound to prove injurious, because it comes into sharp conflict with a newer and more comprehensive meaning, and consequently Christianity fails to win the support of those who are acquainted with the new Existential-form. And even the individual who retains ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... the man of Wilts that word "Plain" will ever summon up a vision of rolling downs, a short, crisp, elastic turf dotted with flocks, and broken here and there by some crested earthwork or barrow, which rears itself from the undulating Down, and breaks the skyline with its sharp outline. It has been estimated that fully one-half of Wiltshire consists of these high bare chalk downs which rise in bold rounded bluffs from the valleys which thread their way through the county. It is impossible to escape them. The Cotswold shepherd looks downward on their folds, and ...
— Stonehenge - Today and Yesterday • Frank Stevens
... was still moving with unabated speed, and the dark, choppy water stretched all round them. Through the murky night the ships' lanterns still shone steadily enough, but farther off than before, and at a sharp angle behind his ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... over the little vessel began to roll and tumble about in such a lively manner as to satisfy us that she was hauling out fast from under the lee of the land, and presently we heard the sharp patter and swish of rain upon the deck overhead. It was by this time past ten o'clock; the two standing berths, one on each side of the small cabin, looked tolerably clean and inviting; so, instead of going on deck as we had originally intended, we turned ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... cried, and my ears caught the sharp click as he drew back the hammer. "Do you think I will ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... a lively, little, red haired man, with high cheek-bones, and a large Roman nose out of all proportion to the size of his diminutive body, but perfectly harmonising with his wide, sensible-looking mouth. His sharp, clear blue eyes, seemed to have crept as close to his nose as they possibly could, in the vain hope of glancing over the high, ridgy barrier it formed between them, which gave to their owner a peculiarly acute, penetrating expression,—a glance which appeared ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... come from afar to try their luck, but it was in vain they attempted to climb the mountain. In spite of having their horses shod with sharp nails, no one managed to get more than half-way up, and then they all fell back right down to the bottom of the steep slippery hill. Sometimes they broke an arm, sometimes a leg, and many a brave man ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... travelling fast and sure toward the Nether Bow. We hear continually from our time-serving correspondent of Guthrie's 'public invective,' of his 'passionate debates,' of his 'venting of his mind,' of his 'peremptory letters,' of his 'sharp writing,' and of his being 'rigid as ever,' and so on. All that about his too zealous co-presbyter, and then his fulsome eulogy of the returning king—his royal wisdom, his moderation, his piety, and his grave carriage—as ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... still waiting for an opportunity either of attacking the farm to advantage, or of capturing the fugitives. They were of course not aware of the powerful instrument which enabled the garrison to watch their movements, while their sharp eyes could scarcely see even ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... see to what a depth the old great traditions of British Constitutionalism had sunk under the influence of the ever-increasing and all-absorbing lust of gold, and in the hands of a sharp-witted wholesale dealer, who, like Cleon of old, has ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... started forward as though to leap, then settled back. Plainly it longed to spring. Equally plainly it was afraid of the being that so impossibly was revealed to its nostrils but not to its eyes. Meanwhile, one tearing sweep of blunt claws or sharp fangs—and a fatal rent would appear in Thorn's ...
— The Radiant Shell • Paul Ernst
... poet, too— Taught by the muses how to smite the harp And lift the tuneful voice, although, like you And Brooks, I sometimes flat and sometimes sharp. But let me say, with no desire to taunt you, I never murder even the girls I ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... were all soundly asleep, we were suddenly roused by the sharp ringing of the door-bell. Squire Allen went to the door, and there, on the steps, stood our dear teacher, Martha Rubie, in her night dress, with ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... sometimes imposed upon goes without saying. He has been charged with avarice, but the charge is wholly unfounded. He was simply careful in money matters, and that, to a large extent, because of the demands that were constantly being made upon him. In commercial concerns he was certainly sharp and shrewd, and attempts to take advantage of him always roused his indignation. "By heavens!" he writes to Artaria, "you have wronged me to the extent of fifty ducats.... This step must cause the cessation of all transactions between us." The same firm, having neglected to ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... What a place it was for bells, lad! Spires as sharp as thrushes' bills to pierce the sky with song. How it shook the heart of one, the swaying and the swinging, How it set the blood a-tramp and all the brains a-singing, Aye, and what a world of thought the calmer chimes came bringing, Telling ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... was no darkness, no dimness, no obscurity there. All was brightness, every object was vividly defined. Every prostrate Kanaka; every coil of rope; every calabash of poi; every puppy; every seam in the flooring; every bolthead; every object; however minute, showed sharp and distinct in its every outline; and the shadow of the broad mainsail lay black as a pall upon the deck, leaving Billings's white upturned face glorified and his body in a total eclipse. Monday morning we were ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... only five years? They had dealt deep strokes to his face, hollowing the eye-sockets, accentuating the strong modelling of nose and chin, fixing the lines between the brows; but every touch had a meaning—it was not the languid hand of time which had remade his features, but the sharp chisel of ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... establishment. On the third day, she descried a number of Indians on horseback proceeding in an easterly direction. She immediately dismounted with her children, and helped Le Clerc likewise to dismount, and all concealed themselves. Fortunately they escaped the sharp eyes of the savages, but had to proceed with the utmost caution. That night they slept without fire or water; she managed to keep her children warm in her arms; but before morning, poor ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... her, my dear, than I've told 'ee. Good-bye now, Miss Ruth. I must look sharp about this business ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... racing in the big trees and over the ground. They crossed the sodded space of lawn and came to the top step for nuts, eating them from cunning paws. They were living life according to the laws of their nature. She knew that their sharp, startling bark was not to frighten her, but to warn straying intruders of other species of their kindred from a nest, because the Harvester had told her so. He had said their racing here and there in wild scramble was ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... all the more determination. Indeed, when a man is working through a hard state, in gaining his freedom from nervous fears, these imps seem to hold councils of war, and to devise new plans of attack in order to take him by surprise and overwhelm him in an emergency. But every sharp attack, if met with quiet "willingness," brings a defeat for the assailants, until finally the resistant imps are conquered and disappear. Occasionally a stray imp will return, and try to arouse resistance on what he feels ...
— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call
... Clarence Island ceased to look like land and had the appearance of a berg of more than eight or ten miles away, so deceptive are distances in the clear air of the Antarctic. The sharp white peaks of Elephant Island showed to the west of north a little later in ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... pole-faces near the arms of the tuning fork pass over them. The latter, to be more strongly affected by the magnet, are provided with faces of soft iron. To the lower face of the lower arm of the fork a small sharp stylus is fastened, which, with each beat of the fork, comes into contact with the mercury in the little cup, n, or a spring used instead of it. This closes an electric circuit, which passes around the magnet, thence going ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... was taken in the midst of much partially suppressed excitement, and the announcement of the vote of different States occasioned many sharp remarks of dissent or approval. After the vote was announced, for some minutes no motion was made, and the delegates ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... find a rebel flag floating from an upper window, and a well dressed soldierly looking greyback, with bayonet fixed, pacing his beat in front. Nothing daunted, Mrs. D. approached. "Halt," was the short sharp hail of the sentinel, as he brought his bayonet to the charge. "Who is quartered here?" asked Mrs. D., gradually nearing the sentry. "Maj.-Gen. Stuart," was the brief reply, "I want to visit a lady acquaintance in the house." "My orders are strict, madam, that no one can cross ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... good—you have done such wonders, that I rely upon you to help me;" and a sudden, sharp look of anxiety swept across her face. "We shall be good friends—n'est ce pas?" she said, turning to look at him as he ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... that the Vigilance Association after a sharp crusade has succeeded in redeeming our literature from all reprehensible matter, and flushed with success has attacked the newspapers and obtained an interdiction against the publication of all reports of sexual crimes and ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... placed a mild power, and was startled at finding something new. The picture which had been so full of rigid and sharp outlines now became a confusion of ever-changing forms. Now it was light,—now shadow; angles faded into curves; but out of the swarming mass of shapes I could not, after hours of watching, obtain one that seemed like any form of life or art that I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... know that when the second iron is thrown overboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-edged terror, skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines, or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions. Nor, in general, is it possible to secure it again until the whale is fairly captured ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the other is a white throne. Let kings keep silence of their thrones, and speak of this throne. O ye kings, will ye look to the heavens above you, and see that white cloud, and upon the cloud one standing like the Son of man, having upon his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle, who thrusts his sharp sickle in the earth, and cuts down the vine of the vineyards of the earth, and casts them into the great wine-press of the wrath of God; so he calls it a great throne. Solomon's throne ...
— The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. • John Welch, Bishop Latimer and John Knox |
