"Sharp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of gnats at eventide Out of the fennes of Allan doe arise, Their murmuring small trompetts sownden wide, Whiles in the aire their clustring army flies, That as a cloud doth seeme to dim the skies; No man nor beast may rest or take repast For their sharp wounds and noyous injuries, Till the fierce northern wind with blustring blast Doth blow them quite away, and in the ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... would not know the difference." "And were his officers drunk too?" "O yes, they were all drunk together; men were bringing in pombe all day." "And did you get drunk?" "O yes," said Bombay, grinning, and showing his whole row of sharp-pointed teeth, "they WOULD make me drink; and then they showed me the place they assigned for your camp when you come over there. It was not in the palace, but outside, without a tree near it; anything but a nice-looking residence." I then ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... thought it spurious; but Washington, then President, with his usual clear-sightedness, at once recognized that it was genuine, and accepted it as proof of Great Britain's hostile feeling towards his country. Through the Secretary of State he wrote to the British Minister, calling him to sharp account, not only for Dorchester's speech but for the act of building a fort on the Miami, and for the double-dealing of his government, which protested friendship, with smooth duplicity, while their agents urged the savages to war. "At the very moment when the British Ministry were forwarding ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... sometimes of nights to work off odds and ends that his lack of system allowed to pile up on him. Jonathan, his friend, who had been hurt, whose stricken, accusing, contemptuous face danced before him. David's heart gave a sharp twinge at that. He hoped it was not Jonathan. He did not want ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... them; although they were fierce and proud in those wastes, and could not away with creatures that were not of their kind. So because of this Ralph had bidden Ursula not to fare abroad without her sword, which was sharp and strong, and she no weakling withal. He bethought him of this just as he had made an end of his spear-shaping, so therewith he looked aside and saw the said sword hanging to a bough of a little quicken-tree, which grew hard by the door. Fear came into his heart ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... appeared only a blue circle, the port-hole, then Goussiev began slowly to distinguish the man in the next hammock, Pavel Ivanich. He was sleeping in a sitting position, for if he lay down he could not breathe. His face was grey; his nose long and sharp, and his eyes were huge, because he was so thin; his temples were sunk, his beard scanty, the hair on his head long.... By his face it was impossible to tell his class: gentleman, merchant, or peasant; judging by his appearance and long hair he looked almost like a recluse, a lay-brother, ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... Don't shout till you're sure of them. Shaw is down by the stables. Dare and Evans you both come on with me. Shaw's got two men at the end of the glade, but it's the nearest coverts he is keenest on, because they can get a horse and cart up close to take the game, and get off sharp if they are surprised. They did last year. Don't stir if you hear wheels. Wait for them." And with this parting injunction Ralph disappeared noiselessly with Dare and the other keeper in the ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... ladies must be ladies, then that is our first duty; our second is to live. Do you not see why it is that this practical world does not permit ladies to make a living? Because if they could, none of them would ever consent to be married. Ha! women talk about marrying for love; but society is too sharp to trust them, yet! It makes it necessary to marry. I will tell you the honest truth; some days when I get very, very hungry, and we have nothing but rice—all because we are ladies without male protectors—I think society ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... could call the village, or the ruins which remained of it, their own. Meanwhile, on the other points of their defensive position; at Floing, St. Menges, Fleigneux, Illy, and, on the extreme left, at Iges, where a sharp bend of the Meuse forms a peninsula of the ground round which it slowly rolls; the French had been making a gallant struggle. In their ranks, even in advance of them, attended finally by a single aide-de-camp, all the others having been killed, was the emperor, cool, calm, and full of sorrow, earnestly ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... Philip, maddened just then by doubts and the coldness of her he loves, with the stick he carries strikes him a quick and sudden blow; not heavy, perhaps, but so unexpected as to draw from the pretty brute a sharp ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... by the tribe AEgeis, and stands before the house in which Andokides lived at that time. A man likewise leaped upon the altar of the Twelve Gods, sat astride upon it, and in that posture mutilated himself with a sharp stone. At Delphi too there is a golden statue of Pallas Athene standing upon a brazen palm tree, an offering made by the city of Athens from the spoils taken in the Persian war. This was for many days pecked at by crows, who ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... old man, with a pale sharp face and keen features. At first he eyed his visitor from the depths of his vast arm-chair; but, as if not, satisfied with this distant view, he bent forward, and laying both hands on his thin knees, he looked up into Ramin's ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... another kind. It was a self- repeater—of some violence, moreover, when the smallness of the hero is considered. Whether in after-life he become an astronomer-poet or a "silver-and-mechanical engineer"—both dreams of his—he will ever be sharp upon rescuing something. A lost star or a burning mine will be his objective, but with the essential condition that it be— unattainable. Achievement would mean lost interest. For Tim's desire was, ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... This sharp bend of the river has always been known as "Fiddler's Reach." Tradition says that in early days a band of explorers, who were searching along the river, passed through the "Reach," and came upon the ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... highest cannot temper Satan, Nor the lowest his vicegerents upon earth. I've seen you brave the elements, and bear Things which had made this silkworm[184] cast his skin— And shrink you from a few sharp sneers ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... before were harmless and full of play put forth claw, and sting, and tooth, and tusk. Birds whet their beak for prey. Clouds troop in the sky. Sharp thorns shoot up through the soft grass. Blastings on the leaves. All the chords of that great harmony are snapped. Upon the brightest home this world ever saw our first parents turned their back and led forth on a path of sorrow the broken-hearted ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... being paddled by four men, who ply their paddles facing forward, which always has an aboriginal look, those going down being propelled by single, square sails made of very coarse matting. It is very hot and silent. The only sounds are the rustle of the palm fronds and the sharp din of the cicada, abruptly ceasing at intervals. In this primitive police station the notices are in both Tamil and Arabic, but the reports are written in Arabic only. Soon after we sat down to drink fresh cocoa-nut milk, the great beverage of the country, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... husband in his prison. And it was not long before it began to be rumored that secret plots were forming to attempt the king's deliverance from his enemies. This alarmed the nobles more than ever. The queen and some others wrote sharp letters to the keepers of the castle for dealing so gently with their prisoner, and gave them hints that they ought to kill him. In the end, the fallen monarch was transported from one fortress to another, until at length he came to Berkeley Castle. The inducement which led Mortimer ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... on the writing-table. You'll find a small pair of very sharp scissors there too. The dark edges are so unsightly if not trimmed. You're sure you don't mind, dearest? It really will be quite a pleasant occupation. It is so dreadfully wet. And Maunder will give you the stickphast. There is clean blotting-paper on the writing-table too, and ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... busy with the boys, Pearl's sharp eyes were looking over her new schoolmates. Instinctively she knew that the pale little girl ahead of her must be Libby Anne Cavers. She had wondered often, since coming to the farm, how Libby Anne would regard the Watson ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... Western India the thermometer rarely falls very low. Nevertheless the difference between the day and night temperature is so great in some parts, and the fall in temperature in the small hours of the morning is so rapid, that it gives the impression of a sharp frost, even although the thermometer may have scarcely fallen below 50 deg.. But in the middle of the afternoon of the previous day it may have registered 90 deg. in the shade, and a drop of 40 deg. is keenly felt. In January 1911, without any warning, ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... It was so seldom any one came to the front door in the morning, and, indeed, not often in the afternoon either, and this knock sounded sharp and important somehow. Though I was still quite a little girl I knew it would vex grandmamma if I tried to peep out to see who it was—it was one of the things she would have said 'no lady should ever do'—and I could not bear her to think I ever forgot ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... hopes for them! We must look sharp to their journey; if they once get to prison, their only chances are the file and the bribe. Unhappily, neither of them is so lucky ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... nimble to remain still and receive whatever attack the other might rain upon him, and when Furniss' fist descended it missed its mark, to strike plump upon the sharp edge of a bar of iron, peeling the skin on its back ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... him justice, arguing very well. These chapters are full not merely of exuberant satire on America in the sense that Dotheboys Hall or Mr. Bumble's Workhouse are exuberant satires on England. They are full also of sharp argument with America as if the man who wrote expected retort and was prepared with rejoinder. The rest of the book, like the rest of Dickens's books, possesses humour. This part of the book, like hardly any of Dickens's books, possesses wit. The republican gentleman who ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... there dismounted, and taken off their fur mantles, they advanced naked to the charge. The only weapon of an Indian is a very long bamboo or chuzo, ornamented with ostrich feathers, and pointed by a sharp spear-head. My informer seemed to remember with the greatest horror the quivering of these chuzos as they approached near. When close, the cacique Pincheira hailed the besieged to give up their arms, or he would cut all ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... the ground but a moment, but in that moment he was horribly torn by the sharp fangs. At one place his entrails were laid bare. There were over sixty wounds on his little body. The dogs lapped up the blood that fell upon the ground and doorstep. That night the pack, like a pack of hungry wolves, congregated outside the window where they heard ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... 29th we began in the afternoon to load our horses. Mr. Walker's pathway was completed by means of a number of circuitous and sharp turnings: it led directly up the face of cliffs which were almost precipitous and 180 feet in height. To commemorate the completion of this really laborious undertaking I named the ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... come out for a little relaxation after a hard morning's work: no wonder, for we soon learn that he is the Jack Ketch of his day, and has, but an hour before, tucked up two brace of pirates. With this pleasing information, and a sharp dialogue on his favourite subject ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... these men vanished in the distance when the sky on the left assumed an appearance as though being overspread by a soft golden radiance, throwing the outline of the encircling cliffs in that direction into sharp relief, the stars thereabout paled into insignificant pin points of light ere they vanished altogether, and presently up sailed the full moon into view above the hill tops, instantly flooding the valley with her soft, mysterious effulgence, until in the course ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... now, of course, a studied science, and our colonel, who issued special guiding notes to his batteries, had a few sharp words to say one afternoon. The British soldier, old and new, is always happy when he is demolishing something; and a sergeant sent to prepare a pit for a forward gun had collected wood and corrugated iron for it by pulling ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... return of the Stuarts meant the return of something like absolute government, of taxation without sanction of law, and of religious persecution. Under the Hanoverian George the English people had begun to exercise a considerable measure of self-government. Sharp opposition in Parliament compelled him time and again to yield; and when he was in Hanover the English were left to work out the problem ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... little Pussy, And then she will purr, And thus show her thanks For my kindness to her; I'll not pinch her ears, Nor tread on her paw, Lest I should provoke her To use her sharp claw; I never will vex her, Nor make her displeased, For Pussy can't bear To be ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... distant to be distinctly heard, but every now and then there was mingled with them the short, sharp bark ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... flowing so copiously from my wounded side I became seriously alarmed, and as a last resort threw myself upon the edge of the desk and with the entire weight of my body pressed the animal against a sharp corner. It was at this moment that the cat began to utter the most discordant cries to which I ever listened, and as doubtless I was somewhat excited at the time and lost a measure of my self-control, I have no question that ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... Khnumu made for him a mate to dwell with him. She was more beautiful in her limbs than any woman who is in the whole land. The essence of every god was in her. The seven Hathors came to see her: they said with one mouth, "She will die a sharp death." ...
— Egyptian Literature
... she was looked upon with fear by all the villagers. Her manner was brusque, her speech sharp, and her criticism of neglectful mothers caustic and much to the point. Prim, always in black bonnet and jet-trimmed cape of years gone by, both in summer and winter, she took no heed of the vagaries of fashion, even when they reached ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... longs to know who is his mother. Seeing an unwonted dejection in him Xuthus learns the reason. Ion is afraid of the bar on his birth which will disqualify him from residence at Athens, where absolute legitimacy was essential; his life at Delphi was in sharp contrast, it was one of perfect content and eternal novelty. Xuthus tells him he will take him to Athens merely as a sightseer; he is afraid to anger his wife with his good fortune; in time he will win her consent to Ion's ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... after mile in cool emptiness. At rare intervals, a mounted messenger clattered over the stones, his hand upon his weapon, his eyes rolling sharply in a keen watch of the thicket on either side. Still more rarely, foraging parties swept through the morning stillness, lowing cows pricked to a sharp trot before them, and squawking fowls slung over their broad shoulders. Captured pigs gave back squeal for squawk, and the voices of the riders rose in uproarious laughter until the very echoes revolted and ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... his peaked cap as Jan turned away. It was very rare that Jan came out with a lecture; and when he did, the sufferers did not like it. A sharp word from Jan ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... looked not badly for that stage of youth, though of course she might have been handsomer at twenty, as is often the case with women. She wore a not unbecoming cap; frequent headaches had thinned her locks somewhat of late years. Features a little too sharp, a keen, gray eye, a quick and restless glance, which rather avoided being met, gave the impression that she was a wide-awake, cautious, suspicious, and, ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... man," said the captain, "you're cracking on too much steam. Honestly, Fred, I've kept a sharp eye on you for two or three months, and I am right glad you can let whisky alone. I've seen times when I wished I were in your boots; but steamboats can't be run without liquor, however it may ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Geirrod hastily drew his sword, intending to slay the insolent singer; but when he beheld the sudden transformation he started in dismay, tripped, fell upon the sharp blade, and perished as Odin had just foretold. Turning to Agnar, who, according to some accounts, was the king's son, and not his brother, for these old stories are often strangely confused, Odin bade him ascend the throne in reward for his humanity, and, further ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... note-book, lounged at the end of the table on the chance of getting some good copy out of whatever might turn up; some of the police officials whom Lauriston had already seen stood chatting with the police surgeon and a sharp-eyed legal looking man, who was attended by a clerk; outside the open door, a group of men, evidently tradesmen and householders of the district, hung about, looking as if they would be glad to get back to their businesses and occupations. Melky, coming in a few minutes after Lauriston had ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... the voice is something marvellous, for all its great power is derived from three sounds only, the grave sound, the sharp sound, and the moderate sound, and from these comes all that sweet variety which is brought to perfection in songs. But there is also in speaking a sort of concealed singing, not like the peroration of rhetoricians from Phrygia or Caria, which is nearly a chant, ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... what a heart must I have to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men and cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... she fiercely attacked the marauder, and compelled him to drop her kitten in order to defend himself. A regular combat now commenced, the hawk fighting with beak and talons, and rising occasionally on his wings. It seemed likely that he would thus gain the victory; still more when he struck his sharp beak into one of Pussy's eyes, while he tore her ears into shreds with his talons. At length, however, she managed what had been from the first her aim—to break one of her adversary's wings. She now sprang on him with renewed ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... she cried in sharp protest. "You do not, and you cannot! You think you love what you think I am. But I am not that; it is all quite different; when you, know, when you realise, ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... costume of 1740, strolling full of thought "in the shady walk of ideas." In a third plate, the Prince is conversing with a fairy who rises out of a gooseberry which he has plucked: two dwarfs, discovered in another gooseberry, give a sharp fillip to the Prince, who seems much embarrassed by their tiny maliciousness. In another walk he eats an apricot, which opens with the most beautiful of faces, a little melancholy, and leaning on one side. In another print, he finds the body of his lovely face and the hands, and he adroitly ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... yet ungovernable and lawless earth—that so depraved them. She felt she would like to say this to some one—not her father, for he wouldn't listen to her, nor to the major, who would laughingly argue with her, but to Mrs. Randolph, who would understand her, and perhaps say it some day in her own sharp, sneering way to these very clowns. With those gentle sentiments irradiating her blue eyes, and putting a pink flush upon her fair cheeks, Rose reached the garden with the intention of rushing sympathetically into Mrs. Randolph's arms. But it ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... of Mesa Blanca was twenty miles from the hacienda of Soledad, and a sharp spur of the Carrizal range divided their grazing lands. Soledad reached a hundred miles south and Mesa Blanca claimed fifty miles to the west, so that the herds seldom mingled, but word filtered to and from between the vaqueros, ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... of the past, during which these weapons assumed a more formidable aspect than at others; and never were they more formidable than in the times of the Coal Measures. The teeth of the Rhizodus—a ganoidal fish of our coal fields—were more sharp and trenchant than those of the crocodile of the Nile, and in the larger specimens fully four times the bulk and size of the teeth of the hugest reptile of this species that now lives. The dorsal ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... an old man, prince, but the fact of my having made you an honourable proposition does not give you the right to insult me." The words were spoken in a sharp, determined voice, and brought Montevarchi to his senses. He was a terrible coward and would rather go to a considerable expense ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... moment a sharp exclamation broke from him. He plunged a hand into the pocket and drew out the token he ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... said; "it is sharp and to the point. You have a nice style and an original way of putting things. I accepted your story for the Argonaut; it may not appear for some months, but it will certainly be published before ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... his distress. Episcopacy was restored as the form of Church government for Scotland, and bishops were consecrated; but it was left to time and the gradual power of imitation to secure the introduction of a ritual into the worship of the Church. Charles the Second and his minion, Sharp, did not deem it wise to undertake a work in which Charles the First and Laud had so signally failed, the work of imposing a ritual of worship upon the Scottish Church; Episcopal government had been imposed, Episcopal worship it was hoped ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston
... came out upon the steps with his overcoat on. "Look sharp about getting the horses in!" ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... serenading their officers; and this particular evening was the occasion of much merry-making, since a majority of the brass bands were to be mustered out of the service to-morrow. We could hear the roll of drums from imperceptible localities, and the sharp winding of bugles broke upon the silence like the trumpet of the Archangel. Stalwart shapes of horsemen galloped past us, and their hoofs made monotone behind, till the cadence died so gradually away that we did not know when the sound ceased and when ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... is thy temper and free from sharp harshness. Thou layest aside thy pride in thy every act, and among thy friends thou art counted a friend and equal, thou teachest men to follow thee and seekest to be loved ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... des Saules, descended by its steep slope, between mossy walls, to the other side of Paris. The three francs which he was holding in his cassock's pocket, filled him at once with gentle emotion and covert anger against the futility of charity. But as he gradually descended by the sharp declivities and interminable storeys of steps, the mournful nooks of misery which he espied took possession of him, and infinite pity wrung his heart. A whole new district was here being built alongside the broad thoroughfares ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... in search of an unknown continent,—a vessel shaped somewhat like a strung bow, scarcely fifty feet in length, low amidships and curving upwards to high peaks at stem and stern, both of which converged to sharp edges. It resembled an enormous canoe rather than aught else to which we can compare it. On the stem was a carved and gilt dragon, the figurehead of the ship, which glittered in the bright rays of the sun. Along the bulwarks of the ship, fore and aft, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... which then Seem'd as unquestion'd as an oracle- But, greatness hath his cankers. Worms and moths Breed out of too much humour, in the things Which after they consume, transferring quite The substance of their makers into themselves. Macro is sharp, and apprehends: besides, I know him subtle, close, wise, and well-read In man, and his large nature; he hath studied Affections, passions, knows their springs, their ends, Which way, and whether they will work: 'tis proof Enough of his great merit, that we trust him. Then to ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... behind an empty box and hurried away. The voices of women broke the stillness of the room in which he stood. Their thin sharpness hurt something within him and he could not bear the thought of the equally thin sharp silence he knew would fall upon the women who were attending his mother's body in the room above when he came into the presence ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... the gathering darkness prevented her sharp companion from seeing the blush on her face, for among her own sacred possessions she kept an autograph letter of Maggie's, and she had passionately kissed Maggie's beautiful face as it looked at her out of a photograph, and, until the moment when all her feelings had undergone such a change, ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... which brings all beings to their level, And sharp Adversity, will teach at last Man,—and, as we would hope,—perhaps the Devil, That neither of their intellects are vast: While Youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel, We know not this—the blood flows on too fast; But as the torrent widens towards the Ocean, We ponder deeply ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... young man sure enough with his instructor over his books and plans of fortification. Mademoiselle and her card-screens were in the room, but behind those screens she could not hide her blushes and confusion from Mrs. Newcome's sharp glances. In one moment the banker's wife saw the whole affair—the whole mystery which had been passing for months under poor M. de Blois' nose, without his having the least ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... started up with the eagerness of those whose lives have flowed too long in the channels of stillness and peace. Here was a possibility of adventure not to be lost for any consideration. Aunt Jane dropped her pan with a sharp clang; I gathered up my skirt with its measure of unshelled beans, and together we rushed to the ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... turned to account in the study of grammar and orthography, and writing was taught by imitation, though the "copy-book" was not paper, but a tablet covered with a thin coating of wax, and the pen a stylus, pencil-shaped, sharp at one end and flat at the other, so that the mark made by the point might be smoothed out by reversing the instrument. Thus vertere stilum, to turn the stylus, meant to correct or to erase. ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... for. Was this because I had already generalised to the point of perceiving that women are really the unfastidious sex? I knew at any rate that Gravener, already quite in view but still hungry and frugal, had naturally enough more ambition than charity. He had sharp aims for stray sovereigns, being in view most from the tall steeple of Clockborough. His immediate ambition was to occupy e lui seul the field of vision of that smokily-seeing city, and all his movements and postures were calculated for the favouring ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... feeders the entire length of the building from back to front, the wiring up of the dynamos and switchboard and all instruments, together with bus-bars, etc.—in fact, all labor and material used in the electrical wiring installation—amounted to the sum of $90. I received a rather sharp letter from the New York office expostulating for this EXTRAVAGANT EXPENDITURE, and stating that great economy must be observed in future!" The street conductors were of the overhead pole-line construction, and were installed by the construction company that had been organized by Edison ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... with light-green fronds ten feet long, having small leaves a quarter of an inch in breadth, and about eight inches in length, and a quarter of an inch apart, growing from each side, and coming to a sharp point. They spread out like the top of the grass-tree, and the fruit has a large kernel about the size of an egg, with a hard shell; the inside has the taste of a cocoa-nut, but when roasted is like a potato. Here we have also the india-rubber tree, the cork-tree, and ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... might be coming, and wait, wait, wondering dully whether Mr. May was doing anything to avert this ruin, and whether, at any moment, he might walk in, bringing safety in the very look of his bold eyes. Cotsdean was not bold; he was small and weakly, and nervous, and trembled at a sharp voice. He was not a man adapted for vigorous struggling with the world. Mr. May could do it, in whose hands was the final issue. He was a man who was afraid of no one; and whose powers nobody could deny. Surely now, even at the last moment, he would find help somehow. It seemed ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... would send you instead of a note a telegram. Or it might be that you had drawn a picture, or, as a cub reporter, had shown golden promise in a half column of unsigned print, R. H. D. would find you out, and find time to praise you and help you. So it was that when he emerged from his room at sharp eight o'clock, he was wide-awake and happy and hungry, and whistled and double-shuffled with his feet, out of excessive energy, and carried in his hands a whole sheaf of ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... mangoes are large, put a small cucumber, and two beans in each. Wipe each mango perfectly dry before the stuffing is put in; sew each up, and tie twine around it; then put them in a pot, and pour the pot two-thirds full of sharp vinegar; pour sweet oil on the top till covered. The ingredients must be mixed with sweet oil. The spices, &c. mentioned, are sufficient for a ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... whose joyful scorn, Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain The knots that tangle human creeds, [1] The wounding cords that [2] bind and strain The heart until it bleeds, Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn Roof not a glance so keen as thine: If aught of prophecy be mine, Thou ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... growling, punctuated by a woman's sharp scream. The man was off at racing speed towards the van, which was ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... walked in here," she explained, "I thought this was a pretty sharp little outfit ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... of the musculature of worms and crustacea, and of the mechanism of the motion of the segmented body in the Arthropoda, is of much value in relation to the mechanical genesis of the body segments and limbs of the members of this type. Dr. B. Sharp has also discussed the same subject (American Naturalist, 1893, p. 89), also Graber in his works, while the present writer in his Text-book of Entomology (1898) has attempted to treat of the mechanical origin of ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... began Ruthven, stepping back, one hand reaching for the door-knob; but Selwyn's voice rang out clean and sharp: ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... was walking thoughtfully in the street, reflecting upon his difficult situation, when his sharp ears caught the sound of his nephew's name, pronounced by two boys, or young men, in front of him. Not to keep the reader in suspense, they were Maurice Walton and a friend of ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... am certainly very stupid not to have thought of that," she said. Acton looked down at his boots, as if he thought he had perhaps reached the limits of legitimate experimentation, and for a moment Eugenia said nothing more. It had been, in fact, a sharp knock, and she needed to recover herself. This was done, however, promptly enough. "Where are the ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... followed. Outside the gates there was incessant chugging of automobiles, mingled with the shouted orders of the three policemen detailed to direct the traffic. A pinched, ragged urchin and his tattered little sister crept up and peered wildly through the iron pickets of the fence; but a sharp rap from a policeman's club sent them scattering. Carmen stood for a moment in the shadows and watched the swarm mount the marble steps and enter through those wonderful doors. There were congressmen and senators, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... find that the Duke of York has yet visited you; if he should, it may be expensive, 'mais on trouvera moyen'. As for the lady, if you should be very sharp set for some English flesh, she has it amply in her power to supply you if she pleases. Pray tell me in your next, what you think of, and how you like, Prince Henry of ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... train who had been robbing a man. We were then a few miles below the Sixty-two Mile Siding, and I knew there were no officers there; so we got off at the Siding, and on the down train we spied an officer who was coming from Winona after us. Then we took to the hills, and kept a sharp lookout, where we could see and not be seen. The officer asked where we had gone, and the railroad people told them down the road. They returned to Winona, and he offered a reward of fifty dollars for the watch, and $100 for the return ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... rumbling of thunder. And she had heard the middle voice of the Middle Bear, but it was only as if she had heard someone speaking in a dream. But when she heard the little, small, wee voice of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, it was so sharp, and so shrill, that it awakened her at once. Up she started; and when she saw the Three Bears on one side of the bed, she tumbled herself out at the other, and ran to the window. Now the window was open, because the bears, like good, tidy bears as ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... differences in climate, mineral resources, and levels of technology among the republics accentuated this interdependence, as did the communist practice of concentrating much industrial output in a small number of giant plants. The breakup of many of the trade links, the sharp drop in output as industrial plants lost suppliers and markets, and the destruction of physical assets in the fighting all have contributed to the economic difficulties of the republics. One singular factor in the economic ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... fabric. The religious ideals taught him by his good mother took deep root. But the day arrived when the expansion of his intellect reached such a point as to enable him to detect a flaw in her reasoning. It was but a little rift, yet the sharp edge of doubt slipped in. Alas! from that hour he ceased to drift with the current of popular theological belief; his frail bark turned, and launched out upon the storm-tossed sea, where only the outstretched hand of the Master, treading the heaving billows through the thick gloom, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the response. "I sort of like it here. It reminds me of the way I fooled them all back there; and they thinking themselves that sharp, too. It's sort of nice, too, looking at the stars—sort of feels like a bird in ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... again,—fired again, and a great block of ice keeled over and slid down. As fast did I leap down stairs into the cabin, as if I should be safe there. As I landed, I felt the great iceberg tremble; then came a sharp, quick, terrible crash, as if forty thunders had broken all together right over my head, and the great hill of ice sank grandly and slowly into the ocean below. For a minute or two, I could hear the roar of the waters as they opened to receive the huge mass, and the berg rocked as if in ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... where they were joined by Sir Humphrey Colquhoun of Luss, and James Grant of Plascander, his son-in-law, followed by forty or fifty stately fellows in their short hose and belted plaids, armed each of them with a well-fixed gun on his shoulder, a strong handsome target, with a sharp-pointed steel of above half an ell in length screwed into the navel of it, on his left arm, a sturdy claymore by his side, and a pistol or two, with a dirk and knife, in his belt."—Rae's History of ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... paper and an old steel pen, which looked as if the point had been attenuated to that hair-like fineness by sheer age. He started at the sight of me, which caused him to drop a very large blot of ink from the very sharp point of the pen on to his paper. I left him wiping it up with his handkerchief. But it never struck me that he was writing a letter on the same subject as Fred and I had been writing about. He was, however: and Mr. ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... began housekeeping in a flat. It was a lonesome flat—something like the A sharp way down at the left-hand end of the keyboard. And they were happy; for they had their Art, and they had each other. And my advice to the rich young man would be—sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor—janitor for ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... Communism has itself been shaken by a fierce and mighty force: the readiness of men who love freedom to pledge their lives to that love. Through the night of their bondage, the unconquerable will of heroes has struck with the swift, sharp thrust of lightning. Budapest is no longer merely the name of a city; henceforth it is a new and shining symbol of ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... and then fell back again on that shore; some running after the sea-birds, which ran with quick light feet along the wet sand, and ever flew off, skimming just along the wave-top, and uttering a quick sharp note as the children came close upon them:—so some sported in one way, and some in another, but all were busily at play. Now I wondered in my dream to see these children thus busy whilst the burning mountain lay close behind them, and the thunder ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... command of Gen. Blunt, moved upon the enemy, about six thousand strong, commanded by Gen. Cooper, and encamped at Honey Springs, twenty miles south of Fort Gibson. Our forces came upon the enemy on the morning of the 17th of July, and after a sharp and bloody engagement of two hours' duration, the enemy was totally defeated, with a loss of four hundred killed and wounded, and one hundred prisoners. At the height of the engagement, Gen. Blunt ordered Colonel Williams to move ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... "What wit so sharp is found in youth or age That can distinguish truth from treachery? Falsehood puts on the face of simple truth, And masks i' th' habit of plain honesty, When she in heart intends ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... procured two knives; the one a sharp surgical knife, from a case which he had brought; the other he placed in a charcoal fire, which one of the men speedily fanned, until the blade had attained a white heat. Charlie had decided that, if the snake bit Tim, he would instantly make a deep cut through ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... a short, thick, swarthy young gentleman, with wiry black hair, a nose somewhat flat, sharp eyes, and tusky mouth; altogether not very unlike a terrier. His tastes were unknown: he had not travelled, nor done anything very particular, except, with a few congenial spirits, beat the Guards in a rowing-match, a pretty diversion, and almost as conducive to a small ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... five or six in the course of an English summer. The moon was at her full, and, the twilight ended, she filled the heavens with her light. Every twig and blade of grass showed out as clearly as in the day, but looked like frosted silver. The silence was intense, and so still was the air that the sharp shadows of the trees were motionless upon the grass, only growing with the growing hours. It was one of those nights that fill us with an indescribable emotion, bringing us into closer companionship with the unseen than ever does the garish, busy day. In such an hour, we can sometimes feel, ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... my way back to terra firma by turning sharply to the right or the left. As I led Pornic over the sands I was startled by the faint pop of a rifle across the river; and at the same moment a bullet dropped with a sharp "whit" close to ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling |
