"Whet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Peary to the contrary, he will eat anything. "He will not eat anything but meat," says Peary; "I have tried and I know." No dog accustomed to a flesh diet willingly leaves it for other food; the dog is a carnivorous animal. But hunger will whet his appetite for anything that his bowels can digest. "Muk," the counterpart of Peary's "King Malamute," has thriven for years on his daily ration of dried fish, tallow, and rice, and eats biscuits and doughnuts whenever he can get them. The malamute is affectionate ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... talking," muttered the cook, "but such wonders cannot be. Only ignorant old women or foreigners would believe that a fish could talk." And seizing his former master by the tail, he swung him on to a table, picked up a knife, and began to whet ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... it was plain the captain agreed with every interruption, and they seemed to whet his interest in the story he had undertaken to tell. ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... spurned so hard that both his feet went through the boat and he stood on the bottom of the sea. He pulled the serpent up to the gunwale; and in truth no one has ever seen a more terrible sight than when Thor whet his eyes on the serpent, and the latter stared at him and spouted venom. It is said that the giant Hymer changed hue and grew pale from fear when he saw the serpent and beheld the water flowing into the boat; but just at the moment ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... about its base. Behind it was the living-room with its open door and table already set for dinner. A savory odor issued thence and set the girls to thinking how remarkably hungry they were, despite their late and substantial breakfast. Also, to wondering if Nova Scotia air was to whet their appetites this way ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... lawyer's eloquence fell on deaf ears; or rather, as the captain said, all his reasons did but whet my eagerness until I fairly tingled with the imagined delight of matching myself against the hostility of the elements and man. And so he at last desisted, and gave a grudging compliance to my purpose; and Mistress Pennyquick ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... German province, to Spain or Portugal, Nay, any where that not adheres to England,— Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased To find a nation of such barbarous temper, That, breaking out in hideous violence, Would not afford you an abode on earth, Whet their detested knives against your throats, Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants Were not all appropriate to your comforts, But chartered unto them, what would you think To be thus used? this ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... behold his face in them. Some of them vpon the necke of their launce haue an hooke, wherewithall they attempt to pull men out of their saddles. The heads of their arrowes are exceedingly sharpe cutting both wayes like a two edged sworde, and they alwaies carie a file in their quiuers to whet their arrowheads. They haue targets made of wickers, or of small reddes. Howbeit they doe not (as we suppose) accustome to carrie them, but onely about the tents or in the Emperours or dukes guards, and that only in the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... and the stakes are set,— Ever sing merrily, merrily; The bows they bend, and the knives they whet, Hunters live ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... "Whet your tusks, lads, here's the blessed manna!" squealed Caliban, a hunchbacked terror, who kept his maimed carcass secure by virtue of his viperish temper, coupled with an uncanny skill of the cutlas. "Milo's our man! Huzza ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... judgement. On a ship of war, for instance, [2] the ship is on the high seas, and the crew must row whole days together to reach moorings. [3] Now note the difference. Here you may find a captain [4] able by dint of speech and conduct to whet the souls of those he leads, and sharpen them to voluntary toils; and there another so dull of wit and destitute of feeling that it will take his crew just twice the time to finish the same voyage. See them step on shore. The first ship's company are drenched in sweat; but listen, ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... was 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 soon answered. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... 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 I might not dispense with that great labour, and concluded ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... 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 spoil the ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... instead of adorning it. And in a lonely place none of them would face the onset of a wild beast; the sponger will, though, and find no difficulty in disposing of it; his table familiarity with it has bred contempt. A stag or a wild boar may put up its bristles; he will not mind; the boar may whet its tusks against him; he only returns the compliment. As for hares, he is more deadly to them than a greyhound. And then in the dining-room, where is his match, to jest or to eat? Who will contribute most to entertainment, ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... 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
... have been in the army myself once; but I liked the commission I have better. Come, captain, let not your noble courage be cast down; what say you to a glass of white wine, or a tiff of punch, by way of whet?" ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... ever," said Teezle, "much as ever that the critter didn't mutton you. She skipped like a painter, and whet up her teeth for a whalin' bite. But don't think on it now. Here, who'll tell a good story, and cheer up Fabens a little? Uncle Walt, tell one of your painter stories. That 'll ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... never be too old. Yet who does not mark in the calendar those days wherein he has met a new rich soul, that has a physiognomy, a grace and expression, peculiarly its own? Even decided repulsions have also a use. We whet our conscience on our neighbors' faults, as sober Spartans were made by the spectacle of drunken Helots;—though he who makes habitual talk about his neighbors' faults whets his conscience across the edge. If there be sermons in stones, no less is there blessing in bores and in bullies. We found ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... sunk them in the sea; not content to have defeated gods, they pursued the wrecks of the fleet with such rage, as if they would destroy them to satiate their deadly passion for war. Thus doth prosperity commonly whet the edge of licence. The haven, recalling by its name Balder's flight, bears witness to the war. Gelder, the King of Saxony, who met his end in the same war, was set by Hother upon the corpses of his oarsmen, and then laid on a pyre built of vessels, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... 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 of your ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... too, is lost to me forever, through the over-conscientiousness of our late conductor, who says there never was a Mena, only several kings they've mixed into one. I seem to be the one who's most mixed up! To whet my appetite for Egypt now, I have to have something tasty. Where's the good of stuffing my mind with a string of names which I couldn't mention to any one at home, because I can't pronounce them? The word Dynasty (he pronounced it Die-nasty) makes ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... make coming to her a privilege. Just because she had let him think he saw a bit of her heart that night, she meant to hold him off. Not too long, for he was not sufficiently bound to her to be safe from forgetting, but just long enough to whet his eagerness. Her former experience in such matters had taught her to expect that he would probably call her up and beg to see her sooner, when she might relent if he was humble enough. And she had not misjudged him. ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... a fellur as I met oncest at Bent's Fort on the Arkinsaw— a odd sort o' a critter he wur, an no mistake; he us't to go pokin about, gatherin' weeds an' all sorts o' green garbitch, an' spreadin' 'em out atween sheets o' paper—whet he called button-eyesin—jest like thet ur Dutch doctur as wur rubbed out when we went into the Navagh country, t'other side ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... during a delightful interval of about twenty minutes, I enjoyed the pleasures of eating, sleeping, resting, and warming myself, almost all at the same time. To all who would know how to enjoy most intensely a good fire, shelter, sunshine, and the dry soft turf I would recommend, by way of whet, a winter night on a lofty mountain, without fire, amidst frost-covered rocks and clouds of sleet. I shall long remember the pleasure of those moments of repose which I enjoyed on my arrival in the warm valley after such a night. We could afford no longer delay however, having ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... 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 erasing marks; ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... statement that is practical and dry (Being sated with 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
... concert was Saturday—a day on which I rarely saw her, as it was my habit to spend all Sunday with her. I was always somewhat an epicure in my moral nature. I liked to pet my inclinations, as I have seen good livers whet their appetites, ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... they had met with a storm at sea, which had overset some of them; for it had blown very hard the night after they went off. However, as some might miscarry, so, on the other hand, enough of them escaped to inform the rest, as well of what they had done as of what had happened to them; and to whet them on to another enterprise of the same nature, which they, it seems, resolved to attempt, with sufficient force to carry all before them; for except what the first man had told them of inhabitants, they could say little of it of their ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... had also 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 Swift's stately Margaret; General ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... Thou borest him home to a brighter morning, Didst serve him with armor and whet his sword For satire's assaults and for laughter's warning. Thou spirit all knowing, Our mother-tongue, The ages foregoing, The future now growing, The present glowing,— ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... KING. Such 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 ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... "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 ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... had left everything behind, as though it were no longer of any value whatever. No 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
... The hussars taken on board that vessel were those who guarded the scaffold at the execution of the unfortunate Lewis—they are clothed in scarlet jackets trimmed with gold and fur, and wear each the butcher's steel, on which they whet their knives, to whet their swords with. It is reported that Hoche and Reilly (one of the admirals) are gone off to America with seven hundred thousand pounds in specie that was on board their vessel ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... can't keep them both out—you have no candidate of your own—why should you object to earning a few pounds by helping one of them to get in? There are plenty of voters who are doubtful whet to do; as you and I know there is every excuse for them being unable to make up their minds which of these two candidates is the worse, a word from your party would decide them. Since you have no candidate of your own ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... to this spot had nothing but a misty and spectral outline. It was indefinite in the date, uncertain as to persons, mysterious as to the event,—just such a tradition as to whet the edge of one's curiosity and to leave it hopeless of gratification. I may relate it in a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... plot of Dickens's contorted narrative, and after putting the successive episodes into their true sequence, Poe asserted that "the thesis of the novel may thus be regarded as based upon curiosity," and he declared that "every point is so arranged as to perplex the reader and whet his desire for elucidation." He insisted "that the secret be well kept is obviously necessary," because if it leaks out "against the author's will, his purposes are immediately at odds and ends." Then he remarked that altho "there can be no question that ... many points ... which ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... parliamentary campaign. He signified to the corporation and freeholders his intention of presenting his son, Lord George, and his desire that the latter should be elected their burgess; but he scarcely gave so much as a glass of beer to whet the devotedness of his adherents: and I, as I need not say, engaged every tavern in ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... is a reaper, Death his name; His might from God the highest came. Today his knife he'll whet, 'Twill cut far better yet; Soon he will come and mow, And we must bear the woe— ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... harmony, together, bears a strong witness of the value of the object of attack. The sop that was thus thrown to the greedy demon of religious strife, was by no means successful in satisfying or appeasing him; like most other similar concessions, it served only to whet the appetite for more; and it is to God's undeserved mercies, not to her own efforts, or to the wisdom of her rulers, that England herself owes the preservation at that time of her national Church. And now that the Church and School Corporation in Australia has been ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... only, but the guests. The breakfast was by no means a matter of form. People had evidently come with more serious intentions, than merely to display new bonnets, and trifle with grapes and peaches. Sea-air gives a whet to even a lady's appetite, and if the performances that morning were any criterion of the effects of that of Glyndewi, the new Poor Law Commissioners, in forming their scale of allowances, must really have reported it a "special case." The fair Cambrians, in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... me over his knee and lambasted me to his heart's content. In spite of all this discipline, which one would have thought effective enough to take me out of the lists of Parnassus forever, it on the contrary served only to whet my thirst for writing, and from that time until now I have never gotten over my desire to chisel out sonnets, triolets, rondeaux and lyrics of ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... celebration of war expeditions — and the old men got the greater part of the meat. The Igorot is a natural head-hunter, and his training for the last sixty years seems to have done little more for him than whet ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... and George II. became king. He published here his Henriade. He wrote here his "History of Charles XII." He read "Gulliver's Travels" as a new book, and might have been present at the first night of The Beggar's Opera. He was here whet ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... is a righteous God, strong and patient, and God is provoked every day, and bears it according to His boundless love and patience. But "if a man will not turn," says the same text, "He will whet His sword." And then—woe to the careless and ungrateful sinner. God will cut him down and bring him low. God will take from him his health, or his money, or his blind peace of mind; and by affliction after affliction, and shame after shame, and disappointment ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... 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 ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... have 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 ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... lyre; And, when now the westering sun Touch'd the hills, the strife was done, And the attentive Muses said: "Marsyas, thou art vanquished!" Then Apollo's minister Hang'd upon a branching fir Marsyas, that unhappy Faun, And began to whet his knife. But the Maenads, who were there, Left their friend, and with robes flowing In the wind, and loose dark hair O'er their polish'd bosoms blowing, Each her ribbon'd tambourine Flinging on the mountain-sod, With a ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... accursed hounds! the dogs of unbelievers! Thus they tyrannize over us, and rob our men, and carry off our virgins. But great Heaven, shall this be done longer? Ah, the wretches! Maffeo, this will make us whet our swords more readily upon the next Turks with whom ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... Craig, 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 ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... exaggerations. And yet more idle and, if possible, more unintelligent has been the attitude of his express detractors; those who are very fond of dogs "but in their proper place"; who say "poo' fellow, poo' fellow," and are themselves far poorer; who whet the knife of the vivisectionist or heat his oven; who are not ashamed to admire "the creature's instinct"; and flying far beyond folly, have dared to resuscitate the theory of animal machines. ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Valets or Irish Footmen. Nor can the vigorousest 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 the favours we afford, 345 Are but to girt you with the sword, To ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... or Reyner Wolfe, of the Brazen Serpent in St. Paul's Churchyard. Much as we have to regret the scantiness of all material for a study of the lives of the early English printers, it is doubly felt in the case of Reginald Wolfe. The little that is made known to us is just sufficient to whet the appetite and kindle the curiosity. It reveals to us an active business man, evidently with large capital behind him, setting up as a bookseller, under the shadow of the great Cathedral, and rapidly becoming known to the learned and the rich. ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer
... Murdoch, whet thy razor's edge, Our crowns to pledge to Heaven's Ardrigh! Vow we now our hair fine-tressed To ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... very much,' I said. Now, this sort of thing, you know, makes you whet your Barlow on your boot leg. I did thank the suspender man for the tip but I made up my mind that I was going to do business with Andrews anyway. You know there's lots more fun shooting quail flying in the brush than to pot-hunt them ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... this great army be called, and could they come up from the dead, what eye could endure the reeking, festering putrefaction? What heart could endure the groan of agony? Drunkenness! Does it not jingle the burglar's key? Does it not whet the assassin's knife? Does it not cock the highwayman's pistol? Does it not wave the incendiary's torch? Has it not sent the physician reeling into the sick-room; and the minister with his tongue thick into the pulpit? Did not an exquisite poet, from ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... Czerny's "School of Velocity," which make you feel like employing the "velocity" you have acquired to run away as quickly as possible from the "school," whereas the Chopin etudes are so full of melody and of the rarest and the most beautiful musical effects, that to play any one of them suffices to whet the appetite for the others. The pianolist might well go through the entire two sets of twelve. It would open up a new musical world to him. Here I can only point out three. Opus 10, No. 5, is the "Black Key" etude, so called because all the notes of the right hand ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... old Woman, giving the Cat a piece of her mind; and last of all, out walked the Parrot, with a cake in each claw. Then they all went about their business, as if nothing had happened; and the Parrot flew back to whet his beak on the branch of ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... and my next heire: Valoyses lyne ends in my tragedie. Now let the house of 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
... very effectual as regarded the cony, but it was not much to gurr about in the way of breakfast. It was a mere whet to the appetite, which ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... possum," remarked old Adam. "When all's said, thar ain't a better meat to the taste as long as it's plump an' juicy. Will you hand on that jug of cider, Tim? It's wonderful the way corn shuckin' manages to parch the throat an' whet the appetite." ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... leaving it seriously inclined towards them. I see little else 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 ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... every bog, 490 They curse the managers, and curse the town Whose partial favour keeps such merit down. But if some man, more hardy than the rest, Should dare attack these gnatlings in their nest, At once they rise with impotence of rage, Whet their small stings, and buzz about the stage: 'Tis breach of privilege! Shall any dare To arm satiric truth against a player? Prescriptive rights we plead, time out of mind; Actors, unlash'd themselves, may lash mankind. 500 What! ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... faces death, Who singly against worlds has fought, For what? A name he may not breathe, For liberty of prayer and thought. The angry sword he will not whet, His nobler ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... pint of white wine and sugar, and a bit of a shoeing-horn to it ere we dine. Some pickled prawns, now, or a rasher off the coals, to whet you?" ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Vaterland?"] had just dedicated to the German people. When their passions had been excited to the highest pitch by dreams of victory, by wine and soul-stirring songs, they went in the evening to the residence of the French minister to whet their sword- blades on the pavement in ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... her distress seemed to whet his appetite for cruelty. He rubbed salt into the open ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... niece. One day, when matters 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
... Hammergray, Soon he stood by Vidrik knight: "Whet your spears, and sharp your swords, For the King ...
— Ulf Van Yern - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... notes of their Moon adventures—the only ones that they could furnish just then—circulating like wild fire and devoured with universal avidity, only imparted a keener whet to the public desire to feast their eyes on such men. These notes were telegraphed free to every newspaper in the country, but the longest and best account of the "Journey to the Moon" appeared in the columns of the New ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... youngsters appeared more than usually intent upon whatever they were employed about before the Rabbi's entrance. Youth is a bad courtier, ever preferring frolic and amusement to sobriety and attention. They had been at once piqued and pleased by Robin's smartness, and resolved to whet their own wit upon ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... between the tastes of the twelfth century and those of the nineteenth, just such a series of sketches as a special correspondent in our own day might send from some newly-colonised island in the Pacific to satisfy or whet the curiosity of his readers at home." The description aptly applies to all that Gerald wrote. If not a historian, he was at least a great journalist. His descriptions of Ireland have been subjected to much hostile criticism from the day they were written to our own times. ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... 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
... of merriment and madness. Give your fancies free range in choosing your characters: the wilder and uglier the better. Try every combination of shaggy mane, and squinting eye, and mouth like a gaping volcano; build mountains upon your shoulders, or fatten yourselves into Falstaffs; and as a whet to your inventions, I hereby promise a kiss from the bride to the figure that would be the likeliest to make her miscarry. A wedding is such a strange event in one's life; the bride and bridegroom are so suddenly plunged, as it were by magic, head over ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... King And Queene wassailing; And though, with ale, ye be whet here, Yet part ye from hence As free from offence As when ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... Waller. On pretence Of sneaking kindness for gay Widow Green, He visits her, for sake of her fair maid! To whom a glance or word avails to hint His proper errand; and—as glimpses only Do only serve to whet the wish to see— Awakens interest to hear the tale So stintingly that's told. I know his practice— Luck to you, Master Waller! If you win, You merit it, who take the ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles
... sin, which makes all the 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 path. Yes—but what a glorious thought, that He will guide it, and us, on ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... fact) who wanted so much or asked so little. It was the very boundlessness of his desires which reined him in. The appetite of the Caesars would not have represented his, all the gratification they could have commanded would have been for him but a whet. If he had a weak side it was his own astuteness: he could not always see how unutterably foolish a man might be if he were let alone. Another foible he had—intellectual appreciation of beauty pushed to fainting-point. His senses were so straitly ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... charge, with many injunctions as to their safe-keeping, he went off to forage for 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 large bologna ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... oil the razor best is whet, So wit is by politeness sharpest set; Their want of edge from their offence is seen, Both pain the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... 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 what ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... these are, and not only stunned. Moreover, most of yonder dead wear knives which should have melted or shattered with the sheaths burnt off them. Yet those knives are as though they had just left the smith's hammer and the whet-stone," and he drew some of them to ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... are only relishes. They whet the appetite more than they appease it. There should be something to eat, in the June woods, as perfect in its kind, as satisfying to the sense of taste, as the birds and the flowers are to the senses of sight and hearing and smell. Blueberries are good, but they are far away in July. Blackberries ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... flame 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
... assembly, God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, cannot look but with utter detestation. His wrath shall come up in his face. His face shall be red in his anger. He will whet his glittering sword, and his hand shall take hold on vengeance; and he shall recompense. He shall launch forth his lightnings, and shoot abroad his arrows. He shall unseal all his fountains, and pour out his tumbling cataracts of vengeance. He shall build his batteries aloft, and ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... 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 the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson
... temporarily. He was hungry, and the station agent, a weedy youth, was making a noisy closing up. Intentionally noisy, for when one is the agent of a small desert station, the occasional visitor is apt to whet one's curiosity ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... discussions of Beethoven's works which the public—at all events, our public—demands. We wish his biography,—the history of his life. What has been given us does but whet the appetite. We wish to have the many original sources, still sealed to us, explored, and the results of this labor honestly given us. None of the writers above-mentioned have been in a position to do this, and their publications are but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... this man, who had tried to induce me to speak when delusions had tied my tongue, now, when I was at last willing talk, would scarcely condescend to listen; and what seemed to me his studied and ill-disguised avoidance only served to whet my desire to detain him ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... 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
... gain of 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 ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... Distinguishable even from Flossy—from Flossy, who had slighted and then reviled her! Why had she ever faltered in her distrust of these enemies of true American society? Yet this lingering sense of torture served to whet her new-found purpose to have done with them forever, and to obtain the recognition and power to which she was entitled, in spite of their ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... food of European nations, except the swine, the Soland goose (Pelicanus Bassanus), and formerly the swan. Of these the swine and the swan are fed previously upon vegetable aliment; and the Soland goose is taken in very small quantity, only as a whet to the appetite. Next to these are the birds, that feed upon insects, which are perhaps the most stimulating and the most nutritive of our ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... 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' ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... should be exceedingly careful and cautious for this reason, if for no other: to protect the name and honor of his dear God and Saviour and not to do the devil the favor of letting him whet his slanderous tongue on Christ's name. How shall we stand and answer in his sight when we cannot deny the fact that our life gives just cause for complaint and offense? By such a life we intentionally bring disgrace and shame upon God's name and Word, which things ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... the solitary concert for the season, but, to whet the appetite of society, Diana was also to appear at a single big reception—"Baroni won't look at anything less than a ducal house with Royalty present," as Jerry banteringly asserted—and then, while the world was still agape ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... while there's an agreeable vintage of Port on the table. A morning whet, Samoval?" O'Moy invited ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... we're going to make it a great affair, a real reunion for all of us. Caterina, helped by two stout colored women, has been cooking all the afternoon, and I hope that you two boys have had enough exercise and excitement to whet your appetites. How ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the troops beneath Patroclus' care, Invade the Trojans, and commence the war. As wasps, provoked by children in their play, Pour from their mansions by the broad highway, In swarms the guiltless traveller engage, Whet all their stings, and call forth all their rage: All rise in arms, and, with a general cry, Assert their waxen domes, and buzzing progeny. Thus from the tents the fervent legion swarms, So loud their clamours, and so keen their arms: Their rising rage Patroclus' breath inspires, Who ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... 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 ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... scenery"; and such a discipline was then recommended 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... high-born lechers eye the lively Presle 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 holy ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... 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 defend myself to the last. Her task finished, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... prose. In his opening 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 we know of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... which they dress their food is this: They kindle a fire by rubbing the end of one piece of dry wood, upon the side of another, in the same manner as our carpenters whet a chissel; then they dig a pit about half a foot deep, and two or three yards in circumference: They pave the bottom with large pebble stones, which they lay down very smooth and even, and then kindle a fire in it with dry wood, leaves, and the husks of the cocoa-nut. When the stones ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... most cruel Ogres in 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 his wife ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... pouring out of the furnace. Another example of this literal interpretation, is in the Psalter of Edwin, where two men are engaged in sharpening a sword upon a grindstone, in illustration of the text about the wicked, "who whet ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... 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 being but one effect of the cause ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... for more than twenty years explorers had been sailing from English and American ports in search of the bodies or the papers of Sir John Franklin and his party. The partial success which attended the investigations of Sir Leopold McClintock had served to whet the public appetite. A story which Captain Barry brought home from the Arctic made the curiosity still greater. He said that in 1871-73, while on a whaling expedition, he was frozen in with the 'Glacier' in Repulse Bay, and was ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... and more deep, as the iron is driven, Base slaves! may the whet of their agony be, To think—as the damned haply think of the heaven They had once in their reach,—that they ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... as a sort of preface to the novel "Vanity Fair." It is quite as remarkable for the things it leaves unsaid as for the things it says. Of course its object is to whet the reader's appetite for the story that is to follow; but throughout the author seems to be laughing at himself. In the last paragraph we see one of the few superlatives to be found In Thackeray—-he says the show ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... heard the 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 house ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... 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 away to ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... news to me. I know Mormons. I've seen their women's strange love en' patience en' sacrifice an' silence en' whet I call madness for their idea of God. An' over against that I've seen the tricks of men. They work hand in hand, all together, an' in the dark. No man can hold out against them, unless he takes to packin' ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... 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 ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... peace or war. He is the great theme of the republican 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 ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... thumb or across the nail. He 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, it was ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... the Lord Jesus will now begin to shew his jealousy, and to make known his indignation towards those that have thus cruelly slain his prophets, digged down his altars, and made such havoc of the afflicted church of God (Isa 66:14). Now will he whet his glittering sword, and his hand shall take hold on vengeance, that he may render a recompence to his enemies, and repay them that hate him ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... AEgosomus scabricornis which I have now before my eyes in July. It is always a fresh surprise to see these mummies suddenly throw off their immobility and gyrate on their own axis with a mechanism whose secret deserves to be fathomed. The science of rational mechanics might find something here to whet its finest theories upon. The strength and litheness of a clown cannot compare with those of this budding flesh, this ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... 