"Sharper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not forget to mention a brush plant that grows on the southern plains. It is well named the "wait-a-bit" thorn. Its hooks or claws are sharper than a cat's, very strong and recurve on the stems: so that a man afoot cannot possibly advance through it, and even on a horse it will tear the trousers off you in a very few minutes. Is the name ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... flashed between them of other lands and of sharper vicissitudes; they saw again bleak passes which were cruel death traps, and above them untrodden alien heights; they felt the solemn vastness of the interminable, flawless snows. They kept their eyes away from each other—but they knew what each other ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... notoriously Laudian opinions and practices—a very large number of clergymen had been placed on the black books, and some actually ejected, before the commencement of the war. But, after the war began, sharper action became necessary. For now the Parliament had to provide for what were called "the plundered ministers" —i.e. for those Puritan ministers who, driven from their parsonages in various parts of the country ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... behind the lines and brave the mud and rains of a winter in eastern France. None, indeed, were more imbued with the forthfaring spirit than these women, who were leaving, without regret, sheltered, comfortable lives to face hardships and brave dangers without a question. And no sharper proof of the failure of the old social order to provide for human instincts and needs could be found than the conviction they gave of new and vitalizing forces released in them. The timidities with which their sex is supposedly encumbered had disappeared, and even ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... had, with what is proverbially called the corner of the eye, taken the whole of that impostor's superb personnel into calm survey, had read him through and through, and decided on these two points without the slightest hesitation,—"a lady-killer and a sharper." ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... This policy has been played off already eight or nine times; and by one time, as it happens, too many; for it was tried upon the stern Havelock, who took away both horses and carbines from the offenders. Too late it is now for Bengal to baffle this sharper's trick. But Bombay and Madras, should their turn come after all, might profit ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... to dissuade the creatures from giving tongue when you first appeared on the terrace of my solitary gardens. I heard too the water-sprite: she only sings when footsteps stray upon the banks." He smiled wanly, and his nose seemed even sharper in his pale face, and his yellow hair leaner about his shoulders. "I feared her voice might prove too persuasive, and deprive me of the first strange face I have seen ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... closed in death many a long, long, year, the sweet voice hushed in silence. He had watched the dear life ebb away, the fire in the blue eyes fade out. He had felt each day that the clasp of the little greeting fingers was less close; each day he had seen the outline of the face grow sharper; and at last there had come one when the poor little English-woman met him with the gaze of one who knew him not, and babbled, not of green fields, but of horses and dogs, and of a brother Jack, who, five ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... of going to sleep among the rocks, but after a while she grew drowsy, and when at length she raised her head with a start the moon hung over the hills across the river, flooding the heights above her with a silvery light. The trees below were sharper in form, but everything was very still; only the thunder of the fall seemed to have increased in depth of tone. Millicent shivered from the cold as she sent a sharp ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... Federal budget for fiscal 1961 is almost certain to show a net deficit. The budget already submitted for fiscal 1962 will remain in balance only if the Congress enacts all the revenue measures requested—and only if an earlier and sharper up-turn in the economy than my economic advisers now think likely produces the tax revenues estimated. Nevertheless, a new Administration must of necessity build on the spending and revenue estimates ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... hobbled around the room, followed by the child, who, delighted with this novel method of locomotion, put her knee in a low chair, and holding to Mrs. Crawford's skirts, limped after her, imitating her perfectly, even to the groans she sometimes uttered when a twinge sharper than usual ran up her swollen limb. It was fun for the child, but almost death to the woman, who, when she could endure it no longer, sank into a chair, and tried by speaking sharply, to make the little girl understand that she must keep quiet. But when she ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... standing by the watch-fire, "expecting the customary Pandourade," and what form it would take this morning. "Close on five o'clock; and not a mouse stirring! We are not to have our Pandourade, then?" On a sudden, noise bursts out; noise enough, sharp fire among the Free-corps people; fire growing ever sharper, noisier, for the next half-hour, but nothing whatever to be seen. "Battalion Plothow had soon got its clothes on, all to the spatterdashes; and took rank to right and left of the FLECHE, and of my two guns, in front of its ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... call the fibres composing them 'threads' or 'needles.' Here is amianthus, for instance, which is quite as fine and soft as any cotton thread you ever sewed with; and here is sulphide of bismuth, with sharper points and brighter lustre than your finest needles have; and fastened in white webs of quartz more delicate than your finest lace; and here is sulphide of antimony, which looks like mere purple wool, but it is all of purple needle crystals; and here ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... o'clock Richard came home, and the instant Harriet saw his face she realized, with a shock even sharper than the original moment of incredulity, that he had had no success in his search. ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... Minor the beastly Turk, whose career had been for two centuries arrested by the Crusades, now reared his head again. The Seljukian had been only scotched, not killed; and now he sprang to life as the Ottoman, with sharper fangs than before. In 1365 the Turks established themselves in the Balkan peninsula, with Adrianople as their capital, and began tightening their coils about the doomed city of Constantine. Each point that they gained meant the strangling of just so much Oriental ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... the work of that young villain Mortimer," continued Herbert, still reasoning on the subject. "I ought to have been sharper; Bob told me to look out for him. If I had had any sense, I could have seen that he meant to be revenged upon me. I knew it, and yet I didn't want to admit, even to myself, that I was at all uneasy. He must have been the same one that pointed me out ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... took to chaffin' of Lancy Doane, and how Faddo's tongue got sharper as the time got on, and many a nasty word was said of coast-guards and excisemen, and all that had to do with law and gover'ment. Cuts there were at some of Laney's wild doings in the past, and now and then they'd turn to me, saying what they thought would set me girdin' Lancy too. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... tore up and down the folded sail;—this sentence was different—sharper, pithier, better rounded than she had written it. A soliloquy was missing there—and better so, its inclusion would have been a mistake. Oh, how good, how good he was! Her quivering fingers fumbled with the folding—Lynn and Max would forgive her for spoiling ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... lying quietly on her sofa, with her eyes closed, having had nothing to say during the discussion. They thought she had perhaps not heard it. Mr. Carleton's sharper eyes, however, saw that one or two tears were glimmering just under the eyelash. He bent down over her ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... a Satronian retort to the abduction of Xantha; and conversely, all Satronians regard it as merely an insufficient counter to Xantha's abduction. Oh, I comprehend the feud atmosphere. I have no doubt that scores of poniards of the Vedian clan are sharp and daily sharpened sharper, for use on Largus and as many Satronian dirks for use on Molo; that every road hereabouts has watchers posted along it; that bands of lusty lads are camped here and there waiting summonses or are actually in likely ambushes by the roadsides. I foresee shindies of great ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... soon be found that the hunting instincts of the maturing animal were of value to his captors. The savage master, treading the primeval forests in search of food, would not fail to recognise the helpfulness of a keener nose and sharper eyes even than his own unsullied senses, while the dog in his turn would find a better shelter in association with man than if he were hunting on his own account. Thus mutual benefit would result in some kind of tacit agreement of partnership, and through ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... "he don't seem just like he used to. He speaks quicker and sharper—more like that old pirate, Am'zon Silt, though I shouldn't be sayin' nothin' harsh of the dead, I s'pose. I don't dispute that Cap'n Am'zon was muchly of a man, when ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... twenty thousand times sharper, and more like a man," said the other, in hurried breathless accents. "Hark! here ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... 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 ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... surpassed by my impudence, since, as the friend of this girl, I was merely petitioning on my own account. I had come to him, whom I never saw before, on whom I had no claim, and who, as I well knew, had reason to think me a sharper, and modestly said, "Here's a girl who has no fortune. I am greatly in want of one. Pray, give her such an estate that you have in your possession. If you do, I'll marry her, and take it into my own hands." I might be thankful ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... 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 have dropped ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... generally, will soon be enabled to sell directly to the cleaners, and the latter to the wholesale buyers. So the planter will get market prices, without the trouble of going to market. Perhaps the competition will eventually grow sharper still, until, not only will the peanuts be cleaned and bought at home, but will also be manufactured into oil, flour, and the other commercial forms, in the sections where they are grown. In everything, the tendency ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones
... talk as I please. Being convinced that a certain amount of noisy discussion would advance my political career, I looked about me for what I may call a public crier. Among these circus trumpets, if I could have found one with a sharper tone, a more deafening blare than Bixiou's, I would have chosen it. As it was, I have profited by the malevolent curiosity which induces that amiable lepidopter to insinuate himself into all studios. I confided the whole affair to him; even to the two hundred and fifty thousand ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... bride, marrying out of Industry, leaves most of her economic value behind. And the greater that value was, the sharper is the shock of ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... many lifetimes will not bring us to the end of our quest. [-But we wish no end to our quest.-] We wish nothing, save to be alone and to learn, and to feel as if with each day our sight were growing sharper than the hawk's and clearer ...
— Anthem • Ayn Rand
... moving about at night. When the fire had burned up and he had filled the kettle, without seeing anything of his friend, he began to grow anxious. He called loudly, but there was no answer, and he could hear no movement in the bush. The dark spruces had grown sharper in form; he could see some distance between the trunks, but ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... ridge and dropped down out of sight into the canyon beyond there rose a group of great, tall pines, which seemed to be guarding the pathway. Just ahead stood Cookstove, its rocky crest bathed in the morning light, while far away to the north the sharper outlines were lost in a great army of evergreens, which seemed to be trooping restlessly up the hill and descending again into the great unknown of the valley. It led straight away down a gently-curving aisle of beautiful ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... known.—Mr. Mitchel replied, "My lord, if there were fewer of these persons, you have been speaking of, in the nation, I should not be standing this night at the bar; but my lord advocate knoweth, that what is alledged against me is not my confession." The preses said, Sir, we will cause a sharper thing make you confess.—He answered, "My lord, I hope you are Christians and not pagans." Then ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... went she was sure to meet Wilbur, engaged in some hard task. She could not help seeing how miserably pale and thin he had become. The worry had its effect on her. The neighbours said that Cynthy was sharper than ever. Even her church-going was embittered. She had always enjoyed walking up the aisle with her rich silk skirt rustling over the carpet, her cashmere shawl folded correctly over her shoulders, and her lace bonnet set ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... something done or spent some money in a way that excited the astonishment of Willy Croup—the sharper-witted Betty had gone home, for, of course, Mrs. Cliff could not be expected to be able to afford her company now. But in attempting to account for these inconsiderable extravagances, Mrs. Cliff was often obliged to content herself with admitting that while she had been abroad ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... Society for trying to find out what Browning was up to, he took her Picture around to all the Newspapers and told every one that he had a little Woman up at the House who was as Keen as a Hawk, as Swift as an Eagle, and Sharper than Chained Lightning. ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... to borrow a young man, as I said before, of good appearance"—with a glance at Wyatt's sumptuous apparel—"and some little brains"—another and a sharper glance, "One who will obey orders if he breaks owners, who will stand without being tied, and who doesn't especially care whether school keeps or not. I would particularly request that he leave his money, his memory, acquired good habits, if any, and his conscience, ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... in Reisenburg. Who am I? A man. There's an arm! there's a leg! Can you see through a wood by twilight? If so, yours is a better eye than mine. Can you eat an unskinned hare, or dine on the haunch of a bounding stag? If so, your teeth are sharper than mine. Can you hear a robber's footstep when he's kneeling before murder? or can you listen to the snow falling on Midsummer's day? If so, your ears are finer than mine. Can you run with a chamois? can you wrestle with a bear? can you swim with an otter? If so, I'm your match. ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... been against a bush sharper than the thorn!" exclaimed Whittal Ring, who had been at hand, and who watched with childish admiration the smallest proceedings of the different individuals. "A steel for the back of the blade, a few dried leaves and broken sticks, with such a ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... in front of the door. Then he had managed to reach the exterior Boulevard, dragging himself along in the sunshine, and remaining for hours on one of the seats. Gaiety returned to him; his infernal tongue got sharper in these long hours of idleness. And with the pleasure of living, he gained there a delight in doing nothing, an indolent feeling took possession of his limbs, and his muscles gradually glided into a very sweet slumber. It was the slow victory of laziness, ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... The sharper the turn, the greater the effect of the centrifugal force, and therefore the steeper should be the "bank." ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a child that's ungrateful for the best of teaching and sound doctrine! Many's the time," said the elder, lifting his eyes and hands,—"many's the time I've showed her the truth; many's the time I've explained ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... hurriedly to the companionway and went below, while the mate continued, "Stand by to let go your topsail halliards and man the gear. Sharper with the mizzen sheets and unbend those clew lines and garnets... stow the clews in a harbor furl." At a rhythmic shout the bunts of the three topsails ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... with no strangers—dressed-up ones, especial. And never set down your valise. There's a white shirt and a collar and two pairs of sox, and what not, in there. Make quite an object for some sharper." ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... repartees, overstepped the limit. There's a man who does not scruple to call things by their names. For instance, he said to M. Francis, so loud that he could be heard from one end of the salon to the other: "I say, Francis, your old sharper played still another trick on us last week." And as the other threw out his chest with a dignified air, M. Noel began to laugh. "No offence, old girl. The strong box is full. You'll never get to the bottom of it." And it was then that he told us about the ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... hero brought a temptation which wrecked the happiness of the man. The loss of serenity, the dark evidences of inward conflict, of yielding against conviction, of consequent dissatisfaction with self and gradual deterioration, make between his past and future a break as clear, and far sharper than, the startling increase of radiancy that attends the Battle of the Nile, and thenceforth shines with undiminished intensity to the end. The lustre of his well-deserved and world-wide renown, the consistency and ever-rising merit of his professional conduct, contrast painfully with the ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... o'clock that afternoon the sky was softly blue and the air was unwontedly clear. By five o'clock a gentle India-summer haze blurred the world's sharper outlines. By six a blanket-fog rolled in, and the air was wetly unbreatheable. The fog lay so thick over the soggy earth that objects ten feet away ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... house a cry of news And came forth eastward hither, where the dawn, Cheers first these warder gods that face the sun And next our eyes unrisen; for unaware Came clashes of swift hoofs and trampling feet And through the windy pillared corridor Light sharper than the frequent flames of day That daily fill it from the fiery dawn; Gleams, and a thunder of people that cried out, And dust and hurrying horsemen; lo their chief, That rode with Oeneus rein by rein, returned. What cheer, O herald of my ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... interest us in the printing-office, smithy, and especially in the huge crate manufactory. Here were piled up coils of baskets that suggested strawberries for a million supper-tables. Hour after hour the mule- power engine drove saws, with teeth sharper than those of time, through the pine boards that soon became crates for the round quart baskets. These crates were painted green, marked with Mr. Young's name, and piled to the ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... powers no longer used on their side but against them. The only plausible pretext for this insinuation is that very advance in mildness and mellowness which has been noted—that comparative absence of the sharper and cruder strokes of the earlier work. But since the wit is as bright as ever, though less hard, it seems unreasonable to impute as a defect what, but for very obvious reasons, would be admitted as ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... moral form of putting a sharper bit in humanity's mouth; when of course the highest aim, the optimistic view, is to train people to go as fast and straight and far as possible, with the least possible hampering of their natural powers by legislation. "Some men are by nature free, others ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... present position, lead to consequences which we none of us foresee. She is nothing more or less than a grown-up child; and I can plainly detect that Miss Vanstone trusts her, as she would not have trusted a sharper woman, on that very account. I know children, little and big, rather better than my fair relative does; and I say—beware of all forms of human innocence, when it happens to be your interest to keep ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... the finger tips had reached an extraordinary degree of development, equal to that of one born blind. And those fingers were skillful, adroit, alert, their every movement carried out with that smooth, indefinable grace which is almost always possessed by the really high-class card sharper. His fingers were adorned with numerous rings, in which sparkled diamonds and other precious stones. And it was not for nothing that Sergei Kovroff took pride in them! This glitter of diamonds, scattering ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... you're sharper than that, Doctor Mary! Still, I think I did it pretty well. I set the old girl thinking again, didn't I?" He broke into laughter, and Mary joined in heartily. Old Naylor glanced from one to the other with an air ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... had spared reproaches, deserved though they were, and humbly pleaded to be loved, I should have been more just and gentle; but her indignant words, the sharper for their truth, roused the despotic spirit of the man, and made me sternest when I should ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Their Mother Story of the Bang-eater and the Cauzee Story of the Bang-eater and His Wife The Sultan and the Traveller Mhamood Al Hyjemmee The Koord Robber Story of the Husbbandman Story of the Three Princes and Enchanting Bird Story of a Sultan of Yemen and His Three Sons Story of the First Sharper in the Cave History of the Sultan of Hind Story of the Fisherman's Son Story of Abou Neeut and Abou Neeuteen; Or, the Well-intentioned and the Double-minded Adventure of a Courtier, Related by Himself to His Parton, an ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... was sharper than his or felled so many trees, and nobody was gladder when Spring-time came and the logs were ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay
... it was that he had heard. While prudent persons were already trembling at the King's effrontery and daring in the past, Henry was meditating a yet further step. He began to see now that the instinct of the country was, as always, sharper than that of the individual, and that these uneasy strivings everywhere rose from a very definite perception of danger. The idea of the King's supremacy, as represented by Cromwell, would not seem to be a very startling ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... coldness and hardness under John Weightman's hands grew sharper and more distinct. The feeling of bodily weariness and lassitude weighed upon him, but there was a calm, almost a lightness in his heart as he listened to the fading vibrations of the silvery bell-tones. The chimney clock on the mantel had just ended the last stroke ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... body. But the affair at the Porte St. Denis proved to be nothing serious, and was soon over. The revolters had retired into the Rue St. Mery, where they were closely encircled by large bodies of troops, and whither I did not deem it prudent to follow them. The struggle, in that direction, was much sharper, and we occasionally ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to have been this: predynastic Egypt was settled by Negroes from Ethiopia. They were of varied type: the broad-nosed, woolly-haired type to which the word "Negro" is sometimes confined; the black, curly-haired, sharper featured type, which must be considered an equally Negroid variation. These Negroes met and mingled with the invading Mediterranean race from North Africa and Asia. Thus the blood of the sallower race spread south and that of the darker race north. Black priests ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... however, this mystery was explained, and the cause of his firm seat discovered. One of the bystanders, sharper than the rest, had chanced to look under the belly of the mustang, and the next ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... the 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 Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Messenger of God. His seven heavens and his prophecy of a Messiah and Day of Judgment were Jewish beliefs, though it is supposed that he took the idea of the Sirat or narrow bridge over the midst of hell, sharper than the edge of a sword, over which all must pass, while the wicked fall from it into hell, from Zoroastrianism. Muhammad recognised a devil, known as Iblis, while the Jinns or Genii of pagan Arabia became bad angels. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... and there they are fighting the earth for the ore with great courage and endurance and hard manual labour, and so it produces finer expressions of faces, and lither forms than using your brains to be sharper ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... soul by nature formed to feel Grief sharper than the tyrant's steel, And bosom big with swelling thought From ancient ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... bull's-eyes, now and then exclaiming as some shad or other fair-sized fish came into view. Suddenly, however, his exclamation was sharper than usual. ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... top, at the Village of Simplon, in a very fair and well-warmed inn, close to a mountain stream, which is one of the great ornaments of this side of the road. We have here passed into a region of granite, from that of limestone, and what is called gneiss. The valleys are sharper and closer,—like cracks in a hard and solid mass;—and there is much more of the startling contrast of light and shade, as well as more angular boldness of outline; to all which the more abundant waters add a fresh ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... manner, neglects the provisions of the gospel, neglects the oblation of Jesus Christ, and betakes himself to the discharge of his own duty as a substitute therefor, he only finds that the flame burns hotter, and the fang of the worm is sharper. If he looks to the moral law in any form, and by any method, that he may get quit of his remorse and his fears of judgment, the feeling of unreconciliation with justice, and the fearful looking-for of judgment is only made more vivid and deep. Whoever attempts the discharge of duties for ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... frontiers, for that matter, few people had much skill with the pen, nor was much needed. The axe and rifle, the paddle and pack being more to our hands in those rough days. To prosper though, men weare shrewd-headed enough. I have never seen that books helped people to trade sharper. Shortly afterwards our trade fell away, for the French had embroiled the Indians against us. Crown Point was the Place from which the Indians in their interest had been fitted out to go against our settlements, so a design was formed by His Majesty the British King ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... were clear of their musketry, the commanding officer of the French troops examined the guns in the battery, with the hope of reaching them, and was very much annoyed to find that every one of them was spiked. "He'll look sharper than a magpie before he finds a clear touch-hole, I expect," said O'Brien, as he watched the officer. And here I must observe, that O'Brien showed great presence of mind in spiking the last gun; for had they had one gun to fire ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... hour longer. Again there came the sound of even sharper firing than before, though it seemed further off. Pipes now and then crept out of his hiding-place to ascertain if any one was approaching, a proceeding, had such been the case, which would ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... sharper. He heard me out, looked at my deceased poppies, and arranged a conference with a bigwig from the State Department. Then things got really messy. When I pointed out that in a few weeks every damned opium plant in Asia would be deader than ...
— Revenge • Arthur Porges
... 'Knife sharper; screen; pot plants; 1 towel-rail; 1 runner; 2 forms; kitchen table; scales and weights and beam; 1 set of casters; 4 farm horses, aged; 3 ploughs; 1 hay wain; 1 stack of dry fern; 1-1/2 tons good manure; old iron and other sundries, including poultry, ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... of the new series of "Hymns for the Ages," who boldly appends to the poem, "Milton, 1608-1674." Yet Mrs. Child's early ventures in the way of writing speeches for James Otis and sermons for Whitefield should have made her a sharper detective of the ingenuity of others. Those successful imitations, published originally in her novel of "The Rebels," have hardly yet ceased to pass ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... this criticism, it could not raise the anger of the gay and careless Cibber. Yet what could have put it to a sharper test? Johnson and Ozell are names which have long disappeared from the dramatic annals, and could only have been coupled with Cibber to give an idea of what the satirist meant by "the human genius of an ape." But listen to the mild, yet the ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... support of religion? And are all our pious endeavours now frustrated by the dissolute lives of the priests? Not that I throw any blame on you; you have reasoned, besought, inculcated, inveighed; but it now behoves you to use sharper and more vigorous remedies; and conjoining your spiritual authority with the civil power, to purge effectually the temple of God from thieves and intruders [k]." It is easy to imagine that this harangue had the desired effect; and that, when ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... the poet, a gratified smile pervading his dusky features. "But I must tell you of this comedy—it will be a satirical picture (in the style of Moliere, only sharper) of Anglo-Jewish Society. The Rev. Elkan Benjamin, with his four mistresses, they will all be there, and Gideon, the Man-of-the-Earth, M.P.,—ah, it will be terrible. If I could only get them to see it performed, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... discovered a real farm without spires and towers, whose outlines became distincter and sharper the nearer I came to it, and which, flanked by peat-stacks, looked much larger than it really was. Its inmates were unknown to me. Their clothes were poor, their furniture simple, but I knew that the heath-dweller often hides noble rental in an unpainted box or in a miserable wardrobe, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... and, opening the book, asked half a dozen questions at random. Bartley answered without changing his indifferent countenance, or the careless posture he had fallen into. A sharper and longer examination followed; the very language seemed to have been unbrokenly transferred to his mind, and he often gave the author's words as well as ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... may not seem so long at first. But the longer you look, the sharper your eyes get to see how great was the distance He had to come, from where He was, down to ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... age which shuns the passions of youth: your past life has been such you have nothing to regret. You have endured hardship up to this point: prosperity tries our dispositions with sharper probes; because misfortune is borne, we are spoilt by a brilliant position. With your determined character you will preserve those most precious boons of the human soul, honourable principles, an independent spirit ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... Sepolo Emanuel Seerus Anthony Serals James Seramo John Serant Francis Seratte Francis Sergeant Thomas Sergeant Joel Serles Sebastian Serrea William Service Jonathan Setchell Otis Sevethith Francis Seyeant Solomon Shad Matthew Shappo Elisha Share John Sharke Philip Sharp Peter Sharpe Philip Sharper John Sharpley Joseph Sharpley Joseph Shatille Joseph Shatillier Archibald Shaver Jacob Shaver Abner Shaw Daniel Shaw James Shaw Jeremiah Shaw Joseph Shaw Samuel Shaw Thomas Shaw (3) William Shaw Patrick Shea Jean Shean Brittle Sheans Gideon Shearman Henry Shearman ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... of the friend thus addressed—was a card-sharper, and he instantly seized the opportunity to make something out of the happy disposition of this modern prodigal son, this scion of gentility. With the utmost frankness he explained to the young man his wonderful method of keeping his pockets full of ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Godwin, and as they rode through the desert sands beneath the silent stars, they prayed to the Blessed Mother, and to their saints, St. Peter and St. Chad—prayed with all their strength. Yet the prayer availed not. Sharper and sharper grew Godwin's agony, till, as the slow hours went by, his very soul reeled beneath this spiritual pain, and the death which he had escaped seemed a ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... were long and sharp, like the tusks of an animal. His huge body and great hairy arms had the strength of ten men. He wore no armor, for his skin was tougher than any coat of mail that man or giant might weld. His nails were like steel and sharper than daggers, and by his side there hung a great pouch in which he carried off those whom he was ready to devour. Day by day the music of harp and song was a torture to him and made him more and more mad with ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... of the year, long before you were born, this heap of decay," stabbing with her crutched stick at the pile of cobwebs on the table, but not touching it, "was brought here. It and I have worn away together. The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of mice ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... is murder. Politicians move on the level of the common intelligence, and compete there with each other in charging the ignorance of the commonalty with emotion. A politician need be no more than something between a curate and a card-sharper. If he knows anything of the arts, of history, of economics, or of science, he had better forget it, or else use it as a forestaller would a knowledge of the time when prices should be raised. A confident man with a blood-shot voice and ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... or venomous reptiles disturbed the pirate's progress; for, though there were plenty of them coiled or crawling near, yet their instinct probably taught them that he was a monster with a more deadly poison than themselves, and whose fangs were sharper, though his tongue did not hiss a note of warning. Captain Brand put down his burden and crept forward on hands and knees, the blazing torch lighting up the damp and dripping rocks, all green and slimy from the tracks of the ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... a still sharper jerk, and the cable split. The balloon seemed to leap upwards, swerved like a frightened bird, and then, caught by the wind, sailed upward and seaward, swooping on with a paradoxically smooth ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... in the doorway of their home in the great hollow tree and watched Unc' Billy out of sight. Her sharp little eyes seemed to grow sharper as she watched. "Ah done sent that no-account Possum to hunt fo' something fo' dinner, but 'pears to me he's plumb forgot it already," she muttered. "Just look at him with his head up in the air ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Mocker • Thornton W. Burgess
... or exalted unduly. He may be neglected or cheapened by his own generation, and praised to the sides by posterity; or his fame may undergo the inverse treatment, until he settles down to his proper level. Byron's reputation has passed through sharper vicissitudes than have befallen most of his compeers; for though no poet has ever shot up in a brief lifetime to a higher pinnacle of fame, or made a wider impression upon the world around him, after his death he seems to have declined ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... was very nearly eight hundred pounds; and even if Mr. Gum could have refunded that large sum, he might not do so, said Calne, for of course the bank would not compound a felony. He came back looking ten years older; his tall, thin form more shadowy, his nose longer and sharper. Not a soul ventured to say a syllable to him, even of condolence. He told Lord Hartledon and his Rector that no tidings whatever could be gleaned of his unhappy son; the boy had disappeared, and might be dead for all they knew to ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... happily that, for aught I know, his greatest excellency is in his diction. In all other parts of poetry he is faultless, but in this he placed his chief perfection. And give me leave, my lord, since I have here an apt occasion, to say that Virgil could have written sharper satires than either Horace or Juvenal if he would have employed his talent that way. I will produce a verse and half of his, in one of his Eclogues, to justify my opinion, and with commas after every word, to show that he has given almost as many lashes as he has written syllables. It is against ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... "Envy's a sharper spur than pay, And unprovoked 'twill court the fray; No author ever spared a brother; Wits are ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... Philip," said Sir Reginald, laughing, "that is rather too fine a term for a rough soldier, who never was called into counsel at all, except for the arraying a battle. It would take far sharper wits than mine, or, indeed, I suspect, than any that we have at Bordeaux, to meet the wiles of Charles of France. No, unless the Royal Banner be abroad in the field, you may look to see me here before another ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... carved my name Upon the cliffs that guard my native land, I might as well have traced it in the sands; The sea wastes all: but let me live my life. "Oh! who would love? I wooed a woman once, But she was sharper than an eastern wind, And all my heart turn'd from her, as a thorn Turns from the sea: but let me live my life." He sang his song, and I replied with mine: I found it in a volume, all of songs, Knock'd down to me, when old Sir Robert's pride, His books—the more the ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... eyes are the harbingers of love," and the first step of love is sight, as [4815]Lilius Giraldus proves at large, hist. deor. syntag. 13. they as two sluices let in the influences of that divine, powerful, soul-ravishing, and captivating beauty, which, as [4816]one saith, "is sharper than any dart or needle, wounds deeper into the heart; and opens a gap through our eyes to that lovely wound, which pierceth the soul itself" (Ecclus. 18.) Through it love is kindled like a fire. This amazing, confounding, admirable, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... feeling that it is degrading to be a servant; a terrible lion in the path of the quiet housekeeper in search of assistants. There may arise some day a purer and a wiser state of society, wherein the relation of master and man will be satisfactory to both. A merchant exercises a much sharper control over his clerk than over any servant in his house, and it is cheerfully submitted to. The soldier, who is worse paid and worse fed than a servant, is a mere puppet in the hands of his officers, obliged ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "the Prairie Giant of Peonia, the Favourite Son of Illinois; the man who came within three votes of getting the party nomination for the Presidency last spring, and was only defeated because ten small intriguers are sharper than one big one. The Honourable Silas P. Ratcliffe, Senator from Illinois; he will be ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... made just then for public help from America. The gigantic fourth loan, the needs of the Red Cross, the thousand and one things, big and little, that had to be taken care of, and the very earnest and pressing call for a sharper realization of war's awful facts, were being driven with might and main, all over the land; and all ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... This challenge effectually silenced Partridge, whose stomach for drubbing did not so soon return after the hearty meal which he had lately been treated with; but the coachman, whose bones were less sore, and whose appetite for fighting was somewhat sharper, did not so easily brook the affront, of which he conceived some part at least fell to his share. He started therefore from his seat, and, advancing to the serjeant, swore he looked on himself to be as good a man as any in the army, and offered to box for a guinea. The military ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... his cane at a sharper angle until it bent in upon itself, threatening to snap, and flung one gray-spatted ankle across ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... were eventually subdued and some semblance of order was restored, but greater woes and sharper shames awaited this unhappy nation, as ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... Mr. Prendergast, in his overflowing felicity, 'I see you think it a shocking match for such a little gem of beauty as that; but you young men should have been sharper. There's no accounting for tastes;' ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a time I've stood, clad in thin silken vest, Drawn sword in hand, with steady pulse, Waiting the charge of a raging bull, And the thrust of his horn, sharper-pointed than ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... into the most senseless debauchery. He remembered later the scandal over a boy, whom he had taken from the country to bring up, and, in a fit of rage, had so violently beaten that proceedings were brought against him for unlawfully wounding. Then he recalled the scandal with a sharper, to whom he had lost money, and given a promissory note, and against whom he had himself lodged a complaint, asserting that he had cheated him. (This was the money Sergey Ivanovitch had paid.) Then he remembered how he had spent a night in the lockup for disorderly conduct in the street. ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... king put English to the horn[1], To England thus spake England over sea, "In peace be friend, in war my enemy"; Then countering pride with pride, and lies with scorn, Broke with the man[2] whose ancestor had borne A sharper pain for no more injury. How otherwise should free men deal and be, With patience frayed and loyalty outworn? No act of England's shone more generous gules Than that which sever'd once for all the strands Which ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... lays himself down there in the cave, while the wild beasts, whose haunt it may have been, prowl without, feeling himself safer among them than among the more ferocious "sons of men," whose hatred has a sharper tooth than even theirs. And then this portion of the psalm closes with the refrain, "Be Thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let Thy glory be above all the earth." A prayer that God would show forth His power, and exalt His name by delivering His servant. ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... of the coffee house; Constantia, the fair fugitive; Sir William Woodville, a gentleman of distinction under misfortune; Belmont, in love with Constantia, a man of fortune and interest; Freeport, a merchant and an epitome of English manners; Scandal, a sharper; and Lady Alton, in ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... this wretched creature such a rebuke as should be an all-sufficient evidence to her and to such as her, that there was a limit where the flaunting of their foul acts and opinions before the world must stop; certain of them, with a higher art, and to her a finer cruelty, a sharper torture, uttered no abuse, but always spoke of her in terms of mocking eulogy and ironical admiration. Everybody talked about the new wonder, canvassed the theme of her proposed discourse, and marveled ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... two reasons. In the first place, you know that being, from necessity, in the habit of wearing a dirk, I handle with a firm hand this venomous plaything, sharper than the tooth of a viper; you know also, that on the day I complain of you, I shall leave forever this house, leaving you a thousand time more charmed, since you have been so gracious toward your unworthy servant as to be charmed ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... forget That my heart has a home,—just as real, as true, And as warm as if Beechenbrook sheltered me too. God grant that this refuge from sorrow and pain— This blessedest haven of peace, may remain! And, then, though disaster, still sharper, befall, I think I can patiently bear with it all: For the rarest, most exquisite bliss of my life Is wrapped in a word, Douglass ... ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston
... in a pavement, under which water lodges, and on being trod upon, squirts it up, to the great damage of white stockings; also a sharper neatly dressed, lying in wait for raw country ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... then they's uncommon. The boys was tellin' me the news about Bassett and Campbell. I says I knew them birds wouldn't come to no good end. I ain't one to talk agin one of them as has passed on, Doctor, but them was bad birds. Here's how I come to know it. I got eyes and ears sharper'n Tophet, even if I be nigh on to seventy and perhaps a little more, and I heard things along back that sot me to suspicionin' them two, and I kind o' says to myself it was my duty to the school ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... which he rested, while he held himself in place by grasping the sapling itself, seemed to grow narrower and sharper, while his own weight increased, until he believed it would be preferable to let go and hang on ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... drop into her maath, but it coom aght agean sharper nor it went in; aw thowt her heart ud come up. "A'a dear! a'a dear!" shoo says, "it's Harryget watter! it's Harryget watter! aw've made a t'mistak!' aw've made a mistak! ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... been types of fact? Upon glancing from the window, during a sharper shower than any they had yet had, she saw her husband coming in at the large gates, Lucy Tempest on his arm, over whom he was holding an umbrella. They were walking slowly; conversing, as it seemed, confidentially. It was quite enough for ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... was peculiar rather than attractive. She was nearly, if not quite fifty years of age, rather tall, and a little stoop-shouldered. Her face, at first sight, suggested that of a horse, with its long, ridged nose, loose lips and short chin. Her eyes were dull gray, set near together, and much sharper in their operation than a stranger would suppose. Over a high, narrow forehead she wore thin bands of tan-colored hair, somewhat grizzled, and forming a coil at the back of her head, barely strong enough ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... thee no sharper spur? Hath love in thy old blood no living fire? Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one, Were as seven vials of his sacred blood, Or seven fair branches springing from one root: Some of those seven are dried by nature's ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... equally by nature determined. Though he felt that something very tremendous would be required of him before he could enter into his kingdom, he never for an instant doubted that he should win. And so it happened, that, as he walked away across the Piazza, his step rang firmer and sharper than ever, and he held his head with the air of a man ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller |
