"Whet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bimeby all de creeturs bin flyin' 'roun' Brer Wolf's gal 'ceppin' it's ole Brer Rabbit, en w'en he year w'at kinder treatments de yuther creeturs bin ketchin' he 'low ter hisse'f dat he b'leeve in he soul he mus' go down ter Brer Wolf house en set de gal out one whet ef it's ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... with great precipitation; while the robber, whose horse had run away, mounted Gilbert, and rode off across the country. It was at this period, that two footmen, belonging to the coach, who had stayed behind to take their morning's whet at the inn where they lodged, came up to the assistance of the ladies, armed with blunderbusses; and the carriage proceeded, leaving Timothy alone in distraction and despair. He knew not which way to turn, and was afraid of remaining on the spot, lest the robbers should come back and revenge ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... myself to the banquet with this torch in my hand according to custom. But why do you tarry, Blepyrus? Take these young girls with you and, while you are away a while, I will whet my appetite with some dining-song. I have but a few words to say: let the wise judge me because of whatever is wise in this piece, and those who like a laugh by whatever has made them laugh. In this way I address pretty well everyone. If ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... paint the horable appearance they make—it is shocking to human nature to behold them. Could I draw the curtain from before you; there expose to your view a lean Jawd mortal, hunger laid his skinny hand (upon him) and whet to keenest Edge his stomach cravings, sorounded with tattred garments, Rotten Rags, close beset with unwelcome vermin. Could I do this, I say, possable I might in some (small) manner fix your idea with what appearance ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... then might stand, A pride and a joy throughout the land, For their ancientness and glorious charms! The innocent Forest lent him arms; But bitter indeed was her regret; For the wretch, his axe new-helved and whet, Did nought but his benefactress spoil Of the finest trees that graced her soil; And ceaselessly was she made to groan, Doing penance ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... Admiral's chest, in canvas bags, rested not a little treasure for Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. And though it was forbidden, I knew that many of our seamen hid gold. All told we found enough to whet appetite. But still the Indians said south, and Babeque ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... of our maintenance of public esteem; and so long as our efforts are guided by the same singleness of purpose that first directed them we shall hope for a continuance of such favour. A multitude of contemporaries "whet each other;" "thinking nurseth thinking;" and, in like manner, reading nurseth reading, and awakens a spirit of inquiry, untiring and exhaustless, among all concerned ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 584 - Vol. 20, No. 584. (Supplement to Vol. 20) • Various
... husband of all the wives at Rome, he found time to be one of the best scholars, almost the best orator, and absolutely the best general there. An uninterrupted life of pleasures is as insipid as contemptible. Some hours given every day to serious business must whet both the mind and the senses, to enjoy those of pleasure. A surfeited glutton, an emaciated sot, and an enervated rotten whoremaster, never enjoy the pleasures to which they devote themselves; but they are only so many human sacrifices to false gods. The pleasures of low life are ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... it as though he regretted it had been seen, then added carelessly, apparently to appease but really to whet the ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... his brogue, and we fell to piquet. Now my Scot wore a very fine coat, and on the same very large smooth silver buttons, well burnished. Therefore, perceiving such an advantage as a skilled player may enjoy, I let him win a little to whet his appetite, but presently used his buttons as a mirror, wherein I readily detected the strength of the cards he held. Before attempting this artifice, I had solemnly ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... is angry with the wicked; as angry with the living wicked as 'with many of those miserable creatures that He is now tormenting in hell.' The devil is waiting: the fire is ready; the furnace is hot; the 'glittering sword is whet and held over them, and the pit hath opened her mouth to receive them.' The unconverted are walking on a rotten covering, where there are innumerable weak places, and those places not distinguishable. The flames are 'gathering ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... only to the saloon and the eating department. At six A.M. a cup of tea or coffee is provided for those who like it. At seven to eight there is a light breakfast of tea, eggs, sardines, etc. At ten, Madeira, Gin and bitters are brought on deck as a whet for the substantial eleven o'clock breakfast, which differs from a dinner only in the absence of soup. Cups of tea and coffee are brought around at three P.M.; bitters, etc. again at five, a good dinner with beer and claret at half-past ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... flew (upon a day when as it Snew;) Which to my Brains the Vapors drew And there began to work and brew, 'Till in my Pericranium grew Conundrums, how some Peal that's New Might be compos'd? and to pursue These thoughts (which did so whet and hew My flat Invention) and to shew What might be done, I strait withdrew Myself to ponder—whence did accrue This Grandsire Bob, which unto you I Dedicate, as being due Most properly; for there's ...
— Tintinnalogia, or, the Art of Ringing - Wherein is laid down plain and easie Rules for Ringing all - sorts of Plain Changes • Richard Duckworth and Fabian Stedman
... theft was this, yours was the sin, I brought again what you unjustly took." This heard, the tyrant did for rage begin To whet his teeth, and bend his frowning look, No pity, youth; fairness, no grace could win; Joy, comfort, hope, the virgin all forsook; Wrath killed remorse, vengeance stopped mercy's breath Love's thrall to hate, and beauty's slave ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... gorged herself at a private luncheon. If meat is, as we are told, so plentiful that it will last for five weeks more, the mode in which it is distributed is radically bad. While at a large popular restaurant, where hundreds of the middle classes dine, each person only gets enough cat or horse to whet his appetite for more; in the expensive cafes on the Boulevards, feasts worthy of Lucullus are still served to those who are ready to part with their money with the proverbial readiness of fools. Far more practical, my worthy Republicans, would it be to establish "liberte, egalite, fraternite" ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... languor of spring in its breath, although a few flowers were beginning to star the weedy wagon-tracked lane, and there was an awakening spice in the wayside southernwood and myrtle. He felt invigorated, although it seemed only to whet his jealous pique. He hurried on without even glancing toward the distant coast-line of San Francisco or even thinking of it. The bitter memories of the past had been obliterated by the bitterness of the present. He no longer thought of "that woman;" ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... should be well correlated with one another and with the systematic work on the text that guides the study, so that each shall whet the edge of the other and all together accomplish ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... our domestic animals among the clover fields in the pastures? A tithe of the merry gambols they now so safely indulge in, would speedily bring about them a swarm of these infuriated insects. In all our rambles among the green fields, we should constantly be in peril; and no jocund mower would ever whet his glittering scythe, or swing his peaceful weapon, unless first clad in a dress impervious to their stings. In short, the bee, instead of being the friend of man, would be one of his most vexatious enemies, and as has been the case with ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... loase a sermon for a pound, An oath he thought would rend his iawes in twaine, An idle word did whet Gods vengeance on; And yet two murthers were not scripulous. Such close illusions God will bring to light, And overthrowe ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... of the story,[72] I have perfect faith in such a master-hand as yours; and I know that what such an artist feels to be terrible and original, is unquestionably so. You whet my interest by what you write of it to the ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... Government; and its leaders were generally, if not always, the spokesmen of the State in national affairs. This position and these advantages were legacies of the constitution of 1776. The fact that they were in the minority in point of population served only to whet their appetites for more power. On the other hand, the leaders of the western section of the State had fought for twenty-five years to reform the constitution and the laws, to create new counties in order to secure proportionate representation, and to expand the suffrage in order that their majorities ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... their desert, and are irritably conscious of a hunter's camp in an adjacent county. To these last, of course, Fontainebleau will seem but an extended tea-garden: a Rosherville on a by-day. But to the plain man it offers solitude: an excellent thing in itself, and a good whet ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the sportive ocean, for congratulate me, I bring my bride with me, no 'hidden wife,' though the News and Daily will have us; Truth also, will have a hand in," and he added lightly, "when a man knows editors and that ilk will shortly wet their pens for him, he may as well whet the appetite of society by saying only this and nothing more. In my bride of the sea, you will see a fair cousin of my own, the daughter of Vivian Delrose," and turning to Kate, whom he had furtively watched said, as he bid her adieu, "by gaining a ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... faction in England. These ideas of M. Condorcet are the principles of those to whom kings are to intrust their successors and the interests of their succession. This man would be ready to plunge the poniard in the heart of his pupil, or to whet the axe for his neck. Of all men, the most dangerous is a warm, hot-headed, zealous atheist. This sort of man aims at dominion, and his means are the words he always has in his mouth,—"L'egalite naturelle des hommes, et la souverainete ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... depend for its existence upon the eyes that look upon it, I should want to give more to my hero than love and beauty. I should want to give him help in the battle of life, Henry. I should want to buckle on his armour, and sharpen the point of his lance, and whet the edge of his sword; a rich man's armour is bank-notes, and Winnie knows nothing of such paper. His spear, I am told, is a bullion bar, and Winnie's fingers scarcely know ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... against these dangers their bodies are decorated with amulets and ornaments as a means of protection. But the result is quite other than that intended, and the ornaments which are meant to protect the children from the imaginary terrors of the evil eye, in reality merely serve as a whet to illicit cupidity, and expose them a rich, defenceless prey to the violence of ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... her sweetheart came to see her (as his daily custom was) she frowned upon him, would not vouchsafe him her company, but kissed Lamprius his co-rival, at the same time [5130]before his face: but why was it? To make him (as she telleth her mother that chid her for it) more jealous; to whet his love, to come with a greater appetite, and to know that her favour was not so easy to be had. Many other tricks she used besides this (as she there confesseth), for she would fall out with, and anger him of set purpose, pick quarrels upon no occasion, because she would be reconciled ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Bourbon weare the crowne, And may it never end in bloud as mine hath done. Weep not sweet Navarre, but revenge my death. Ah Epernoune, is this thy love to me? Henry thy King wipes of these childish teares, And bids thee whet thy sword on Sextus bones, That it may keenly slice the Catholicks. He loves me not the best that sheds most teares, But he that makes most lavish of his bloud. Fire Paris where these trecherous rebels lurke. ...
— Massacre at Paris • Christopher Marlowe
... unhappy convict employed and exerted their influence and interest for his pardon; and, as the circumstances had appeared so strong in his favour, it was supposed that the sceptre of royal mercy would be extended for his preservation; but infamous arts were used to whet the savage appetite of the populace for blood. The cry of vengeance was loud throughout the land: sullen clouds of suspicion and malevolence interposing, were said to obstruct the genial beams of the best virtue that adorns the throne; and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... other trace of them had as yet been found anywhere in the known galaxy, but they had left enough material in Centaurus City to satisfy the curiosity of Mankind for years to come, and enough mystery and complexity to whet that curiosity to an ...
— Dead Giveaway • Gordon Randall Garrett
... life without difficulty become insipid and joyless? Cannot a strong interest turn difficulty into pleasure? Let the love of truth, of which I have spoken, be awakened, and obstacles in the way to it will whet, not discourage, the mind, and inspire a ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... think I shined my own shoes, and had to calculate my shirts, and the fact that I was no longer young (that's the modern formula for forty), and next-door to a failure in the art I had followed for so many years, served to whet their pity and their regard. My little trashy love-stories seemed to them the fruits of genius, and they were convinced, the poor simpletons, that the big magazines were banded in a conspiracy to block ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... summer waned he left for America taking with him many pages of closely written notes. But what he had learned served to whet his appetite for more, so that in 1912 and again in 1914 he was back, going over volume after volume, searching eagerly for fear some important point would escape him. The mass of abstracts and notes which he accumulated formed ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... telling only enough to whet his interest. "There's a clue, as I half expected, from New York, too. But we are so far away that we'll have to stick to my original plan. You can ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... a stone whereon to whet my sword!' cried Ermak in the madness of his wrath as he strove to sharpen his steel blade upon the enchanted rock. 'I would have his blood, his blood! I would tear him limb from limb, ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... taken advantage of this privilege, and elected to pay tuition and place their children under his instruction, thus bringing together forty-nine energetic boys and girls to whet each other's ambition and incite class rivalry. Among the number were the five clever children of the Hon. Tod Robinson; three sons of Judge Robert Robinson; Colonel Zabriskie's pretty daughter Annie; Banker ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... I love thee, Thou strangely-feeding maid! Nay, lift not thus thy boomerang, I meant not to upbraid! Come, let me taste those yellow lips That ne'er were tasted yet, Save when the shipwrecked mariner Passed through them for a whet. ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... He nears me! It is ARTHUR's pet. Light ladder this; would capsize in a jiffy. His bristles he'd scrape and his tusks he would whet Against it, I wish he were drowned in the Liffey! Whisht! Get away! He's so heavy and big. There! round the ladder he's playing the fooler. Ah! there's the rub. PATRICK scumfish that Pig! If he doesn't mean deviltry ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various
... priest, to whom, with his awful sense of the divine majesty, and his humble prostration in presence of it, such claims and such a demeanour must have appeared an impious and blasphemous usurpation of prerogatives that belong to God alone. And sometimes, we may suspect, lower motives concurred to whet the edge of the priest's hostility. He professed to be the proper medium, the true intercessor between God and man, and no doubt his interests as well as his feelings were often injured by a rival practitioner, who preached a surer and smoother road to fortune than the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... let it come more gradually and with less violence. I have always been convinced that the country was in no danger of revolution, and still believe that if one does come it will be from the passing of this Bill, which will introduce the principle of change and whet the appetites of those who never will be satisfied with any existing order of things; or if it follows on the rejection of this Bill, which I doubt, it will be owing to the concentration of all the forces that are opposed ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... The sight! A burning world! And to be dead and miss it! There's an end Of all satiety: such fire imagine! Born in some obscure alley of the poor, Then leaping to embrace a splendid street, Palaces, temples, morsels that but whet Her appetite: the eating of huge forests: Then with redoubled fury rushing high, Smacking her lips over a continent, And licking old civilisations up! Then in tremendous battle fire and sea Joined: and the ending of the mighty sea: Then heaven in conflagration, ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... and social discipline were first considered and determined. The purposed delay in reaching the real object of the Council seemed to whet the appetites for the consideration of the wrongs of the East. Enthusiasm grew to fanaticism, and a grand and universal impatience of other topics finally brought the greater ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... There were four of us in the second cabin; {128} we dined alone, and had a mulatto servant to attend upon us. Unfortunately, he was afflicted with elephantiasis, and his appearance did not at all tend to whet the ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... the Danube winds through many a land, And Mareotis laves the Egyptian strand, To rendezvous they waft on eager wing, And wait assembled the returning spring. Meanwhile they trim their plumes for length of flight, Whet their keen beaks, and twisting claws, for fight; Each crane the pygmy power in thought o'erturns, And every bosom for the battle burns. When genial gales the frozen air unbind, The screaming legions ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... as "healthful and strengthening to the taste." That is the test, so to speak, of the present essay. This discipline in scenery, it must be understood, is something more than a mere walk before breakfast to whet the appetite. For when we are put down in some unsightly neighbourhood, and especially if we have come to be more or less dependent on what we see, we must set ourselves to hunt out beautiful things with all the ardour and patience of a botanist after a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... prepared dishes—in short, a substantial and sumptuous dinner was served. The collation which had been taken at the commencement, called in the language of the country "Refresco," had been intended only to whet the appetites of the guests for ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... misery upon earth. He hates it, and he fights against it for ever; lovingly at first, that He may lead sinners to repentance; for He wills the death of none, but rather that all should come to repentance. But if a man will not turn, He will whet his sword; and then woe to the sinner. Let him be as great as the king of Assyria, he must down. For the Lord will have none guide His world but Himself, because none but He will ever guide it on the right ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... of great controversy almost a century before. The practice had by no means been forgotten in the mean time, but it had gained little public notice. Now the dispossessors of the Devil came to the front again long enough to whet the animosity between Puritans and Anglicans in Lancashire. But this never became more than a pamphlet controversy. The other feature of the period was far more significant. The last executions for witchcraft in England were probably those at ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... the deeds that set Old fighters' hearts afire; The edge of every spirit whet, And every arm inspire. Yet I have seen upon his face The tears that, as they roll, Show what a light of saintly grace May ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... Fought for it. Fought every boy who wouldn't acknowledge it.... When I went to sea as cabin-boy on the "Mary R." of Gloucester, the men on the trawler tried to "lick me into shape," as they called it. They didn't know what they were up against. I used those men as whet-stones—used them to kick fear out of myself. You notice that I limp a little? That's a legacy from the days of the ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... with the popular antique silver and china, by passing under their old-fashioned name of "whets;" for the afternoon tea, originally intended to be a light refreshment, had become a detriment to the dinner. Savories, on the contrary, are a whet to the appetite and clear the palate for the due appreciation of the dinner. Two or three different kinds are usually served. Anybody possessed of a little cooking knowledge can arrange a variety of them at a minimum of trouble and expense, and in their variety ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... as for thee, thou false woman, My sister and my fae, Grim vengeance, yet, shall whet a sword That thro thy soul shall gae: The weeping blood in woman's breast Was never known to thee; Nor th' balm that draps on wounds of woe Frae ...
— Language of Flowers • Kate Greenaway
... half of galloping only serves to whet the appetite of a well-girt horse, and the foaming rivals hardly allowed themselves to be pulled up at the edge of a steep grassy slope, where already here and there a yellow cowslip bud was beginning to break its pale silken sheath. At length their impatient dancing ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... is as great as his, That, from the bounds of Phrygia to the sea Which washeth Cyprus with his brinish waves, Covers the hills, the valleys, and the plains. Viceroys and peers of Turkey, play the men; Whet all your [158] swords to mangle Tamburlaine, His sons, his captains, and his followers: By Mahomet, not one of them shall live! The field wherein this battle shall be fought For ever term'd [159] the Persians' sepulchre, In memory of ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... chief passages in Goethe's Faust were exceedingly helpful to me, was very well received, not only on that occasion in Dresden, but later on in other places. Besides this, I made use of the Dresden Anzeiger, by writing all kinds of short and enthusiastic anonymous paragraphs, in order to whet the public taste for a work which hitherto had ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... evidently, and just in time to whet one's curiosity, too. I may be asking to ride it myself, next. Well, do come again—but wait! What's the name ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... are countries whose independence rests, in large measure, on confidence in America's word and in America's protection. To yield to force in Vietnam would weaken that confidence, would undermine the independence of many lands, and would whet the appetite of aggression. We would have to fight in one land, and then we would have to fight in another—or abandon much of Asia to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... got us. Me and my wife here, we whet away and stayed two months. Was 5 feet in this house, and if it ever gets in here agin, we're goin down in Kentucky and never comin' back ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... going on, a seedy-looking old gentleman came in, and I noticed that some younger officers rose and offered him a place, which he rejected, till a vacancy occurred, and then he quietly sat down, swallowed his two dozen of green oysters as a whet, and proceeded to dine with an appetite. By this time, my vis-a-vis had resumed his seat, and, after what had passed, I felt myself at liberty to ask him the favour of informing me who he himself was! I was ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... where the caribou fell. It was an ideal spot on the high bank above the river, being flat and thickly covered with white moss. The banks at this point were all sand drift; we could not find a stone large enough to whet our knives. George made a stage for drying while Hubbard and I dressed the deer. Our work finished, we all sat down and roasted steaks on sticks and drank coffee. The knowledge that we were now assured of a good stock of dried meat, of course, ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... temptation, that you save the devil the trouble of leading you into it. Nor is it out of discretion that you don't swallow that very hook yourselves have baited, but you are cloyed with the preparative, and what you mean for a whet, turns the edge of your puny stomachs. Your love is like your courage, which you show for the first year or two upon all occasions; till in a little time, being disabled or disarmed, you abate of your vigour; and ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... is no idea existing of bettering one's self, so here I'll roost until daylight, unless Doctor comes back to hunt me up!" I judged it was not far from 2 o'clock, A. M., and believed it possible that our venison might only whet a grizzly bear's appetite to follow up the pursuit and gormandize me!—A proper site for a roost was the next matter of importance, and a scrubby oak with a thick top, close by, offered an inviting ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... look, not to buy, not yet. Petitjean, and his wife had not dined yet, and a pedler's hunger is something to be respected—one made money by waiting for the hour of digestion. The little crowd of maids, hostlers, cooks, and scullery wenches, were only here to whet their appetite, and to greet Petitjean. Nitouche, the head chef, put a little extra garlic in his sauces that day. But in spite of this compliment to their palate, the pedler and his wife dined in the smaller room off the kitchen;—Madame was desolated, but the salle-a-manger was crowded ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... occasion required, Isom could rise to flattery as deftly as the best of them. It was an art at which his tongue was wonderfully facile, considering the fact that he mingled so seldom with men in the outside doings of life. His wits had no foil to whet against and grow sharp, save the hard substance of his own inflexible nature, for he was born with that shrewd faculty for taking men "on the blind side," as they used to ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... no great weight and with so precious a burden in your arms 't'would be but a whet to appetite. Still, if you're unequal to the task, pray command me. I'd ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... dolphin and a sele are met In the wide champian of the ocean plaine, With cruell chaufe their courages they whet, The maysterdome of each by force to gaine, And dreadfull battaile twixt them do darraine; They snuf, they snort, they bounce, they rage, they rore, That all: the sea, disturbed with their traine, Doth frie with ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... a son Should grudge his sire no days. I would not live To whet ambition's appetite. I'm old; And fit for little else than hermit thoughts. The day that gives my daughter, gives my crown: A cell's ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... appeared to be at a very low ebb with him, and shortly after he had been put ashore, the sick mariner requested an interview with the deacon himself. The request had been reluctantly granted; but, during the visit, Daggett had managed so well to whet his visiter's appetite for gain, that henceforth there was no trouble in procuring the deacon's company. Little by little had Daggett let out his facts, always keeping enough in reserve to render himself necessary, until he had got his new acquaintance in the highest state of feverish excitement. ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... many, although of quarries they are ignorant, neither haue they vse of any store whereupon they should haue occasion to seeke any. For if euery housholde haue one or two to cracke nuts, grinde shels, whet copper, and sometimes other stones for hatchets, they haue ynough: neither vse they any digging, but onely for graues about three foote deepe: and therefore no marueile that they know neither quarries, nor lime-stones, which both may be ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... to rock, Incessant bleatings run around the hills. At last, of snowy white, the gathered flocks Are in the wattled pen innumerous pressed, Head above head: and ranged in lusty rows, The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears. The Seasons: Summer. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... eagles scream on high, They whet their forked beaks: Raise—raise the battle cry, 'Tis ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... gaol, had their property confiscated, and their newspapers suppressed for asserting their independence, and for trifling breaches of harsh laws. The following extract gives the best possible synopsis of the causes, and should whet an appetite which can be gratified by the purchase of ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... speaking quickly, and raising his gun with a gesture of menace, "pay 'tention to whet I'm 'beout to say. Look savagerous at me, an' make these yeer verming b'lieve you an' me's que'lling. Fo'most tell me, ef they've krippled ye 'beout the legs? I know ye can't speak; but shet yeer eyes, an' thet ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... scholar, and friendly withal, is evidently not altogether satisfied, (perhaps he is jealous,) and winds up by saying: "For the English language to have been enriched with a national poetry which was not English but American, would have been a treasure beyond price." With which, as whet and foil, we shall proceed to ventilate more definitely certain no doubt ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... going to ride in the contest and that stood a good chance of winning. For Andy was but human, that he dreamed of these things; besides, does not the jumping through blazing hoops and over sagging bunting while one rides, whet insiduously one's appetite for the plaudits ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... laughed and answered: "His feet on the threshold stand: Forged is thy sword, O Mother, and its hilts are come to hand, And look that thou whet it duly; for the Norns are departed now; From the blood of our foster-brother no branch of bale shall grow; Hoodwinked are the Gods of heaven, their sleep-dazed eyes are blind; They shall peer and grope through the darkness, and nought therein shall find, Save the red right ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... breeze swells the sun-shot satin of every lady's skirt, and tosses the ringlets that hang like bunches of yellow grapes on either side of her brow, and stirs the plumes of her gallant. But the very breeze is laden with heat, and the fountain's noise does but whet the thirst of the grass, the flowers, the trees. The earth sulks under the burden of the unmerciful sun. Love itself, one had said, would be languid here, pale and supine, and, faintly sighing for things ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... his employ, that an observer would be tempted to quote again from the same scene, 'Ha! Old Truepenny, canst thou mole so fast i' the ground?' Here, however, the comparison ceased; for, when Sir Elijah made his visit to Lucknow 'to whet the almost blunted purpose' of the Nabob, his language was wholly different from that of the poet—for it would have been totally against his purpose to ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... Valour is high renown, and flight is shame! If any man shall hearken to the words Of this thy counsel, I will smite from him His head with sharp blue steel, and hurl it down For soaring kites to feast on. Up! all ye Who care to enkindle men to battle: rouse Our warriors all throughout the fleet to whet The spear, to burnish corslet, helm and shield; And cause both man and horse, all which be keen In fight, to break their fast. Then in yon plain Who is the ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... best of any: Pales are also made of cleft willow, dorsers, fruitbaskets, canns, hives for bees, trenchers, trays, and for polishing and whetting table-knives, the butler will find it above any wood or whet-stone; also for coals, bavin, and excellent firing, not forgetting the fresh boughs, which of all the trees in nature, yield the most chast and coolest shade in the hottest season of the day; and this umbrage so wholsome, that physicians prescribe it to feaverish ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... succeed, too! This Dorothy would come to love him as she, the San Reve, loved. Dorothy was a woman; and what woman could resist Storri? This Dorothy loved him even now; her coldness was an attitude, a fiction. It was meant to be a lure to Storri and whet his eagerness! ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... a walk Everything has many faces and several aspects Examine, who is better learned, than who is more learned Excel above the common rate in frivolous things Excuse myself from knowing anything which enslaves me to others Executions rather whet than dull the edge of vices Expresses more contempt and condemnation than the other Extend their anger and hatred beyond the dispute in question Extremity of philosophy is hurtful Fabric goes forming and piling itself up from hand to hand Fame: an echo, a dream, nay, the shadow ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... of the summarizing lead is the informal, or suspense, lead. This type begins with a question, a bit of verse, a startling quotation, or one or two manifestly unimportant details that tell little and yet whet the appetite of the reader, luring him to the real point of interest later in the story. Such leads, sometimes known as "human interest" leads, are admittedly more difficult than those of the summarizing type, their difficulty ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... foremost Tartar's in the gap Conspicuous by his yellow cap; 550 The rest in lengthening line the while Wind slowly through the long defile: Above, the mountain rears a peak, Where vultures whet the thirsty beak, And theirs may be a feast to-night, Shall tempt them down ere morrow's light; Beneath, a river's wintry stream Has shrunk before the summer beam, And left a channel bleak and bare, Save shrubs that spring to perish there: 560 Each side the midway ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... The preliminary outrunning of the constable—had there been constables in Salmigondin, but they probably knew the story of the Seigneur of Basche too well—and the remarkable difference between the feudatory and his superior on the subject of debt, serve but as a whet to the project of matrimony which the debtor conceives. Of course, Panurge is the very last man whom a superficial observer of humanity—the very first whom a somewhat profounder student thereof—would take as a ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... Raphele had managed to pay their way out of the villain's clutches; but both Americans refused to apply to their friends for ransom. Indeed, they did not trust to Raphele's protestations, believing that if any money at all for their release was forthcoming, it would only whet the villain's cupidity and cause ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... that findeth them wanting in those Ancient ones, and that doth not much more admire that smoothly equall neatnesse, continued sweetnesse, and flourishing comelinesse of Catullus his Epigrams, than all the sharpe quips and witty girds wherewith Martiall doth whet and embellish the conclusions of his. It is the same reason I spake of erewhile, as Martiall of himselfe. Minus illi ingenio laborandum fuit, in cuius locum materia successerat. [Footnote: Mart. Praf. 1. viii.] "He needed the lesse ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... "You whet my curiosity, monsieur; and, of course, I am a dutiful niece. It follows that I shall be honoured ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... been working at his discoveries for twelve years, with little approbation from the generality of persons; the discovery of these islands, Porto Santo and Madeira, serving to whet his appetite for further enterprise, but not winning the common voice in favor of prosecuting discoveries on the coast of Africa. The people at home, improving upon the reports of the sailors, said that "the land which the Prince sought after was merely some sandy place like the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... suit: For drying, Albans are your safer fruit. 'Twas I who first, authorities declare, Served grapes with apples, lees with caviare, White pepper with black salt, and had them set Before each diner as his private whet. ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... Richard is in that bush?" [73] His cruelty to the Mahometans was the effect of temper and zeal; but I cannot believe that a soldier, so free and fearless in the use of his lance, would have descended to whet a dagger against his valiant brother Conrad of Montferrat, who was slain at Tyre by some secret assassins. [74] After the surrender of Acre, and the departure of Philip, the king of England led the crusaders to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... just meeting at church and so forth: he seemed to be always busy.) He said he had had to see Mr Liversedge, and had been detained later than he thought. He sat and talked to all of us for a while, but I thought his mind seemed somewhere else. I guessed where, and thought I found myself right whet after a time, when Father had come in, and Ambrose with him, and they were all talking over the fire, Ephraim left them, and coming across to my corner, asked me first thing if I had heard ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... yourself some knowledge of salesmanship. Do not rest contented with what you have already learned. These chapters should but whet your appetite for more opportunities to master the principles and methods of selling true ideas of your best capabilities. So as you close this book, reach out your hand to open another. You cannot over-study the subject of salesmanship. Never ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their ante- meridiem, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... course Prevail, unless to make us worse; Who still, the harsher we are us'd, 335 Are further off from b'ing reduc'd; And scorn t' abate, for any ills, The least punctilios of our wills. Force does but whet our wits t' apply Arts, born with us, for remedy; 340 Which all your politicks, as yet, Have ne'er been able to defeat: For when y' have try'd all sorts of ways, What fools d' we make of you in plays! While all ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... the world, who, far from having any pity on them, had already devoured them with his eyes; he told his wife they would be delicate eating, when tossed up with good savoury sauce. He then took a great knife, and coming up to these poor children, whetted it upon a great whet-stone which he held in his left hand. He had already taken hold of one of them, when ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... all; but we may say, "The cook made the irons hot," referring to flat-irons; or, "The sailor was put in irons" meaning chains of iron. So also we may speak of a glass to drink from or to look into; a steel to whet a knife on; a rubber for ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... barley bestow On the child of Apollo, the sleek sable crow; Or a trifle of whet, O kind friends, give;— Or a wee loaf of bread that the crow ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... for it than to suppose that boys who are bred where they have no companions are prone to make the most of companionship when once attained to. And then, in regard to books, as of these I rarely got more than what might serve as a whet to the appetite, I might have the desire of those whose longings after what they would obtain are increased by the difficulties which interpose between them and the possession. One book which in school I sometimes got a glance of, I would have given anything to possess: ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... chapter, he does not forego such praises of the farmer's life as sound like a lawyer's address before a county-society on a fair-day. Cincinnatus and his plough come in for it; and Fabricius and Curius Dentatus; with which names, luckily, our orators cannot whet their periods, since Columella's mention of them is about all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... the wolf came by, could scant stand on his legs, and the other was already dead and his skin ripped off and carried away. And as he looked upon them suddenly, he was first about to feed upon them and whet his teeth upon their bones. But as he looked aside, he spied a fair cow in an enclosure, walking with her young calf by her side. And as soon as he saw them, his conscience began to grudge him against both those ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... or sell any unlicensed matter whatsoever would be liable to fine or imprisonment, and to whet the zeal of discovery one-half of the fine was to go to the informer. Every publication, from a book to a broadsheet, must bear the name of author, printer, and licenser. Neither of Neville's pamphlets of 1647 conformed to the requirements ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville
... interest in the mind of every one who has ever been attracted to the subject of the archaeology of the New World. This race, moreover, possessed an abundant literature, preserved in written books, in characters which were in some degree phonetic. Enough of these remain to whet, though not to satisfy, the ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various
... fourthly, there are epithets That suit with any word— As well as Harvey's Reading Sauce With fish, or flesh, or bird. Such epithets, like pepper, Give zest to what you write; And, if you strew them sparely, They whet the appetite; But if you lay them on too thick, You ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... As he had brought the adventure to an end, The duke now sought the noble youths to stir, (Though of themselves that way their wishes tend, Nor they to whet that purpose need the spur) That they the Church from outrage to defend, And rights of Charles, the Roman Emperor, Would cease to war upon that Eastern strand, And would seek honour in their ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... of the White Dragon! Kindle the torch, Daughter of Hengist! The steel glimmers not for the carving of the banquet, It is hard, broad, and sharply pointed; The torch goeth not to the bridal chamber, It steams and glitters blue with sulphur. Whet the steel, the raven croaks! Light the torch, Zernebock is yelling! Whet the steel, sons of the Dragon! Kindle the torch, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... various exalted personages, things were straightened out, pickets detailed and posted, and the men, too tired even to swear, dropped where they were, and rapidly cooled down in the chilly dew. It was now nearly eleven o'clock, and a half bottle of water was issued, enough merely to whet the consuming thirst which gripped everybody. Tunics were disentangled from the damp congeries on our backs and we had a few hours' ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... farther and the goal is won—the object of inquiry is found. I suppose it will be admitted that the language which supplies the meaning of a word has the fairest claim to be considered its parent language. What, then, is the meaning of "Hurrah," and in whet language? As a reply to this Query, allow me to quote a writer in Blackwood's Magazine, April 1843, ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... them as hors tie combat; and the frequent visits of the whisky bottle to the ugly mouth of their dam I hoped would soon reduce her to a like state. Judge of my astonishment, reader, when I saw this incarnate fiend take a large carving-knife and go to the grindstone to whet its edge. I saw her pour the water on the turning machine, and watched her working away with the dangerous instrument, until the cold sweat covered every part of my body, in spite of my determination to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... in sitting beside a creature who hooked men in the drives of the Bois with the lash of her whip, removed on her high-perched seat from all fear of the salutary raids of the police. Perhaps, in order to whet the appetite of his royal mistress, he chose to parade beneath her windows in company of Suzanne Bloch, known ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... tell you much of old English engravers, whose lives occupy me at present. On Sunday I am to dine with your prime minister Hamilton; for though I do not seek the world, and am best pleased when quiet here, I do not refuse its invitations, whet) it does not press one to pass above a few hours with it. I have no quarrel to it, when it comes not to me, nor asks me to lie from home. That favour is only granted to the elect, to Greatworth, and a very ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... been expected, Longford found plenty of congenial companions to "whet his almost blunted purpose" of vicious propensity and indulgence. In a drunken quarrel at the gaming-table, knives were drawn, and Longford stabbed his antagonist-to the heart. Murders are so exceedingly common in all the ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... note of the whippoorwill, the nocturnal songster that mourns unseen. It was succeeded by the sharp tones of a saw-whet and the distinct mew of a cat-bird. A wild pigeon began to coo softly in another direction and was answered by a thrush. The listener vaguely realized that all this unexpected melody came from the Indians, who had by this time surrounded ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... the coffee, and presently returned, having been moderately successful. One egg apiece was hardly enough, however, to appease the craving of two strong men ravenous from long fasting. Indeed, it seemed only to whet the appetite, and we both set out on an eager expedition for more food. Before going far I had the good luck to meet a sutler's wagon, and though its stock was about all sold, there were still left four ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... "place half a bottle of claret near Mr Rattlin. When your throat is dry, younker, you can whet your whistle; and when you come to any particular fine paragraph, you may wash it down with a ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... sometimes expressed much regret at being unable to join us. I used to do my best to gratify him, poor fellow, by relating all the wonders that we saw; but this, instead of satisfying, seemed only to whet his curiosity the more, so one day we prevailed on him to try to go down with us. But although a brave boy in every other way, Peterkin was very nervous in the water, and it was with difficulty ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... hop'd your great experience and your years Would have proved patience rather to your soul, Then with this frantique and untamed passion To whet their skeens; and, but for that I hope their friendships are too well confirmd, And their minds temperd with more kindly heat, Then for their froward parents soars That they should break forth into publique brawles— How ere the rough hand ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... "Be careful whet you say, your Highness," cried the prisoner, hastily. "I must refuse to accept a pardon at the cost of your honor. It is because I love you better than my life that I stand here. I cannot allow you and your people to suffer when it is in my ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... scornful and malignant curl Show'd on the lips of that malicious churl, To think what noble havocs he had made; So that I fear'd he all at once would hurl The harmless fairies into endless shade,— Howbeit he stopp'd awhile to whet ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... appear to lie within speaking distance of Hightower's door; the next, it would withdraw behind its blue veil, and seem far enough away to belong to another world. On Hightower's farm the corn was high enough to whet its green sabres against the wind. One evening Chichester, Hightower, and Babe sat on the little porch with their faces turned toward Kenesaw. They had been watching a line of blue smoke on the mountain in the distance; ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... signs which told when Harding threw the first bits of "raw meat" into this gilded corral. I knew that he long since had cornered N.O. & G., and that he would whet the appetites of his victims as only he knew how, but I did not know that it was his day of reckoning for other "conspirators" equally as grasping as those with whom I had ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... The whet administered, I was left alone for a little in the monastery garden. This is no more than the main court, laid out in sandy paths and beds of parti-coloured dahlias, and with a fountain and a black statue of the Virgin in the centre. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the classical market, Mrs Jarley made extraordinary efforts to stimulate the popular taste, and whet the popular curiosity. Certain machinery in the body of the nun on the leads over the door was cleaned up and put in motion, so that the figure shook its head paralytically all day long, to the great admiration ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... and useful pleasure, such as human life doth need or require. And if jocular discourse may serve to good purposes of this kind; if it may be apt to raise our drooping spirits, to allay our irksome cares, to whet our blunted industry, to recreate our minds being tired and cloyed with graver occupations; if it may breed alacrity, or maintain good humour among us; if it may conduce to sweeten conversation and endear society; then is it not inconvenient, or unprofitable. If for those ends we may use other recreations, ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... soon brings him to a stand still, and as, in such cases, it is not allowed for one to sharpen without the other, he turns to his antagonist, now far ahead, and inquires, in a tone of despair, "When d'ye wiffle-waffle (whet), mate?" "Waffle!" said the farmer, with a well-feigned stare of amazement, "O, about noon mebby." "Then," said the despairing spirit, "That thief of a Christian has done me;" and so saying, he disappeared and was never heard ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... conjoined with one of the bitter things which Ecclesiastes is fond of saying about those whom he calls 'fools.' It seems to repeat, under another metaphor, the same idea which has been presented in a previous verse, where we read: 'If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength; but wisdom is profitable to direct.' That is to say, skill is better than strength; brain saves muscle; better sharpen your axe than put yourself into a perspiration, hitting fierce blows with a blunt one. The prerogative ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... he saw in the rose-house. Strangely enough, the thought of his fiancee leaning on the shoulder of another man did not in the least diminish the ardor of Offitt. His passion was entirely free from respect or good-will. He used the story to whet the edge of Sam's ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... (Running forward from behind.) O lud! he'll murder my poor boy, my darling! Here, good gentleman, whet your rage upon me. Take my money, my life, but spare that young gentleman; spare my child, if you have ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... forenoon Sam managed to earn ten cents, and was forced to content himself with a very economical dinner. There was a place on Ann street, where, for this small sum, a plate of meat and a potato were furnished, but enough only to whet the appetite of a hearty boy like Sam. A suspicion did enter his mind as he rose from the table penniless once more, and his appetite still unsatisfied, that he had bought his liberty dearly, if ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... talked, seemed unpleasant and odd. He excused himself for being late, and was about to sit down between Missy and Katerina Alexeevna, but old Korchagin insisted that if he would not take a glass of vodka he should at least take a bit of something to whet his appetite, at the side table, on which stood small dishes of lobster, caviare, cheese, and salt herrings. Nekhludoff did not know how hungry he was until he began to eat, and then, having taken some bread and cheese, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... eaten on Passover-eve from the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice (in order, i.e. that abstinence may whet the appetite for the Matsoth). Even the poorest in Israel may not break his fast till the hour of reclining; nor is he to partake of less than four glasses of wine, even though he has been reduced so low as to subsist on the porridge ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... count's entreaties they only replied by hints of the difficulty or impropriety of summoning the spirits in the presence of a stranger, or of one who might perchance have no other motive than the gratification of a vain curiosity; but they only meant to whet the edge of his appetite by this delay, and would have been sorry indeed if the count had been discouraged. To shew how exclusively the thoughts both of Dee and Kelly were fixed upon their dupe at this time, it is only ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... wait they within that would snare me; There whet they their swords for my slaying. My bane they shall be not, the cowards, The brood of the churl and the carline. Let the twain of them find me and fight me In the field, without shelter to shield them, ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... was laughing, the dwarf grew all at once into a great giant, whose head was higher than the clouds, and whose long beard fell down to his knees. The giant began to whet his axe on a huge piece of rock, and before he had finished he had worn out six blocks of the hardest rock and seven of the softest sandstone. Then he strode up to the tree and began to cut it down. When the third ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... body aside savagely, bit through the ends of the three eggs, wishing they were young thrushes, and leaped to the ground. There he just tasted the brain of his victim to whet his appetite, listened a moment, crouching among the dead leaves, to the melody overhead, wishing it were darker, so that the hermit would come down and he could end his wicked work. Then he glided ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... crimes. Let Israel's foes suspect his heavenly call, And rashly judge his wit apocryphal; Our laws for such affronts have forfeits made; He takes his life who takes away his trade. Were I myself in witness Corah's place, The wretch who did me such a dire disgrace, Should whet my memory, though once forgot, 670 To make him an appendix of my plot. His zeal to heaven made him his prince despise, And load his person with indignities. But zeal peculiar privilege affords, Indulging latitude to deeds and words: And Corah might for Agag's murder call, In terms as coarse as Samuel ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... than the wisest of the most learned Colleges in Italy! That men of the slightest learning, and the most ignorant of the common people, were mad for a new, or super, or re-reformation of Religion; and that in this they appeared like that man, who would never cease to whet and whet his knife, till there was no steel left to make it useful." And he concluded his letter with this observation, "That those very men that were most busy in oppositions, and disputations, and controversies, ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... one banana to people who were on the very brink of perishing from starvation? It only served to whet their appetite for more. I would not, however, allow them to have any more just then; I was cruel to be kind, and resolutely turned a deaf ear alike to their entreaties and their reproaches, as I did to the cravings of my own ravenous hunger. I insisted that at least half an hour should ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... consequent struggle between Will and Power. The former faculty exacted approbation of that which it was considered orthodox to admire; the latter groaned forth its utter inability to pay the tax; it was then self-sneered at, spurred up, goaded on to refine its taste, and whet its zest. The more it was chidden, however, the more it wouldn't praise. Discovering gradually that a wonderful sense of fatigue resulted from these conscientious efforts, I began to reflect whether ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... rosy face, a pale green gown and a pair of tan-colored shoes were beginning to whet his curiosity. He wanted to see what the stranger was like, at ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... Fathom-wide his eyes were parted, Fathom-wide his trousers measured; Round his knee the girth was greater, And around his hip 'twas doubled. 160 Then he sharpened keen the axe-blade, Brought the polished blade to sharpness; Six the stones on which he ground it, Seven the stones on which he whet it. ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... firmly upon her imagination, she was reckless of discovery. After all, her Prince was proving exceptionally stupid and complaisant. Her words were gospel to him; and her frequent invisibility seemed only to whet his appetite for to-morrow. ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... by precedents, proofs by assertions, and thus they very often obtain victory in minor matters of detail. They see and know with admirable penetration, when one of them presents to another a weapon which she herself is forbidden to whet. It is thus that they sometimes lose a husband without intending it. They apply the match and long afterwards are ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... victory to get, Wherefore, dear lord, be wise, take care that yet A like misfortune happen not to you. Still in their lair the cubs and she-bear,[Q] who Rough pasturage and sour in May have met, With mad rage gnash their teeth and talons whet, And vengeance of past loss on us pursue: While this new grief disheartens and appalls, Replace not in its sheath your honour'd sword, But, boldly following where your fortune calls, E'en to its goal be glory's path explored, Which fame and honour ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... His tipple-tempted and intemperate throttle He robs himself of access to the bottle,— If robbery it's called—'tis not another, (Who is a swell, with cellars) his poor brother Deprives of that long-hackneyed, much-mouthed "glass." The British Workman is not quite an ass, And where he wants to whet (with beer) his throat, Where are you like to get your two-thirds Vote? Whether there's wisdom in this vaunted Veto, Is quite another question sense must see to. And general justice judge. But those who cheer The stale old fudge about the Poor Man's Beer, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... he had so often wounded been, Could stand on foot now to renew the fight ... All was thro' virtue of the ring he wore; The which not only did not from him let One drop of blood to fall, but did restore His weakened powers, and his dulled spirits whet. Spenser, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... suddenly snatched away in their impenitence and hardness of heart, a third was crippled for life. Yet the drink kept firm hold of its victims—the very night of the explosion the "George" gathered a golden harvest. Death in its ghastliest forms only seemed to whet the thirst for the drink. At one house, while the blackened corpse lay in its clothes on the outside of the bed, preparatory to its being laid out, the dead man's widow and her female helpers sat refreshing themselves, and ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... the birds. The keeper is just feeding them. The parrot shouts at him, and the pelican and the eagles gobble up their fish and raw meat, but the vulture just sits on his perch looking bored. Probably needs a desert and a dying Legionnaire to whet his appetite. ...
— It's like this, cat • Emily Neville
... Twirl her light limbs, that spurn the needless veil; Let Angiolini bare her breast of snow, Wave the white arm, and point the pliant toe; Collini trill her love-inspiring song, 630 Strain her fair neck, and charm the listening throng! Whet [97] not your scythe, Suppressors of our Vice! Reforming Saints! too delicately nice! By whose decrees, our sinful souls to save, No Sunday tankards foam, no barbers shave; And beer undrawn, and beards unmown, display Your ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... he met us. Sober, aye! But what a light there was in his eyes! He was eager to be at the Huns. Tales of their doings were coming back to us now, faster and faster. They were tales to shock me. But they were tales, too, to whet the courage and sharpen the steel of every man who could fight ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... addressed to bogus firms were indeed forwarded from the offices of delivery to the department as "fictitious" and "undeliverable," and many colluding postmasters were decapitated. Such petty measures of warfare served merely to annoy the vampires and to whet their diabolical ingenuity for the contrivance of new devices. Since the law of 1872 went into effect, however, the scoundrels have been compelled to travel a thorny road. Scores of arrests have been made, and in many cases the criminals have ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... have the honour of defending the coast against invasion. George desired to master gunnery instantly, and Resmith soothed him with the assurance that he would soon be sent away on a gunnery course, which would give him beans. And in the meantime George might whet his teeth on the detailed arrangements for feeding and camping the Battery on Epsom Downs. This organization gave George pause, especially when he remembered that the Battery was a very trifling item in the Division, and when Resmith casually informed him that a Division on the trek occupied ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... then to the King And Queene wassailing; And though, with ale, ye be whet here, Yet part ye from hence As free from offence As when ye innocent ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... beget white steel— ah no, it could not take within my reins its shelter; steel must seek steel, or hate make out of joy a whet-stone for a sword; sword against flint, Theseus sought Hippolyta; she yielded not nor broke, sword upon stone, from the clash leapt a spark, Hippolytus, born ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle
... climacteric is not come; hers is not yet a nation's manhood even; though now in childhood, she anticipates her youth, and lusts for empire like any czar. Yoomy! judge not yet. Time hath tales to tell. Many books, and many long, long chapters, are wanting to Vivenza's history; and whet history but ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... sensation in excess, With the vespertinal rumour and the matutinal lie Which adorn the lucubrations of the Press), Then I turn me to the columns where there's nothing to attract, Or the interest to waken and to whet, And I revel in a banquet of unmitigated fact In the ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... the night note of a little mouse-catching owl," said Addison. "Some term it the saw-whet owl, I believe. There are numbers of these little fellows about at night, in these woods. They catch lots of woods mice and such small ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... shaved hairs from the back of his hand, glanced along the edge with microscopic acuteness, and found, or feigned that he found, always, a slight inequality in its edge somewhere. Then he would put it on the stone again and whet, whet, whet, till I could have laughed aloud, ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... stockinged feet, and kneeling down by the closed door he laid his ear cautiously to the crack. To his intense annoyance he could distinguish little more; just a chance word here and there if a voice was raised, which merely served to whet his curiosity still farther. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... has come this stately game with the lure of Oriental mysticism to whet jaded appetites and with possibilities for study that ...
— Pung Chow - The Game of a Hundred Intelligences. Also known as Mah-Diao, Mah-Jong, Mah-Cheuk, Mah-Juck and Pe-Ling • Lew Lysle Harr
... made during the century. Serfdom or slavery was abolished from 1861 to 1866; restraints upon newspapers, publishers, and schools were partly withdrawn. Natural resources were developed, factories established, and railroads built. But these measures only served to whet the appetite of the people for more liberal government. The activities of revolutionists and reformers were met by most severe measures on the part of the government. Thousands were transported to Siberia and many were executed. Even as late as 1903 five thousand persons were imprisoned, exiled, ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson
... really been enraged for any strenuous cause, this incident would have operated merely as a preliminary whet to stimulate them to further bloodshed. But, as they were mostly actuated only by a natural desire for mischief, they were about as well satisfied with what had been done as if the Doctor himself were the victim. And besides, the fathers and respectabilities of the town, who had seen ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... only a flock of automobiles but a famous racing stable, rode to hounds, was a good field gun, patronized aviation and motor-boat racing, risked as many maximums during the Monte Carlo season as the Grand Duke Michael himself, and was always ready to whet rapiers or burn a little harmless powder of an early morning in the Parc ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... his eyes stuck out. "John," he said, and the restraint he put upon his voice rippled it, "John, don't tamper with the affections of an old and infirm man. Drive me off the bayou plantation, compel me to acknowledge and to feel that I am a hypercrite and a liar, but don't whet a sentiment and then cut my throat with it. Be merciful unto a sinner who ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... the dais and the door behind it. In the inner room the women stirred and whispered, while a dozen of them, putting on their veils again, gathered around Yasmini, waiting in silence for her to give the cue. She waited long enough to whet the edge of expectation, and then nodded. Hasamurti opened the door wide and Yasmini stepped forth, aglitter with ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... and sent him home to buy him a nightcap. If I wist there were any such knavery, or Peter Bales's brachygraphy,[58] under Sol's bushy hair, I would have a barber, my host of the Murrion's Head, to be his interpreter, who would whet his razor on his Richmond cap, and give him the terrible cut like himself, but he would come as near as a quart pot to the construction of it. To be sententious, not superfluous, Sol should have been beholding to the barber, and not to the beard-master.[59] ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various |