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 ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... three menials, now entered with wine and refreshments, which it was the fashion to offer as a whet before dinner; and when they were placed before the guests, Lady Ashton made an apology for withdrawing her husband from them for some minutes upon business of special import. The Marquis, of course, requested her ladyship would lay herself under no restraint; and ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... than ever, and the refrain then was that bread and porter were so dear that the poor people must starve to feed fat lords, stag-hounds, and priests, and that there was only one remedy. At these words he was wont to whet his razor, and as he drew it murderously up and down the strop, he murmured grimly to himself, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... &c.—for Phillips was a wife-hunting, probably from the circumstance of his having formed an extreme rash connection in early life which paved the way to all his after misfortunes, but there is an obstinacy in human nature which such accidents only serve to whet on to try again. Pleasure thus at two entrances quite shut out—I hardly know how to determine of Phillips's result of happiness. He appears satisfyd, but never those bursts of gaiety, those moment-rules from the Cave of Despondency, that used to make ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... because you cannot SEE God your Father, because you have not some sign or wonder hanging in the sky to frighten you into good behaviour, therefore you are not afraid to turn your backs on him. My friends, it is ill mocking the living God. Mark my words! If a man will not turn He will whet His sword, and make us feel it. You who can be confirmed, and know in your hearts that you ought to be confirmed, and ought to be REALLY converted and confirmed in soul, and make no mockery of it,—mark my words! If you will not be converted ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... 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 the basis ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... 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
... on one requisition no less than sixteen thousand volumes or scrolls! Every leaf was destroyed. Indeed, so thorough and wholesale was the destruction of these memorials now so precious in our eyes that hardly enough remain to whet the wits of antiquaries. In the libraries of Paris, Dresden, Pesth, and the Vatican are, however, a sufficient number to make us despair of deciphering them had we for comparison all ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... emblazoned air, while a 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 past or for future things, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... 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 ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... legislation at present; in fact, to place them somewhat on the footing of the provinces of Canada, while reserving to the English Parliament the powers vested in the Dominion of Canada. Such a scheme would seem adapted to whet the appetite of the Irish for nationality, without supplying them with any portion of the real article. It would supply no basis on which a system of agrarian reform could be founded, as it would be impossible to leave the determination of a local question, which ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... conflict into his very sports? Does not 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
... in which the Little People dwell—a world so absolutely different from ours that it might well be upon another planet—began to open, slowly, slowly, one of its many mysterious doors, allowing him just glimpse enough of what magic lay beyond to fire his heart and to whet his appetite. And he couldn't break into that world with a jimmy. It was burglar-proof. That portal was so impervious to even the facile fingers of Slippy McGee, that John Flint must pay the inevitable and appropriate ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... a guerdon hast thou to give For one single victory, (They whet the heat of battle). In the midst of the ranks Fin Arnason was taken Battle-strong, stout-hearted; Ne'er would he think ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... said Louis XV. when he heard it. [Raumer, Beitrage (English Translation, called Frederick II. and his Times; from British Museum and State-Paper Office:—a very indistinct poor Book, in comparison with whet it might have been), ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... hanging over all our heads already, and always ready to fall on us. Not knowing that it is as true now as it was two thousand years ago, that "God is a righteous judge, strong and patient." "If a man will not turn, He will whet His sword; He hath bent His bow, and made it ready," against those who travail with mischief, who conceive sorrow, and bring forth ungodliness. They dig up pits for their neighbours, and fall themselves ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... and the consequent sense of selection, deliberateness, and personality. Good heavens, I reflected, are we mortals so cross-grained that we can thoroughly enjoy things only by contrast, and that a sort of mild starvation is needed to whet our ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... haste?" returned Paslew, with a grin of cruel and malicious irony. "There be some slight preliminaries to adjust,—something to season thy haunch and whet thine appetite." He stamped with his foot, and the two attendants entered, bearing instruments of uncouth and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... 