"Sharper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the place in the midst of an impressive stillness, which made the sharper and more distressful to me the clank ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... necessity than to personal partiality. The explanation stands out in Jefferson's own account of events. Hamilton was clear, positive, and decided as to what to do and how to do it. Jefferson was active in finding objections but not in finding ways and means of action. This contrast became sharper as time went on, and, as Washington was in a position where he had to do something, he was forced to rely on Hamilton more and more. Jefferson held that it would be inexpedient for the general government ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... looking about on all sides, and wishing that none of the company from the tavern would follow him. He understood that he had lowered himself in the eyes of all these people. As he walked he thought of what he had come to: a sharper had publicly abused him in disgraceful terms, while he, the son of a well-known merchant, had not been able to ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... was satisfied with the expression of his face. "It's a strange question for you to ask," he said; "I fancied you were a sharper fellow. Don't you see that we have the apostolical succession as ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... Riach, I would have no complaint to make of ye," returned the skipper; "and instead of asking riddles, I make bold to say that ye would keep your breath to cool your porridge. We'll be required on deck," he added, in a sharper note, and set one ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they hoped they would see him at St. Louis, New Orleans, or Louisville, or hear from him, so as to know where to direct his trunks. But they would soon ascertain that there were no trunks left behind, that there had never been any brought on board, and that they had been duped by a clever sharper. ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... roughest in the place, the idea of a scrimmage was, neither in itself nor in its probable consequences, at all repulsive to them. They answered that a little blood letting would do nobody any harm, neither would there be much of that, for they scorned to use any weapon sharper than their fists or a good thick rung: the women and children would take stones of course. Nobody would be killed, but every meddlesome authority taught to let Scaurnose and fishers alone. Peter objected that their enemies ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... rather think Mr. Brown will want me on deck." We followed, for there was the prospect of seeing topsails reefed,—the most glorious event of a landsman's sea-experiences. We had begun the day with a dead calm, but toward night the wind had come out of the eastward. Each plunge the ship gave was sharper, each shock heavier. The topmasts were working, the lee-shrouds and backstays straining out into endless curves. A deeper plunge than usual, a pause for a second, as if everything in the world suddenly stood still, and a great white giant seems to spring upon our weather-bow ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... A sharper note had topped the heavy murmur which, like the rumble of a distant sea, had beaten the air ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... more be imprisoned in hell than God can be. On the other hand, any professing Orthodoxist who, according to a horrible doctrine of the Calvinists in former days, should hope in heaven to obtain a sharper relish for his own joy by looking down on the tortures of the damned, and contrasting his blissful safety with the hopeless agony of their perdition, would find himself in hell. The infernal scenery, even there, would burst on his gaze, its atmosphere of pain reek ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... school in no angelic mood. Her cheek was swollen and her face ached. The schoolroom was cold and smoky, for the fire refused to burn and the children were huddled about it in shivering groups. Anne sent them to their seats with a sharper tone than she had ever used before. Anthony Pye strutted to his with his usual impertinent swagger and she saw him whisper something to his seat-mate and then glance at her with ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... churches, great and cold, whose service moved with slumbrous calm, and his ardent soul was chilled. He found others where activity bristled and cheerfulness prevailed, but where the world held court as obvious as in the market square; and from these he turned away with a still sharper grief. He found other congregations built in strife and schism, but with some fragrance still of the name of Jesus Christ, and ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... known, five men with sabres, in the twilight, were seen to enter the room and close the door. There were wild cries and shrieks and groans. Three times a hacked and a blunted sabre was passed out of a window in exchange for a sharper one. Finally the groans and moans gradually ceased and all was still. The next morning a mass of mutilated remains were thrown into ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... the night journey to Angora, a journey on which he once more fought the hard battle to a still sharper conclusion, Evan Blount scarcely saw his office in Temple Court for more than a brief hour or two at a time. One speaking appointment followed another in such rapid succession that he was constantly going or returning; and since there was everywhere a repetition of the welcome accorded ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... Pushing it open, he stepped within and paused again, half terrified by the unfamiliar tap-tap of his wooden leg on the pavement. The sunshine lay in soft panels of light across the floor, and ran in sharper lines along the tops of the pews, worn to a polish by generations of hands that had opened and shut their doors. Aloft, where the rays filtered through the clerestory windows, their innumerable motes swam like gold-dust held ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... her back to a sharper sense of her central peril: of the secret to be kept from him at whatever ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... learn from the sharper-flavored mushrooms? Here, in the pinewoods, is the woolly milk mushroom (Lactarius torminosus, SCHAEFF.), turned in at the edges and wrapped in a curly fleece. Its taste is biting, worse than Cayenne pepper. Torminosus means colic producing. ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... reason—so that the man that cursed you shall not only feel that his patent curse hasn't done any damage, but has even helped to chain up a lot of rival plagues. These men of science are like benevolent Jupiters: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday colloguing with Vulcan to forge heavier and sharper thunderbolts; Thursday, Friday and Saturday conferring anxiously with all Olympus as to how they shall be blunted and lightened, lest they hurt poor mortal fools ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... the smaller elongated bullet, necessitated by the smaller calibre of the rifle, entailed some definite disadvantages. The lighter bullet is more affected by wind. Its greater relative length to diameter necessitates a sharper pitch of rifling in order properly to revolve the bullet (one turn in 10 in. for the .303 rifle as compared with one turn in 22 in. for the Martini-Henry). This, in its turn, necessitates a hard nickel envelope for the leaden bullet in order to prevent its "stripping,'' or being forced through the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... winter, all our liquors froze, except the Spanish wine. Cider was dispensed by the pound. The cause of this loss was that there were no cellars to our storehouse, and that the air which entered by the cracks was sharper than that outside. We were obliged to use very bad water, and drink melted snow, as there were no springs nor brooks; for it was not possible to go to the main land in consequence of the great pieces of ice drifted by the tide, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... Camerarius: "Far from thinking that I have written milder than was proper, I rather strongly fear (mirum in modum) that some have taken offense at our freedom. For Valdes, the Emperor's secretary, saw it before its presentation and gave it as his opinion that from beginning to end it was sharper than the opponents would be able to endure." (C. R. 2, 140.) On the same day he wrote to Luther: "According to my judgment, the Confession is severe enough. For you will see that I have depicted the monks ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... purple rush of blood to her father's head might kill him. He opened his mouth, but no distinct words came. Her face paled with fright, but she was of his blood, so she faced him quietly. Her mother was quicker of wit, and sharper of tongue. ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... days," the jailer replied: "I grieve to say that the Queen's orders are to the contrary; anger not the Queen by any bravado, else you will be placed in the irons, and if these fail we can have recourse to sharper means." To the excessive self-love, intemperance, conceitedness, and want of foresight which had characterized all his actions, the unhappy Albert had ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... got a sharper knife," said he, drawing his penknife out of his pocket. And then, "Let me try it," he continued, gently taking the ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... to the lay of a poor Irish harper, And scorn not the strains of his old withered hand, But remember the fingers could once move sharper To raise the merry strains of his dear native land; It was long before the shamrock our dear isle's loved emblem. Was crushed in its beauty 'neath the Saxon Lion's paw I was called by the colleens of the village and valley Bold Phelim Brady, ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... The rule is that he should be stern when the occasion requires sternness, and mild when the occasion requires mildness. By mildness should the mild be cut. By mildness one may destroy that which is fierce. There is nothing that mildness cannot effect. For this reason, mildness is said to be sharper than fierceness. That king who becomes mild when the occasion requires mildness and who becomes stern when sternness is required, succeeds in accomplishing all his objects, and in putting down ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... whip, her eyes grew hazy, and she held the furs about her as she swayed with the lurching of the sleigh. Darkness was closing in when they came to the forking of the trail, and, with a little cry of warning, Hetty lashed the team. The lurches grew sharper, and Miss Schuyler gasped now and then as she felt the sleigh swing rocking down a long declivity. Scattered birches raced up out of it, and the hammering beat of hoofs swelled into a roar as it rolled along a thicker ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... that it was the prisoner appointed to buy provisions, paying off out of the food money what was owing to a sharper who had won from or lent money to the prisoners, and receiving back little tickets made of playing cards. When they saw the convoy soldier and a gentleman, those who were nearest became silent, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... quite wise, for no one detested irony more than Mrs Weston, or was sharper to detect it. Lucia should never have been ironical just then, nor indeed ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... parasite is gone, I inspect the home. I see nothing abnormal on the surface of the mass. The sharper eye of the owner, when she gets back, sees nothing either, for she continues the victualling without betraying the least uneasiness. A strange egg, laid on the provisions, would not escape her. I know how clean she keeps her warehouse; ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... doth inflict and lay upon us, or the devil, at God's permission, to assay the good and God's elect, doth sow and set among us,—the which Almighty God and man's policy hath always been content to have stayed—that sharper laws as a harder bridle ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... Tom replied, and perhaps his voice was sharper than usual, though it rang with earnestness. "We believe, sir, that we are very fair engineers. We are willing to be tried out, sir, and to be rated exactly where you find that we belong. If necessary we'll start in as helpers to the chainmen, and we have pride enough to ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... pain of his downfall were sharper pangs than he had ever borne, and before the night was half over he slipped away from the dangers and rushed home to his own room, where he lay awake through the long hours, cursing himself for his folly, and tossing in a fever ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... abides on book and lute, On curl and flower, and with its mute But eloquent appeal It wins from us a deeper sob For our lost dead, a sharper throb Than we are ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... said Nofuhl; "their commercial honor was a jest. They were sharper than the Turks. Prosperity was their god, with cunning and invention for his prophets. Their restless activity no Persian can comprehend. This vast country was alive with noisy industries, the nervous Mehrikans darting with inconceivable ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell
... irradiate, and give its fairest tints to, her own fireside. To leave her uncultivated, a victim to ignorance, prejudice, and the vices they entail, is to take home to our own bosoms a brood that will inflict pangs sharper than death. For the love and honor of our homes, let us encourage the most liberal culture of ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... play, whipping the torrent into greater fury, and bellowing forth thunderous voices. Downstream Aldous could see that the tumult grew less; from the rent in the mountain came the deeper, more distant-rolling thunder that they had heard on the other side of the range. And then, as he looked, a sharper cry broke from Joanne, and she dragged him back from the ledge, and pointed ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... of learning to misquote; A mind well skilled to find or forge a fault; A turn for punning—call it Attic salt; To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet,— His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet; Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a sharper hit; Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit; Care not for feeling—pass your proper jest,— And stand ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... somehow, since Paul has been here, I think they are better than ever! There's poor Alfred, though his cough has been so bad of late, has been so thoughtful and so good; he says he's quite ashamed to find how patient Paul is under so much sharper pain than he ever had, and he's ready to send anything to Paul that he fancies will do him good—quite carried out of himself, you see; and there's Harold, so much steadier; I've hardly had to find fault with ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gentleman in undertones. And when he said this, it seemed as if the voices of Mr. and Mrs. Skratdj rose higher in matrimonial repartee, and the children's squabbles became louder, and the dog yelped as if he were mad, and the maids' contest was sharper; whilst the snap-dragon flames leaped up and up, and blue fire flew about the ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... creatures right and left for pure sport. Haven't we got one grey goose already for supper, an' that's enough for two men surely. Of course I make no account o' the artist, poor cratur', for he eats next to nothin'. Hows'ever, as your appetite may be sharper set than usual, I've no objection to bring ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... now, she had cherished this tiny grudge in her heart—that he had never seemed to notice anything in particular about her except when he tried to be agreeable concerning some new gown. The contrast had become the sharper, too, since she had awakened to the admiration of other men. And the awakening was only a half-convinced happiness mingled with shy surprise that the wise world should really ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... the paddock with the same degree of caution, and so, at last, reached the orchard. On he went, always in the shadow until, at length, he paused beneath the mighty, knotted branches of "King Arthur." Never did conspirator glance about him with sharper eyes, or hearken with keener ears, than did George Bellew,—or Conspirator No. One, where he now stood beneath the protecting shadow of "King Arthur,"—or Conspirator No. Two, as, having unfolded the potato sack, he opened the ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... Firio. "Leddy know he can't fight. Leddy know there is only two of us!" His tone was without satire, but its sting was sharper than satire; that of an Indian shrug over a negligible quantity. It started Prather on all fours ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... a foil to his wife. He is introduced to bring into sharper relief her unhappiness and her powerlessness to better her condition. He is not a bad man, nor is she a bad woman. To say that the story turns entirely on his honor and on her false pride is to miss, I think, the author's purpose. ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... that it should be so. She would have shrunk from thwarting or crossing her sister as she would from committing a secret sin: there might be no material or visible ill-consequence, but the stings of conscience would be all the sharper. ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... naive, Lieutenant. Whoever does it, is going to need little integrity. You don't win in a sharper's card game by playing your cards honestly. The biggest sharper wins. We've just found a joker somebody dropped on the floor; if we don't ...
— Medal of Honor • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... of a sea-port, without the ugliness that attends the rising and falling tides. A delicious freshness breathed from the lake, which lying so smooth, faded into the sky at last, with no line between sharper than that which divides drowsing from dreaming. But the color was the most charming thing, that delicate blue of the lake, without the depth of the sea-blue, but infinitely softer and lovelier. The nearer expanses rippled with dainty waves, silver and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... tell who wrote that warning. Here, take a look at it, Tom. Your eyes may be sharper than mine ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... in spite of this brave margin an irritation, after he had gone, remained with her; a sense that presently became one with a still sharper hatred of Mr. Buckton, who, on her friend's withdrawal, had retired with the telegrams to the sounder and left her the other work. She knew indeed she should have a chance to see them, when she ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... inconsequential, with no evident pattern. Of this, literary art is the verklartes Bild. It is not because, in literature, men are happier and nobler that life seems superior there; but because its outlines are sharper, its design more perspicuous, the motives that sway it better understood. It has the advantage over life that a landscape flooded with sunshine has over ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... have observed that," Gerald Burke replied with a laugh. "Your eyes are sharper than I gave you credit for, Master Geoffrey. Yes, that would set me on my legs without doubt, for Donna Inez is the only daughter and heiress of the Marquis of Ribaldo; but you see there is a father in the case, ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... fence. It appeared to her that Susan was looking more thin and peaked than nature had intended. It is true that Miss Clegg was always of a bony and nervous outline, but it seemed slowly but surely borne in upon her older friend that of late she had been rapidly becoming sharper in every way. Mrs. Lathrop felt that she ought to speak—that she ought not to lead her next door neighbor into the false belief that her sufferings were unnoticed by the affectionate spectacles forever turned her way,—and yet—Mrs. Lathrop being Mrs. Lathrop—it ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... the longest path? First tell ye that to me; And tell me what is deeper Than is the deepest sea? And tell me what is louder Than is the loudest horn? And tell me what is sharper Than is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... Bob, and so much the greater need that you should look out the sharper. Give the ship plenty of room, and I'll let her run down for the ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... shouted Marks. "Don't tell me it's luck. He's a sharper, a dirty thief. But I'll get even. He's got to fight now. He'll fight with guns and I'll kill the son ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... to make sharper the fact that the murder of Becket the archbishop is a climax. The great Church and hierarchy are profaned. The audience feels the same thrill of horror that went through Christendom. We understand why miracles were wrought ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... heightened, sharpened, and made more keen and sharp by those circumstances that as concomitants attend it in every act: for there is not a sin at any time committed by man, but there is some circumstance or other attends it, that makes it, when charged home by God's law, bigger and sharper, and more venom and poisonous to the soul than if it could be committed without them; and this is the sting of the hornet, the great sting. I sinned without a cause to please a base lust, to gratify the devil; here is the sting! Again, I preferred sin before holiness, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... recommend that a sharper control be exercised on the station platform at Luxemburg, as it is a simple matter to avoid the only control which is at the ticket gate, by simply not going out and therefore ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... and is as pitiless toward himself as toward all others. That is the principal quality which attracted me to him and which made me for a long time seek his cooeperation. There are those who pretend that he is nothing but a sharper, but that is a lie. He is a devoted fanatic, but at the same time a dangerous fanatic, with whom an alliance could only prove very disastrous for everyone concerned. This is the reason: He first belonged to a secret society which, in reality, existed in Russia. This society exists no more; all ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... dozen other gentlemen will be present," he said, "but there will be no ladies. Monsieur l'Abbe, being of the church, is not a ladies' man, and besides, ladies have sharper eyes than men, and might see much that is intended ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... slander, Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... are intensely pleased with themselves, if they have some good looks into the bargain, believe themselves capable of marrying any one. Mrs. Ralph has fine eyes and rolls them. Walderhurst won't be ogled. The Brooke girl is sharper than Ralph. She was very sharp this ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... world's wide heath: our voyage is to the Isle of Dogs, there where the blatant beast doth rule and reign, renting the credit of whom it please. Where serpents' tongues the penmen are to write, Where cats do wawl by day, dogs by night. There shall engorged venom be my ink, My pen a sharper quill of porcupine, My stained paper this sin-loaden earth. There will I write in lines shall never die, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... him. His greatest enemies can deny none of this; and a man of this moderation of mind could have no hungry appetite to prey upon his subjects, tho' he had a greatnes of mind not to live precariously by them. But when he fell into the sharpnes of his afflictions, (than which few men underwent sharper) I dare say, I know it, (I am sure conscientiously I say it) tho' God dealt with him, as he did with St. Paul, not remove the thorn, yet he made his grace sufficient to take away the pungency of it: for he made as sanctified an use of his afflictions, ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... good Manners, nay, and good Sense too; hates both Morality and Religion, and that not for any Reason (for he never thinks) but merely because he don't understand 'em: He's the Whore's Protection and Punishment, the Baud's Tool, the Sharper's Bubble, the Vintner's Property, the Drawer's Terror, the Glasier's Benefactor; in short, a roaring, thoughtless, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... been a big fish, I should have concealed myself for a sudden rush upon an unwary youngster. The large green float sailed leisurely along, simply indicating, by its uneasy movement, that the bait was playing; and now it passed the point of the rock and hurried round the corner in the sharper current towards the open river. Off it went!—Down dipped the tip of the rod, with a rush so sudden that the line caught somewhere, I don't know where, ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... become of me?" thought Betty, as she heard the grindstone go round and round as the knife got sharper and sharper. "I look so like a pig they will kill me too, and make me into sausages if I don't run away. I'm tired of playing piggy, and I'd rather be washed a hundred times a day than be put ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... put her thin lips together in a way which meant volumes, and went out on her housekeeping round, giving orders to Zany in sharper, more metallic tones than usual. The delinquent herself had overheard enough of the conversation to learn that the evil day had at least been put off and to get some clew ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... Chief. His voice was still sharper. "No nonsense, Monsieur. The veil must be raised and immediately; you are keeping the whole train back. What do you suppose I am here for?" There was menace in his tone as he took a step forward. "Now, Madame, will you raise ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... extremely great. The trial of faith as sharp as ever, or sharper. It is ten o'clock, and there are no means yet for a dinner. I now thought of some articles which I might be able to do without, to dispose of them for the benefit of the Orphans, when one of the labourers gave me 1l., which she had intended for another object, and which she now considers ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... my thoughts for the first hour or so, while I sat on the chest that was to be my bed. But suddenly there came a sharper consciousness of what death meant, and how closely it threatened me. I sprang up, to bestir myself in seeking if there might be some means of escape. The situation had changed since I had willingly lingered at the chateau in order ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... kind of hussars do you know, you brazen-faced creature? Phoo! Diabolical idea! Perhaps you think I'm not able to make you mind? Tell me, you shameless-eyed girl, where did you get that spiteful look? What, you want to be sharper than your mother! It won't take me long, I tell you, to send you into the kitchen to boil the kettles. Shame, shame on you! Ah! Ah! My holy saints! I'll make you a hempen wedding-dress, and pull it on over ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... With anger ever sharper, Thorgerda fierce, and Yrpr, Shot lightning from each finger, Which sped and did not linger. Then sank our brave in numbers To cold, eternal slumbers; There lay the good and ...
— Young Swaigder, or The Force of Runes - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... the Roman Catholic Hobbist and freethinker, had then flashed out in the speech of the distressed envoy. He "offered some reasons of his own in which he mentioned the Church slightingly." On this the King had blazed into proper indignation, given poor Davenant "a sharper reprehension than he ever did to any other man," told him never to show his face again, and frowned him to the door. And so, says Clarendon, "the poor man, who had indeed very good affections," returned to Paris crestfallen. [Footnote: Clar. 606, and ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... sports, learned to know the Hunt barge well. He met her rounding his bends on grey December dawns to music wild and lamentable as the almost forgotten throb of Dervish drums, when, high above Royal's tenor bell, sharper even than lying Beagle-boy's falsetto break, Farag chanted deathless war against Abu Hussein and all his seed. At sunrise the river would shoulder her carefully into her place, and listen to the rush and scutter of the pack fleeing up the gang-plank, and the ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... He was even sharper in bargaining with Widow Gibbs than he had been with other matrimonial candidates. She had no property to leave him by will, but he astutely stipulated that her children sign a contract that, should she die before him, they would ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... Dredge's emotion was a tribute to the great man's proximity. That made the boy interesting, and I began to watch. Archie, always enthusiastic but vague, had said: "Oh, he's a tremendous chap—you'll see—" but I hadn't expected to see quite so clearly. Lanfear's vision, of course, was sharper than mine; and the next morning he had carried Dredge off to the Biological Station. And that was the way ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... time the Old Lady's eyes, and her voice too, were sharper than ever; from the corner where she dreamed she watched Miss Quincey incessantly between the dreams. At times the Old Lady was shaken with terrible and mysterious mirth. Bastian Cautley began to figure ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... authority if there was no doubt about his appearance. He decided to walk, and he passed through the garden into the town, his head a buzzing repetition of the words that he meant to say. It was a beautiful evening; a soft mist hid the moon's sharper outline, but she shone, a vague circlet of light through a little fleet of fleecy white cloud. Although it was early in September, some of the trees were beginning to change their dark green into faint gold, and the sharp outline of their leaves stood out against ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... platform, the central figure being Bernard Ridder, recognised leader of the large German-American population of New York City that had remained staunchly loyal in the crisis. Presently a clamour from the crowd outside, sharper and fiercer than any that had preceded it, announced some new and unexpected danger close ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... at a sharper angle until it bent in upon itself, threatening to snap, and flung one gray-spatted ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... this fact, all incriminating evidence was carefully concealed by the old man and his sons, and it would have taken a sharper man than Bonar—intelligent as he was—to discover any traces of illicit distilling in the neighborhood of their house. There was one suspicious feature only; a large eighteen-gallon barrel, full of something—whatever ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... all the salt in the old comedy Should be so censured, or the sharper wit Of the bold satire termed scolding rage, What age could then compare with those for buffoons? What should be said of Aristophanes, Persius, or Juvenal, whose names we now So glorify in schools, at least pretend it?—- Have they ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... made any money. The only way Tony will make money honestly is by marrying a rich girl. Not that I assume him to be dishonest or a sharper, for I do think him a gentleman, after the fashion of Sir Fopling. He probably is considerably in debt, but floats himself from all danger of sinking by speculation or the like. Five times I set him at work to make his living: five times he was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... congratulated with much less heartiness. "I suppose it's all right," said one bluff old gentleman. "My time is gone by, I know. I married too early to be able to wear a good coat when I was young, and I never was acquainted with any lords or lords' families." The sting of this was the sharper because Crosbie had begun to feel how absolutely useless to him had been all that high interest and noble connection which he had formed. He had really been promoted because he knew more about his work than any of the ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... was a startled little gasp and it was a startled little glance that she gave him. "Is—is that what you came for?" If his ears had been sharper he would have caught a tiny note of disappointment in the question as if she had expected him to ask ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... it more than gently. To imagine a scene, however vividly, does not give us the sense of being, or even of having been, present at it. Indeed, the greater the glow of the scene reflected, the sharper is the pang of our realisation that we were not there, and of our annoyance that we weren't. Such a pang comes to me with special force whenever my fancy posts itself outside the Temple's gate in Fleet Street, and there, at a late ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... been a little less surprised could one of them have taken down an old volume of Dr South's sermons from the vicar's library shelves, and have read these words to his fellows: "Men are infidels, not because they have sharper wits, but because they have corrupter wills; not because they reason better, but because they live worse." Assuredly this was true of ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... avenue. Half-way to the gate he paused to listen. He was hidden from sight now by the gathering twilight and the rolling mists. From behind the house came the softly muffled roar of the tide sweeping in, and, with sharper insistence, the whirr of machinery from the boathouse. Granet lit a cigarette and walked thoughtfully away. Just as he climbed into the car, a peculiar light through the trees startled him. He stood up and watched. From the top of the house ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... been shown how the Count of Guisnes had been a thorn in the side of Baldwin of Lille, and how that thorn was drawn out by Hereward. But a far sharper thorn in his side, and one which had troubled many a Count before, and was destined to trouble others afterward, was those unruly Hollanders, or Frisians, who dwelt in Scaldmariland, "the land of the meres of the Scheldt." Beyond the vast forests of Flanders, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... could such a desirable state of things be brought about, and the heavier and sharper the punishments inflicted at any one time, the easier was it for Verhaeren to work ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... species which furnish the most powerfully pungent condiment known to commerce; but the tiny dark brown seeds of the black mustard are sharper than the serpent's tooth, whereas the pale brown seeds of the WHITE MUSTARD, often mixed with them, are far more mild. The latter (Sinapis alba) is a similar, but more hairy, plant, with slightly larger yellow flowers. Its pods are constricted like ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... loose raptures, Donne, shall meet with those That do confine Tuning unto the duller line, And sing not but in sanctified prose, How will they, with sharper eyes, The foreskin of thy fancy circumcise, And fear thy wantonness should now begin Example, that hath ceased to be sin! And that fear fans their heat; whilst knowing eyes Will not admire At this strange fire That here ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... man, hold-up [U.S.], jackleg [U.S.], kidnaper, rustler, cattle rustler, sandbagger, sea king, skin [Slang], sneak thief, spieler^, strong-arm man [U.S.]. highwayman, Dick Turpin, Claude Duval, Macheath, footpad, sturdy beggar. cut purse, pick purse; pickpocket, light-fingered gentry; sharper; card sharper, skittle sharper; thimblerigger; rook [Slang], Greek, blackleg, leg, welsher [Slang]; defaulter; Autolycus^, Jeremy Diddler^, Robert Macaire, artful dodger, trickster; swell mob [Slang], chevalier d'industrie [Fr.]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of damnable. What can be the fun of winning other people's money?" This strikes me as a way of putting it which would appeal most forcibly to a boy; and if, in addition, we were to point out to him that, like all shady things, it has a tendency to grow and sharpen the man into a sharper and develop the blood-sucking apparatus of a leech, besides bringing wretchedness and misery on others, he might be led to resist the first beginnings of a betting habit which may lead on to ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... knocked up, which was not wonderful; and you may want all your strength to-day. Besides, you know, you would have been of no use had you been awake, for you could have seen nothing. Donna Maria's eyes were a good deal sharper than mine, and I am quite sure that, tired as you were, Dias would have seen them coming long before you would. We had better lie down again, for it will be light enough soon for them to make us out. How far do ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... program, on a formal basis, came into being as recently as October 1958, its impact on the national economy has probably been sharper than that of any single new program ever conceived. For there are now at least 5,000 companies or research organizations engaged in the missile-space industry. And more than 3,200 different space-related products have been required and are being produced ...
— The Practical Values of Space Exploration • Committee on Science and Astronautics
... darker and fiercer, his nose a shade sharper, his temper evidently in an uncorked condition; although he may be safely said to be on the mend, and, with regard to his bodily strength, in a ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... hospital since the beginning of the war. A heavy smell of ether and iodoform lay about it, mixed with the smell of the war. This effluvia of an army, mixed with the sharper reek of anaesthetics, was the atmosphere of the hospital. The great rush of wounded had begun. Every few minutes the ambulances slopped down a miry byway, and turned in the gates; tired, putty-faced hospital attendants took out the stretchers and the nouveaux ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... if such be the will of Providence to ascend the scaffold made sacred by the blood of this martyr; and I rejoice at every prospect of making our struggle more earnest and inexorable on both sides; for the sharper the conflict the sooner ended; the more vigorous and remorseless the strife, the less blood must be shed ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... sparsity of the sojourners. The sweet fern in the open fields, and the brakes and blackberry-vines among the bowlders, were blighted with the cold wind; even the sea-weed swaying at the foot of the rocks seemed to feel a sharper chill than that of the brine. A storm came, and strewed the beach with kelp, and blew over half the bath-houses; and then the hardiest lingerer ceased to talk of staying through October. There began to be rumors at the Maxwells' hotel that it would close before the month ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... and you talk of morals too. Well, don't I know that every now and then I—I don't see those either?" He paused. "A man must get on as well as he can with what he's got," he resumed. "If he's only got one eye, he must learn to be sharper than ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... subdivisions if each molecule is a continuous elastic solid. Let us, then, leave the kinetic theory of gases for a time with this difficulty unsolved, in the hope that we or others after us may return to it, armed with more knowledge of the properties of matter, and with sharper mathematical weapons to cut through the barrier which at present hides from us any view of the molecule itself, and of the effects other than mere change of translational motion which ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... His sharper senses had detected before theirs a distant wail, proceeding from some distance in front, apparently—weird and wild as it could be, dying away or surging upon the ear as the wind swept it hither or thither. Arthur shrugged ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... and expel only the degree of health yet remaining. The consequence of this mistaken management is, that all the evacuations are restrained, the humours causing and nourishing the disease are not at all attempered and diluted, nor rendered proper for evacuation. On the contrary they become sharper, and more difficult to be discharged. By judicious management it is practicable, if not entirely to prevent a variety of disorders, yet at least to abate their severity, and so to avert the ultimate danger. As soon as ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... appearance of the man accused. The person represented was, if judged by the shape of his hat, the fashion of his watch-chain and ring, the neglected condition of his teeth, and the redness of his nose, obviously a professional sharper. He was, I believe, drawn by an American artist, and his face and clothes had a vaguely American appearance, which, in the region of subconscious association, further suggested to most onlookers the idea of Tammany Hall. This poster was brilliantly successful, but, ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... England, I saw every moment, and particularly in the rural districts, faces exactly resembling those at home. Had I met the same persons in Denmark or Norway, it would never have entered my mind that they were foreigners. Now and then I also met with some whose taller growth and sharper features reminded me of the inhabitants of South Jutland, or Sleswick, and particularly of Angeln; districts of Denmark which first sent colonists to England. It is not easy to describe peculiarities ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... come here to catch fish for the big ones to eat," said the mate. "Have another try, and you must be sharper. Look here, Mr Lane—No, no, don't take that head off," he cried, "that will make a splendid bait. Throw it in as ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... the noble; "her little arrangements are concluded through a servant of hers, the cleverest little ladies'-maid that ever was. She's sharper than mustard, and these nights stolen from the king have ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... her in speechless dignity. Vouchsafing no reply, he attempted to pass her and enter the house. But Britta settled her arms more defiantly than ever, and her voice had a sharper ring ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli |
