"Sharpen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and enjoy the advantage of occasionally listening to the jeremiads of English University professors. More than once a German professor has done me the honour to employ me as an object on which to sharpen his English. He also has mourned similar lack of ideals at Heidelberg, at Bonn. Youth is youth all the world over; it has its own ideals; they are not those of the University professor. The explanation is tolerably simple. ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... Basil took another pencil out of his pocket and began to sharpen it. He did not like the aspect of affairs at all. His interview with Marjorie had given him no real satisfaction. Marjorie had not thrust the idea of Ermie's guilt from her with the horror he had expected. Of course she had agreed with him, but not with that emphasis he had ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... of the first bout, and stood to sharpen his scythe, he was startled to see, a little way off, gathering after one of the scythes, a form he could not mistake. SHE had known he would keep his troth! She did not look up, but he knew her figure and every motion of ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... "Here's something to sharpen your teeth on, Mr. Ricks," the general manager replied, and presented the cablegram he had been ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... he was all tired out, but nothing seemed to do any good. Then he and Sammie sat down and looked up at that turnip, swinging over their heads, and they were so hungry that their tongues stuck out like a dog's on a hot day. Then, all at once, before you could sharpen a lead pencil with a dull knife, if out from the bushes didn't pop ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... others does this scouting life develop your faculties, sharpen your senses of hearing and of seeing, and, in practical ways, of thinking too; of noting signs and little portents and drawing conclusions from them; of observing things. You feel more alive than you ever felt before. Every day you are more or less dependent on your own ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... I place beneath your pillow; it is the only gift I can make you, but despise it not. It will surely prove useful to you, as it can cut down all that lies before it. Only beware of putting it into the fire to temper it. Sharpen it, however, as you will, but in that way never." So saying, she ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... generally double and tribble the value of what they have to Sell, and never take less than the real value of the article in Such things as is calculated to do them Service. Such as Blue & white heeds, with which they trade with the nativs above; files which they make use of to Sharpen their tools, fish hooks of different Sises and tobacco- Tobacco and blue beeds they do prefur to ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... your Improved Tories," he wrote, "I think the scheme is excellent. You sharpen your wits on other people's, and you keep in touch with all kinds of opinions. That's excellent! Your father, and you, too, used to say we were rather one-eyed in Dublin, and I think there's a good deal of truth ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... escape from it, there was nothing to do but to dig away at the base of this mountain of ignorance and prejudice. You must keep at the poor fellow; you must hold your temper, and argue with him, and watch for your chance to stick an idea or two into his head. And the rest of the time you must sharpen up your weapons—you must think out new replies to his objections, and provide yourself with new facts to prove to him the ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... blackness and the surface of the paper becomes roughened, so that it will soil easier and be harder to clean. In order to produce fine pencil lines without requiring a very frequent sharpening of the pencil it is best to sharpen the pencil as in Figures 7 and 8, so that the edge shall be long in the direction in which it is moved, which is denoted by the arrow in Figure 7. But when very fine work is to be done, as in the case of Patent Office drawings, a long, round point is preferable, because the eye can see ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... O stop it!—O do!— We never did hear Such a hullballoo! 'Tis worse than ye noise that ye carpenters make When they sharpen their saws!—Now, for charity's sake, Give over this squalling, And catermawalling!" Cried all ye good people who chanced to be near; Each thrusting a finger-tip into ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... by some whites among us have inspired them with hopes of success." "While the fiery Hotspurs of the State vociferate their French babble of the natural equality of man, the insulted negro will be constantly stimulated to cast away his cords and to sharpen his pike." "It is, moreover, believed, though not positively known, that a great many of our profligate and abandoned whites (who are distinguished by the burlesque appellation of Democrats) are implicated with the blacks, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... Oh, had our grandsire walk'd without his wife, He first had sought the better plant of life! Now both are lost: yet, wandering in the dark, 100 Physicians, for the tree, have found the bark: They, labouring for relief of human kind, With sharpen'd sight some remedies may find; The apothecary-train is wholly blind, From files a random recipe they take, And many deaths of one prescription make. Garth,[29] generous as his Muse, prescribes and gives; The shopman sells; ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... fences. The deer had certain places to go to that fence to jump it, and after we found the regular jumpin' place, we would cut three sticks—pretty good size, about like your wrist, about three foot long—and peel 'em and scorch 'em in the fire and sharpen the ends right good and we would go to set our traps. We would put these three sharp sticks right about where the forefeet of the deer would hit. You'd just set the sticks about four inches from where his forefeet would hit the ground, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... are often forced by necessity, and invincible suspicions frequently held in secret. As a witty woman once remarked: "They often play a comedy, to avoid a tragedy!" That which has never been uttered, is yet incessantly divined and understood. Generalities are often used to sharpen interrogation, while concealing its drift; the most evasive replies are carefully listened to, like the ringing of metal, as a test of the quality. Often, when in appearance pleading for others, the suitor is urging ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... lifted his great hand, and the mark he has made has endured for two centuries, and we still continue wondering at him, and admiring him. What a strength in that arm! What splendor of will hidden behind that tawny beard, and those honest eyes! Sharpen your pen, my good critic, shoot a feather into him; hit him, and make him wince. Yes, you may hit him fair, and make him bleed, too; but, for all that, he is a lion—a mighty, conquering, generous, rampageous Leo Belgicus—monarch of his wood. And he is not dead yet, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... generations and epochs, when they show themselves infected with any moral fanaticism, seem like those intercalated periods of restraint and fasting, during which an impulse learns to humble and submit itself—at the same time also to PURIFY and SHARPEN itself; certain philosophical sects likewise admit of a similar interpretation (for instance, the Stoa, in the midst of Hellenic culture, with the atmosphere rank and overcharged with Aphrodisiacal odours).—Here also is a hint for the explanation ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... delighted I am at the result of the doings of the Council of the Royal Society yesterday. Many of us were somewhat doubtful of the result, and the more ferocious sort had begun to whet their beaks and sharpen their claws in preparation for taking a very decided course of action had there been any failure of justice this time. But the affair was settled by a splendid majority, and our ruffled ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... out of the carriage, having with him the oil-cloth apron and a plan. Four long sticks were not hard to find, or to sharpen with his pocket knife, and a few knocks drove them into the soft earth, two on each side of a log near the fire. He then stretched the oil-cloth over the sticks, tying the corners, and had a canopied throne in the midst of this lively camp. A chunk served for a footstool. Bobaday ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... waited patiently until one of the mowers stopped to sharpen his scythe, and then stepping to him, asked, in ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... sudden contrasts; that is, large members with very little curve bound with members very small in detail, thus obtaining sharp lines, having little surface to be influenced or distorted by the veined markings, and serving to sharpen up and give form to the broader members (which show the color qualities of the marble), much as you sharpen up an ink drawing by underlining. These small members serve the architect's purpose for the expression of vertical and horizontal ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... the bough of a birch-tree, not very far from his house in the hemlock, he saw a canoe land on the shore of the lake, and some Indians with an axe cut down some bushes, and having cleared a small piece of ground, begin to sharpen, the ends of some long poles. These they stuck into the ground close together in a circle; and having stripped some sheets of birch-bark from the birch-trees close by, they thatched the sides of the hut, ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... said the lieutenant, "you need not make yourself uncomfortable, nor set up the bantam cock hackles round your neck, and you need not go to the grindstone to sharpen your spurs, for we shall not have the luck to see anything of the rajah, who by this time knows that it is his best policy to keep out of the way. Will you take ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... comes upon him. The illusion of separation that makes animal life, that is to say, passionate competing and breeding and dying, possible, the blinkers Nature has put upon us that we may clash against and sharpen one another, still darken our eyes. We live not life as yet, but in millions of separated lives, still unaware except in rare moods of illumination that we are more than those fellow beasts of ours ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... Wolf was a great chief. The village in the Blue Mountains mourned very much. Nicotee, his squaw, went wailing into the land of shadows. His son hath seen but seven moons of corn, but he dreams of the day when he shall sharpen the hatchet against the slayers of his father.... The Chickahominies have told Black Wolf that his brother was wounded and not slain by the palefaces. They brought him captive to their great board wigwams. There they tied him not to the torture stake; ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... explain what you mean by that." Lady Mary's wide voice was too well trained to sharpen. Her cold blue eyes wore the dreamy expression of ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... little of the law of opposites, or how an intellectual or scientific man will sometimes select for his life companion a woman of only ordinary intelligence, who will, nevertheless, adorn her husband's home by her simple domestic virtues. A wife does not need to be a moral whetstone to sharpen her husband's wits by the fireside, neither would it enhance his happiness to find her filling reams of foolscap paper with choice specimens of prose and poetry; intelligent sympathy with his work is all he demands, and a loving, restful ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... freedom of the kingdom of heaven. There is the other young man in a show window a bit further on who all day long gashes blocks of wood with a magic razor, only to sharpen it to greater keenness, so that before you he continually cuts with it the finest hairs. There is the young woman garbed as a nurse who treats the corns on a gigantic plaster foot. In show windows ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... Stanton, still I can not but enjoy the feeling that the people call on me, and the fact that I have an opportunity to sharpen my wits a little by answering questions and doing the chatting, instead of merely sitting a lay figure and listening to the brilliant scintillations as they emanate from her never-exhausted magazine. There is no alternative—whoever ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... exhausting battle for her private opinions as talkative people have, simply because she rarely if ever expressed an opinion; but her father stood ready always, a post of resistance to innovation, upon which she could sharpen the claws of her conclusion silently whenever ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... slightly, watching her fixedly, turning up the corners of his eyes slyly, his nose seeming slyly to sharpen. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... in slices about one inch thick, from half as large as the hand to four times that size. Sharpen a stick or branch of convenient length—say, from two to four feet long—and weave the point of the stick through the steak several times, so that it may be readily turned over a few brisk coals or on the windward side of a small fire. Allow to brown nicely, turning frequently. Salt and ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... "it's but setting Maude on the scent—I warrant thee, she'll sharpen her wits for the work. It will be a grievous pity should he depart, and whisper not his message to her ladyship. Maude's thin ears, as thou knowest, can catch a whisper, and thou wilt soon squeeze the secret out of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... to Paris to sharpen your wits, my son. I thought I had trained you to catch allusion, one of the most delicate and satisfying arts of life. Did I not preface my remarks by saying that Madame de Verneuil was infallible? ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... Gibault, having followed the course of the river for some distance on foot, struck into the woods, sought for and found the track of the bear, and, looking carefully to the priming of his gun, and knocking the edge of the flint to sharpen it, pushed forward in pursuit with the ardour ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... afeard, Leaf, that you'll never be able to tell how many cuts d'take to sharpen a spar," ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... soft-steel axes; a small file to sharpen them; a few additional tools (see chapter on Timber); spare butcher's knives..............................8 A dozen awls for wood and for leather, two of them in handles; two gimlets; a dozen sail-needles; three ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... amain in clouds of dust. All seek out arms; and now they rub their shields smooth and make their spearheads glitter with [627-659]fat lard, and grind their axes on the whetstone: rejoicingly they advance under their standards and hear the trumpet note. Five great cities set up the anvil and sharpen the sword, strong Atina and proud Tibur, Ardea and Crustumeri, and turreted Antemnae. They hollow out head-gear to guard them, and plait wickerwork round shield-bosses; others forge breastplates of brass or smooth greaves of flexible silver. To this is ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... maid the cause: If e'er as friends we join, the Trojan wall Must shake, and heavy will the vengeance fall! But now, ye warriors, take a short repast; And, well refresh'd, to bloody conflict haste. His sharpen'd spear let every Grecian wield, And every Grecian fix his brazen shield, Let all excite the fiery steeds of war, And all for combat fit the rattling car. This day, this dreadful day, let each contend; No rest, no respite, till the shades descend; Till ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... class of individuals, through every department, almost every house of the metropolis, would be induced to look with a suspicious eye upon every stranger, especially every solitary stranger, that fell under their observation. The prize of one hundred guineas was held out to excite their avarice and sharpen their penetration. It was no longer Bow-street, it was a million of men in arms against me. Neither had I the refuge, which few men have been so miserable as to want, of one single individual with whom to repose my alarms, and ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... things. They said that competition was the mainspring of life; they seemed to think exercise was the goal of existence. A man whom I saw there and who, I learnt, had been chosen to teach the young on account of his wisdom, told me that competition trained the man to sharpen his faculties; and that the tension which it provoked is in itself a useful training. I do not believe this. A cat or a boa constrictor will lie absolutely idle until it perceives an object worthy of its appetite; it will then catch it and swallow it, and once more relapse into repose ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... penalties, to do their bidding. The reader knows what the edicts were. He knows also the instructions to the corps of papal inquisitors, delivered by Charles and Philip: He knows that Philip, both in person and by letter, had done his utmost to sharpen those instructions, during the latter portion of his sojourn in the Netherlands. Fourteen new bishops, each with two special inquisitors under him, had also been appointed to carry out the great work to which the sovereign ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of you, and eat, that ye may be ready for battle. Let each man sharpen well his spear and see to his shield, and see to it that the horses are well fed and the chariots prepared. And whomsoever I see minded to stay far away from the fight, beside the ships here by the sea, for him shall there ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... are you? I don't know you, I don't know where you came from or who you are, but it seems to me that while you are still young you ought to leave Nizhni and spend two or three years rubbing shoulders with literature and literary people; not to learn to crow like the rest of us and to sharpen your wits, but to take the final plunge head first into literature and to grow to love it. Besides, the provinces age a man early. Korolenko, Potapenko, Mamin, Ertel, are first-rate men; you would perhaps at first feel their company rather boring, but in a year or two you would ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... of private spice-trading, and by emancipation of the slaves in 1861, when the Dutch Government placed the liberated population under police surveillance, compelling each individual to prove honest acquirement of the slender means necessary for subsistence. Contact with the world begins to sharpen native intelligence, already heightened by the fusion of European blood with the island race, and external cleanliness being enforced systematically in Dutch territory, the concrete cottages which alternate with the thatched dwellings are dazzlingly white, the diligent sweeping and watering at fixed ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... pappy git under de wagon once when it was bogged up to de hub and lift and heft dat wagon and set it outside de ruts it was bogged down in. Him stayed at de blacksmith shop, work on de wagons, shoe de mules and hosses, make hinges, sharpen de plow points and fix de iron rings ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... be tuned slightly sharper than perfect; if the octaves are tuned perfect, the upper tones of the instrument will sound flat when used in scale and arpeggio passages covering a large portion of the key-board. Begin to sharpen your octaves slightly from about the seventeenth key from the last; counting both black and white. In other words, begin to sharpen from the last A[b] but one, in the standard scale of seven and a third octaves of which the last key is C. Sharpen but slightly, and increase the degree of sharpening ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... sharp', said the lad. 'Just let me sharpen it for you, and then you'll find it easier work ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... yourself with a "tram." This you can do by taking a 1/4 inch iron rod, about 18 inches long, and bend about two inches of one end to a sharp angle. Then sharpen both ends to a nice sharp point. Now, fasten securely a block of hard wood somewhere near the face of the fly wheel, so that when the straight end of your tram is placed at a definite point in the block the other, or hook end, will reach ...
— Rough and Tumble Engineering • James H. Maggard
... Jim with a grin. "Steel spears. They make steel wire, you know, down to two-thousandths of an inch and finer. Probably our friend has some in his laboratory. Now, if we grind two pieces about a quarter of an inch long off such a wire, and sharpen the ends as well as we can, we'll have short spears ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... it isn't so long ago since we were in it," nodded Jane. "Tommy was the last to be in it. Please pass the potatoes. This life at sea does sharpen one's appetite. It wouldn't do for me to go to sea really. I'd get so hungry between meals that I'd ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... these cases support the theories that birds sharpen their faculties by the exercise of defensive and offensive tactics, and also that they do indulge ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... rigidity and she turned, hurried into the scullery and came back. She had, he saw, a knife. That was not alarming. It was a small kitchen knife, but he recognized it as the one she made a great fuss about, asking him to sharpen it often and keeping it for special use. But she gripped it strangely. Besides, there was the strangeness ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... am not a fast thinker. Years of teaching Roman history to classes of dozing students, interested only in easy credits, are not reckoned to sharpen one's wits. However, I instantly realized what must have happened. I tapped the little man ...
— "To Invade New York...." • Irwin Lewis
... you cut it out with a sharp knife removing the bark to the wood. Blighted trees send up shoots from the base, below the blighted bark. So you take one of these shoots, sharpen it at the top and insert this sharpened tip under the healthy bark at the top of the blighted area. The shoot should be a little longer than the blighted area so that you can get a spring to the shoot as you push its tip in ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... Business; or, The Shutters at Last: a Tale of the City. On this head Morris had no news. He had not yet dared to visit the family concern; yet he knew he must delay no longer, and if anything had been wanted to sharpen this conviction, Michael's references of the night before rang ambiguously in his ear. Well and good. To visit the city might be indispensable; but what was he to do when he was there? He had no right to sign in his own name; and, with all the will in the world, he seemed to lack ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... when the fear of a French invasion of our shores weighed heavily upon the people's minds. In the eclogue this danger is earnestly discussed by the two Yorkshire farmers, Roger and Willie. If the French effect a landing, Willy has decided to send Mally and the bairns away from the farm, while he will sharpen his old "lea" (scythe) and remain behind to defend his homestead. As long as wife and children are safe, he is prepared to lay down his life ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... them," she explained, "I may also be helping my brother. You do not understand him as I do, and you sharpen your ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... have nothing to hide,—how long that bright purity could resist the corrosion of the world's breath; and half thinking that it would be better for the spirit to pass away, with its lustre upon it, than stay till self-interest should sharpen the eye, and the lines of diplomacy write themselves on that fair brow. ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... simple and anxious to be pleased, is shrewdly alert. Every now and then they shuffle the trains at Jamaica just to keep him guessing and sharpen his faculty of judging whether this train goes to Brooklyn or Penn Station. His decisions have to be made rapidly. We are speaking now of Long Island commuters, whom we know best; but commuters are ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... "I sharpen serpents' teeth from time to time," offered Bell amiably. He recognized the man, suddenly. "Hullo, Jamison, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... women kissed her, whispering hurried words of faith in her, and from the bottom of their truly generous womanly souls they meant it. Donna knew they did, and was deeply grateful. In the case of Mrs. Pennycook, however, she had no such illusion. She knew that disappointed vengeance had served to sharpen Mrs. Pennycook's unaccountable and unnatural dislike for her, and it was with secret relief that she watched the members of the committee on social purity ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... By sharpen'd appetite to give To good intense delight, Through dark and deep perplexities He led me to ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... decide on the means of posterity; that we may yet find facilities as powerful for passing the ice and the ocean, as the railroad for traversing the land; and that the evident design of Providence in placing difficulties before man is, to sharpen his faculties for their mastery. We have already explored the whole northern coast, to within about two hundred miles from Behring's Straits, and an expedition is at present on foot which will probably complete the outline of the American ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... like that of a horse! The driver was new to these parts; he had but lately come from the Baron's establishment in St. Petersburg. He had never been in this wood after dark, and he had never seen a wolf save in the Zoological Gardens. The atmosphere now began to sharpen. From being merely cold it became positively icy, and muttering, "I never felt anything like this in St. Petersburg," the driver shrank into the depths of his furs, and tried to settle himself more comfortably in his seat. The horses, too, four ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... color of the oppressed,—had any one failed to see what the real essence of the contest was,—the efforts of the advocates of slavery among ourselves to throw discredit upon the fundamental axioms of the Declaration of Independence and the radical doctrines of Christianity could not fail to sharpen his eyes. ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... bosom, Odin proceeded to sharpen the nine scythes, skilfully giving them such a keen edge that the thralls, delighted, begged that they might have the stone. With good-humoured acquiescence, Odin tossed the whetstone over the wall; but as the nine thralls simultaneously ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... world, for her. Her real world was where her father was with his tales of gods and heroes, and his ancient songs and his great sword. It was her task, self-chosen and rich in pride, to tend the great sword, to keep it stainless, to sharpen its edge on the grindstone while she sang the Song of the Sword, and the sparks flew and the great sword seemed to gleam with an answering fervor. But never in all the days of her young life had blood to be washed from the sword. For Sicily smiled under the sway of King Robert ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... as to the facts, Kent spent a forenoon in the State library. He stayed on past the luncheon hour, feeding on a dry diet of Digests; and it was not until hunger began to sharpen his faculties that he thought of going back of the statutory law to the fountain-head in the constitution of the State. Here, after he had read carefully section by section almost through the entire instrument, his ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... will remember your kindness for three years; feed a cat for three years and she will forget your kindness in three days.' Cats are mischievous: they tear the mattings, and make holes in the shoji, and sharpen their claws upon the pillars of tokonoma. Cats are under a curse: only the cat and the venomous serpent wept not at the death of Buddha and these shall never enter into the bliss of the Gokuraku For all these reasons, and others too numerous to relate, cats are not much loved in Izumo, and are ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... muddy, there were bits of furze sticking to it. She picked these off; and as she did so, accurate remembrance and simple recollection of facts returned to her, and the succession was so complete that the effect was equivalent to a re-enduring of the crime, and with a foreknowledge of it, as if to sharpen its horror and increase the sense of the pollution. The vague hills, the vague sea, the sweet glow of evening—she saw it all again. And as if afraid that her brain, now strained like a body on the rack, would suddenly snap, she threw up her arms, and began to take off her dress, as if she would ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... dis to herselluf. Now it is my turn. Come up closer so I get hold of you. Vait, and I git back on de platform. Here, you olt frent of mine, Dan Porterfield, here is a new butcher-knife sharpener for you, to sharpen your knives on ven you cuts dem bifsteaks. And, Heffern, come close; here is a silver-plated skimmer for dot cream you make, and a pig fan for your daughter. And Polly Codman—git out of de way dere, and let Polly Codman come up!—here, Polly, is a pair ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... make a mellow hour; Fill your pipe, and taste the wine— Warp your face, if it be sour, I can spare a smile from mine; If it sharpen up your wit, Let me feel the edge of it— I have eager ears to lend, Tom Van ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... smelt; barbecue; infumate|; maturate. equip, arm, man; fit-out, fit up; furnish, rig, dress, garnish, betrim[obs3], accouter, array, fettle, fledge; dress up, furbish up, brush up, vamp up; refurbish; sharpen one's tools, trim one's foils, set, prime, attune; whet the knife, whet the sword; wind up, screw up; adjust &c. (fit) 27; put in trim, put in train, put in gear, put in working order, put in tune, put in a groove for, put in harness; pack. train &c. (teach) 537; inure &c. (habituate) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... ebullition, splutter, perturbation, stir, bustle; voluntary energy &c. 682; quicksilver. resolution &c. (mental energy) 604; exertion &c. (effort) 686; excitation &c. (mental) 824. V. give -energy &c. n.; energize, stimulate, kindle, excite, exert; sharpen, intensify; inflame &c. (render violent) 173; wind up &c. (strengthen) 159. strike home, into home, hard home; make an impression. Adj. strong, energetic, forcible, active; intense, deep-dyed, severe, keen, vivid, sharp, acute, incisive, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... knowledge of all that has been written on this hackneyed subject will never supply the want of natural poetic taste, of that union of mental and moral refinement which produces the only infallible touchstone of the beautiful; still such criticisms will tend to refine and sharpen a natural taste, where it does exist; and without bringing its technical rules practically to bear upon the objects of your delighted admiration,[82] they will insensibly improve, refine, and subtilize the natural ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... simply astounding. Up one street, down another, round a corner, along a narrow lane—on he rushes as if bent upon rivalling that indefatigable giant who "walked round the world every morning before breakfast to sharpen his appetite." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... Mr. Ricardo which we have just been considering; besides which, this principle is itself so much required for the illustration and proof of other principles, that the mere practice of applying it will soon sharpen your eye to a steady familiarity ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... on the sofa and watched Paul's face sharpen in his concentration, it occurred to her that the point of the whole matter was that for her and Paul the suitable and leisurely time for mutual discussion had never come. That was all! That was the whole trouble! It was not any inherent lack of ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... of that. I used to think Rockwell was quite a promising young man at one time. But that is not the question. If, after all, though it does sharpen a man's wits, it only makes him discontented for the rest of his life, I maintain that such a state of improvement is not to be desired. If things are really better and pleasanter in Europe, I don't want to know it. It would ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... shall be a faithful squire by your side, and sharpen the bolts which you are going to hurl at the enemy," said Marianne, with fervent enthusiasm. "We are both going to Vienna, in order to serve Germany. In Vienna a new century and a new country will open their arms to us. Thanks to my title, to my rank, and to my connections, ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... hasn't heard the news; just think of it! You must write and tell him that I'll help you spin the children's clothes and work the farm; that we'll face everything in Opinquake as long as Old Put needs men. Where is the ink-horn? I'll sharpen a pen for you and one for me, and SUCH news as he'll get! Wish I could tell him, though, and see the great fellow tremble once more. Afraid of me! Ha! ha! ha! that's the funniest thing—Why, Mother Jarvis, this is ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... our parts, are busy or sluggish, eager or unhappy, and our eyes are apt to get dulled to this eventfulness of form in those things which we are always looking at. Now it is one of the chief uses of decoration, the chief part of its alliance with nature, that it has to sharpen our dulled senses in this matter: for this end are those wonders of intricate patterns interwoven, those strange forms invented, which men have so long delighted in: forms and intricacies that do not necessarily imitate nature, but ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... and do not fail to sharpen his tongue well, on one side for petty law-suits and on the other for ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... corrupt rascal, knew how to manage the Governor and to impose his own will upon the weaker man. Vaudreuil and his wife between them had a swarm of needy relatives in Canada, and these and other Canadians who sought favors from the Governor helped to sharpen his antagonism to the officers from France. Vaudreuil believed himself a military genius. It was he and not Montcalm who had the supreme military command, and he regarded as an unnecessary intruder this general officer ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... work."[33] After etching his skeletal design on the plate, he went to work with his drypoint needles—long, stiff, iron instruments—sharpened to a fine point. An artist generally has several available, so that he does not have to stop and re-sharpen in the course of his work. Rembrandt evidently went even further and deliberately used dull needles to obtain certain ...
— Rembrandt's Etching Technique: An Example • Peter Morse
... discourse be shorter or longer is not to the point. No offence should be taken at length, but the longer and shorter are to be employed indifferently, according as either of them is better calculated to sharpen the wits of the auditors. Reason would also say to him who censures the length of discourses on such occasions and cannot away with their circumlocution, that he should not be in such a hurry to have done with them, when he can only complain that they are tedious, but he should prove ...
— Statesman • Plato
... it," said Rabbit. "Your teeth are too blunt to bite anything. Let me sharpen them for you so they are like mine. My teeth are so sharp I can cut through a ...
— Myths and Legends of the Great Plains • Unknown
... unhappy man without considering his physical condition. It appears from the slight notices we have of this vital matter, that about the year 1807 the stock of vigor which his youth had acquired was gone, and he lived thenceforth a miserable invalid, afflicted with diseases that sharpen the temper and narrow the mind. John Randolph well might have outgrown inherited prejudices and limitations, and attained to the stature of a modern, a national, a republican man. John Randolph sick—radically and incurably sick—ceased to grow ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... a few hours, requesting them to admit no one to her presence. She wished to consider and develop her plans in undisturbed quiet. She felt that Austria was again prepared to throw obstacles in the way of her favorite project—an English marriage for one of her children. She wished to sharpen her weapons, and marshal her forces for ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... and that's flat, I hate their soft sawder!" the man burst out. "It's everything to please you while they sharpen the pike to stick in your back. If old Oliver, that was a countryman of my own, and bred not so far off, had dealt with a few ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... been some three weeks ago, and now, on this soft, pearly evening, she was waiting eagerly for the sky to deepen, and the light of the stars to sharpen, and the orange to fall over the wall. For the Druze had come many times, and no one had discovered the lovers, screened by masses of roses in the buttress-sheltered corner of the wall. In fact, for the last weeks no one had had time or thought for anything but Buldoula, who lay sick within ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... they call in a book I once read 'little ironies of life.' Good fortune, at least, for the muggers! Better start to sharpen your sense of humour, my friend. It is incomparable asset against the slings and arrows of outrageous contingencies." This time his chuckle had an undernote of malice; and Roy, considering him thoughtfully—from green turban to patent-leather ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... another—Varina Pemberton, the girl who might have been a pleasant companion in happier, easier circumstances. She had banished him, threatened him, wheedled him out of victory. She, too, would be slipping back to the beast. Her body would warp, her skin grow hairy, her teeth lengthen and sharpen—Ugh! That, ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... these questions were not considered satisfactory, they next endeavoured to sharpen his wits by torturing a German coiner in his presence; and when this mode of persuasion failed, they tortured Augusta himself. They stripped him naked. They stretched him face downwards on a ladder. ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... preparation was to sharpen the edges of a diamond-shaped trowel used at the diggings, with a piece of pumice. Then ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... and delicacy of feeling, but sometimes full both of what are metrical irregularities according to modern standards, and of coarse images and similes. To reduce the metrical irregularities, by such arbitrary methods as Duhm's, may occasionally enhance the music and sharpen the edge of an Oracle yet oftener dulls the melody and weakens the emphasis.(54) The figures again are always simple and homely, but sometimes even ugly, as is not infrequent in the rural poetries of all peoples. Even the dung on the ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... disgraced Monmouth.[1] If there wanted further impulse to induce Dryden, conscious of his strength, to mingle in an affray where it might be displayed to advantage, he had the stimulus of personal attachment and personal enmity, to sharpen his political animosity. Ormond, Halifax, and Hyde, Earl of Rochester, among the nobles, were his patrons; Lee and Southerne, among the poets, were his friends. These were partisans of royalty. The Duke of York, whom the "Spanish Friar" probably had offended, was ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Palestine caused Pope Innocent III to earnestly preach a new crusade, and he crowned his labors and appeals with his famous exclamation, "Sword, sword, start from thy scabbard, and sharpen thyself to kill." Though the many disastrous and fruitless expeditions had so dampened the ardor of men that they gave little heed to his appeals, the zeal of the young was kindled for the cause to which ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... has very possibly to answer for having thus driven man underground. Anyway, whether because they must, or because they liked it, the Mousterians went on with their cave life during an immense space of time, making little progress; unless it were to learn gradually how to sharpen bones into implements. But caves and bones alike were to play a far more striking part in the days ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... 71. Sharpen two pencils. About halfway between the point and the other end of each pencil cut a notch all the way around and down to the "lead," or burn a notch down by means of the glowing resistance wire. What you call the "lead" of the pencil is ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... to sharpen reason and to develop the mind, but they failed for want of data. Indeed, this has been the common failure of man, for in the height of civilization men speculate without sufficient knowledge. Even ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... that I can. 'Twas a quist a-cooing in the tree one time—and then—she did recollect herself and did sharpen up her tongue and 'twas another sort of bird what could drive its beak into ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... and became intimately acquainted with them, morals were purer, marriages of affection were much more frequent, and the state of married life was much more congenial, than in any other century. Young men paid court to the older ladies, to refine their manners and sharpen their intellects, but not for any immoral purpose. To a certain extent women were more world-wise when they reached the marriageable age, and inspired respect and admiration rather than passion and desire as ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... the use of tools; how to sharpen them; to design and layout work. Printed from new plates and bound in cloth. Profusely illustrated. Each book is ...
— Daddy Takes Us to the Garden - The Daddy Series for Little Folks • Howard R. Garis
... nothing to mar the reputation that was beginning to attach to him. Fontenoy was content; and the scantiness of the majority by which the Resolution was defeated served at once to make the prospects of the Maxwell Bill, which was to be brought in after Easter, more doubtful, and to sharpen the ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Pottawatomies? Was there not the prairie mail-coach and the arrival of the first vessel in the harbour? Were there not traders and treaties and Indian commissioners? "There!" she cried, "you and Stephen Giles just sharpen your teeth on such matters as those! We have almost got the Nine Old Ogres on the run, and we mustn't slow up on ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... left forefinger as if it were a pencil and began to sharpen it derisively with his right forefinger. They came closer, and sang like a trained ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... around his waist to hold him in shape, for he was stuffed with straw in every part of him except the top of his head, where at one time the Wizard of Oz had placed sawdust, mixed with needles and pins, to sharpen his wits. The head itself was merely a bag of cloth, fastened to the body at the neck, and on the front of this bag was painted the face—ears, eyes, nose ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... lines of the form will not only aid one in adopting a more becoming style of dress, but will sharpen the artistic perceptions, thus adding to the ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... to sharpen her wits, to follow the strait road. At first with some stumbling, of course, and frequent backslidings. Intellectual curiosity could not, she discovered, be awakened to order; and she often caught herself napping. Thus though she speedily became ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... of the wilderness, where the struggle against savage and beast of prey sharpen the wits and teach the pioneer the need for rapid decisions, lost no time in executing his commission. As soon as word could reach Lyon, he informed his old comrade of the work he had in mind for him. The next post told Mordecai that the two men with their tools, gin saws and other materials loaded ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger |