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 the touch ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... Cassi. We come not Lords, as vnresolued men, For to shewe causes of the deed decreed, This shall dispute for mee and tell him why, This heart, hand, minde, hath mark'd him out to die: If it be true that furies quench-les thirst, Is pleas'd with quaffing of ambitious bloud, Then all you deuills whet my Poniards point, And I wil broach you a bloud-sucking heart: 1580 Which full of bloud, must bloud store to you yeeld, Were it a peerce to flint or marble stone: Why so it is for Caesars heart's a stone, Els would bee mooued ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... whet his beak on the stones of the coping; And when once more the shout came, in querulous tones he spake, "What I said was 'more's the pity;' if the heart be long past hoping, Let it say of death, 'I know it,' or doubt ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... last long now," mused the bodies; and then when even Riney got the sack, "Lord!" they cried, "this maun be the end o't." The downfall of Gourlay had an unholy fascination for his neighbours, and that not merely because of their dislike to the man. That was a whet to their curiosity, of course; but, over and above it, they seemed to be watching, with bated breath, for the final collapse of an edifice that was bound to fall. Simple expectation held them. It was a dramatic ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... could not pass the afternoon with them, for the heart of me. There was enough in the persons and faces of the two young ladies to set me upon comparisons. Particular features held my attention for a few moments: but these served but to whet my impatience to find the charmer of my soul; who, for person, for air, for mind, never had any equal. My heart recoiled and sickened upon comparing minds and conversation. Pert wit, a too-studied ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... 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 Raphele to make ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... literature, more probably in cases where lawlessness is the result not of indolence, but of some sort of vigour and spontaneity. But it should be remembered that the mimetic impulses in which art among primitive races is supposed to originate, are not themselves art; and continually to whet the appetite with such primitive exercises is to perpetuate the rudimentary condition and ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... I be cleansed and made whole as of old time; yea, I must be purged altogether and the Evil cast out from me. It is time.... Ye have heard, ye have answered; make ready, for the day of the cleansing approacheth. Whet thy swords for the days of the healing, for my cleansing can be but by steel. Yea, thy swords shall do away with the Evil, and the land shall run red with the blood of Bharuta, the blood of thy Mother; it shall run to the sea as a river, bearing with it the ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... 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 ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... and clear. One day Kenesaw would cast aside its atmospheric trappings, and 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 ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... be loved, but you? So loved, that even my crown, and self are vile, While you are by. Try me upon despair; My kingdom at the stake, ambition starved, Revenge forgot, and all great appetites That whet uncommon spirits to aspire, So once a day I may have leave— Nay, madam, then ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... (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, ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... 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 de ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... selfishness, double-dealing, and deficient patriotism. They worked famously upon the natives, while they proved the invader to be as little capable of good policy, as of ordinary humanity. They roused the spirit of the militia, whet their anger and their swords together, and, by the time that Marion reappeared, they were ready for their General. He asked for nothing more. He re-entered South Carolina by a forced march. Travelling night and day, ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... fancy to the very borders of 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
... hand; A Tunne of Paris Tennis balls him sent, Better himselfe to make him vnderstand, Deriding his ridiculous intent: And that was all the answere he could get, Which more, the King doth to this Conquest whet. ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... left upon them. And the one, when 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 two horses. And then he sighed and said to himself, "Alas, ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... found a moment in Mrs. Haughton's widowed life so propitious to his chance of success. In her lodging-house at Pimlico, the good lady had been too incessantly occupied for that idle train of revery, in which the poets assure us that Cupid finds leisure to whet his arrows and take his aim. Had Lionel still been by her side, had even Colonel Morley been in town, her affection for the one, her awe of the other, would have been her safeguards. But alone ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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
... Providence, and I believe it was a dispensation of Providence that those arrogant officers of the guard, who thought it was only necessary to show themselves in order to drive away the French, and who went so far in their madness as to whet their swords on the doorsteps of the house of our ambassadors, should now be duly humiliated and chastised. For the guards of Potsdam and Berlin are among the captured of the corps of the Prince von Hohenlohe, and they will soon arrive in Berlin. A royal prince also, the brother of Prince ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... 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 ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... helve be made, And his axe should elsewhere drive its trade. O, the oaks and firs that 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 for ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... when there 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
... a little snow, tumbled about, Anon becomes a Mountaine. O noble Dolphine, Go with me to the King, 'tis wonderfull, What may be wrought out of their discontent, Now that their soules are topfull of offence, For England go; I will whet on ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... 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, stars ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... awkward in adapting himself to the conventional requirements of civilization. In his long roundabout journey home he had stopped for a few weeks in both London and Paris; but to his mental discomfort, they had but served to accentuate his loneliness and whet his longings for the dear, unforgotten life of his native city, that intimate, easy existence, wherein relatives, not too near, congenial friends and familiar haunts played ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow |
