"Sharp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... noon hour. Consciousness becoming more acute, I perceived, standing barely within the shadows of the interior, the dusky figure of a warrior, unarmed, and motionless except for a gesture of the hand which seemed to command my following him. Retaining concealed within my doublet the sharp knife intrusted to me by Madame, I felt little trepidation at the fellow's presence, nor was there anything about his countenance to foster alarm, he appearing the least ferocious of aspect of all I had observed among the tribe. A moment I hesitated, ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... the ground that but a little before had been covered with grass and late flowers, and occasionally goring one another. The cowboys were riding on the outskirts of this life-destroying horde, forcing the stragglers back into line, and by many a sudden dash forward, then to the right, sharp wheel about, and more spurts this way and that, were slowly driving it toward another mass of cattle, a half mile further on, which could be distinguished only by the clouds of dust ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... protest that this is all very unfair to the Trojans. As soon as he gave them their chance they took it decently enough, so much so that all ended happily in what must have been a most uncomfortable dance on the sharp fragments of the Toogood bust which the disgruntled original ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... with flies. But the sapient inmate sat still and cool in the midst. Absorbed in some other world of his occupations and thoughts, these insects, like daily cark and care, did not seem one whit to annoy him. It was a goodly sight to see this serene, cool and ripe old philosopher, who by sharp inquisition of man in the street, and then long meditating upon him, surrounded by all those queer old implements, charts and books, had grown at last so wondrous wise. There he sat, quite motionless among those ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... is a braw man, weill favoured, and broad faced, &c. Ther wes elf-bullis rowtting and skoylling wp and downe thair and affrighted me.... As for Elf-arrow-heidis, the Devill shapes them with his awin hand, and syne deliueris thame to Elf-boyes, who whyttis and dightis them with a sharp thing lyk a paking needle.... We went in to the Downie hillis; the hill opened, and we cam to an fair and large braw rowme in the day tym. Thair ar great bullis rowtting and skoylling ther, at the entrie, quhilk feared me.... The Devill wold giw ws the brawest ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... direction the land lay from us. Just as we had got within a dozen fathoms of the monster up went its flukes and it sounded, leaving us looking very blank at the spot where it had gone down. It might be forty minutes or more before it would come up again. We determined to wait, and as we had had a sharp pull we refreshed ourselves by munching some biscuits and drinking a part of the contents of our water breaker. The whale remained down a much longer time than we had expected, and when it came up appeared far away to the eastward, or much closer to the shore. Again we bent to our ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... themselves all in their best, and put on new suits for every course, giving the clothes they had taken off to the servants. At the conclusion of the banquet they brought forth the shabby dresses in which they had first arrived, and taking sharp knives, began to rip up the seams, from which they took vast quantities of rubies, sapphires, carbuncles, diamonds, and emeralds, into which form they had converted most of their property. This exhibition naturally changed ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... convict which they introduce. Yet his method was a right one, though it was perverse of Balzac to be occupied at all with such devices, when he might have rejected his falsity altogether. In another man's work, where there is never this sharp distinction between true and false, where both are merged into something different from either—in Dickens's work—the method I refer to is much more successfully followed; and there, in any of Dickens's later books, we find the ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... whistled down, with a quick sharp noise, and a whistle from below replied; and he clomb into the vehicle, and the rope ran through the pulley, and Uncle Ben went merrily down, and was out of sight, before I had ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... of the cliff. The "slide" was simply a sharp incline zigzagging down the side of the mountain used for sliding goods and provisions from the summit to the tunnel men at the different openings below. The continual traffic had gradually worn a shallow gulley half filled with earth and gravel into the face ...
— The Queen of the Pirate Isle • Bret Harte
... would smile well-pleased were I to gird up my loins and address myself to the rude ascent; so, on the other hand, each inclination to the velvet declivity seemed to kindle a gleam of triumph on the brow of the man-hating, God-defying demon. Sharp and short I turned round; fast I retraced my steps; in half an hour I was again at M. Pelet's: I sought him in his study; brief parley, concise explanation sufficed; my manner proved that I was resolved; he, perhaps, ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... insisted upon embarking, in spite of all the difficulties which opposed themselves to that operation. The fisherman had wished to retract. He had even threatened, but his threats had procured him nothing but a shower of blows from the gentleman's cane, which fell upon his shoulders sharp and long. Swearing and grumbling, he had recourse to the syndic of his brotherhood at Antibes, who administer justice among themselves and protect each other; but the gentleman had exhibited a certain paper, at the sight of which the syndic, bowing to the very ground, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... nor anything to do with him that had helped on this sharp alteration, this turn into some Cimmerian stretch of the mind's or the emotions' vast landscape. If Strickland had at first wondered if this might be the case, the thought vanished. Glenfernie, free to ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... him at home, and the two armies met on the hill called Janiculum, beyond the river from the city. Here came the crash of battle, but the men of Clusium proved the stronger, and after a sharp struggle the Romans gave way and were driven pell-mell down the hill and across the bridge which spanned the Tiber at this point. This was a wooden bridge on which the Romans set great store, as it was their only means of crossing the stream. But it now was likely to serve as a means of ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... "A sharp instrument, with two prongs. My theory is that the prongs are hollow, like a hypodermic needle, and leave a drop or two of poison at the bottom of the wound. You see ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... Sidonie's thoughts, he had provided a simulacrum of society for her—his bachelor friends, a few fast tradesmen, almost no women, women have too sharp eyes. Madame Dobson was the only friend ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... poke her keeper: then succeeds a quick motion in the flank; she begins to stagger, falls, but recovers herself again. This is repeated several times, till she is at length no longer able to rise. Her head will be turned to one side; she loses the sense of feeling, and although pricked with a sharp instrument gives no sign of pain; and if not relieved, death closes the scene. If the sense of feeling returns, it is the first sign of recovery. The moment that milk-fever is observed the veterinary surgeon should be called in. There ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... getting your meaning wrong, your tongue being a little hard and sharp because you are Englified, but I am without new learnments and so ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... come into the constabulary net. It would be a feather in his cap if he could only strike the trail of the veritable Steynholme murderer. The entrancing notion possessed him morning, noon, and night. Mrs. Robinson declared that it even dominated his dreams. Robinson was sharp. He knew quite well that the brains of the London detectives held some elusive quality which he personally lacked. They seemed to peer into the heart of a thing so wisely and thoroughly. He did not share Superintendent ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... Rumney Marsh the settlers at the landing had to tramp to vote on questions affecting the town. Right bravely would they attend to their duties as citizens, to find their efforts of no avail on account of the sharp practices of their neighbors of the Marsh and Point, who would reverse their action at an adjourned meeting. At length, in overwhelming numbers, they assembled once upon a time, and voted a new Town House, near the site of the present Catholic church. As a consequence, North Chelsea ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... to take the bit in his teeth, but with a sharp jerk as he drove the spurs in, Vincent had defeated his intention. He now did not attempt to check or guide him, but keeping a light hand on the reins let him go his own course. Vincent knew that so long as the horse was going full speed it could attempt ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... was growing old. Any sharp winter might have cut him off, as he trudged along through the deep lanes of his rustic parish. Early in 1770 Daines Barrington, tired of seeing his friend the mere valet to so many other pompous intellects, had proposed to him to "draw up an account of the animals of Selborne." Gilbert ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... yet writhing body of an unfortunate caterpillar, who had dropped from an apple-tree to fall a prey to that savage natural law of death to the weak. The harsh voice of a sentinel crow spoke from a neighbouring cornfield, and a cloud of dusky marauders took the air instantly, and before the sharp crack of the farmer's fowling-piece came to confirm the warning. In the hush of noon the tones of some haymakers at their patriarchal labours in a meadow beyond the stream were clearly audible—and the atmosphere constantly ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... look at his next prescription,) and departed, saying he would look in occasionally. After this, the Latin tutor began the usual course of "getting better," until he got so much better that his face was very sharp, and when he smiled, three crescent lines showed at each side of his lips, and when he spoke; it was in a muffled whisper, and the white of his eye glistened as pearly as the purest porcelain, —so much better, that he hoped—by spring—he—might ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... shingles are in good demand in the Province, and with the wooden towns springing up on the prairie, western millers can hardly send roofing material across the Rockies fast enough. Besides this, I haven't struck a creek more adapted for running down logs, and the last sharp drop to tide-water would give power for a mill. I'm only puzzled that none of the timber-lease prospectors have recorded ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... that," said Nan, presently, and her face looked less elfish, with its sharp eyes, inquisitive nose, and mischievous mouth. "What did your mother do to you when ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... a sharp line between philosophy and natural science. The naturalist who introduces a new principle, or demonstrates a fact which throws a new light on existence, not only renders an important service to philosophy but is himself a ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... the admitted fact of its existence, to refuse to inquire whether it is wide or narrow. Remember, if you will, that there is no existing link between Man and the Gorilla, but do not forget that there is a no less sharp line of demarcation, a no less complete absence of any transitional form, between the Gorilla and the Orang, or the Orang and the Gibbon. I say, not less sharp, though it is somewhat narrower. The structural differences between Man and the Man-like apes certainly justify our regarding ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley
... at the mill. If there's been stealing, and you know your business, you know where it was done and how it was done. If you don't know your business what are you there for, and how long are you going to stay? You say yourself the old man is sharp, and he is. How long is he going to keep either a thief or a fool in ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... gendarme who fell ill because of a curse laid on him by a tahuna. He was dying. This governor took from his box in the house of medicines a sharp small knife, and with it he cut the veins of a Marquesan who had done some small wrong against the law and lay in jail. He bound this man by the arm to the gendarme who was dying, and through the cut the blood ran into the gendarme's ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... wind died away altogether, and a sharp frost set in. The pancakes became joined together, and on the following morning, when our friend Gregory came on deck, he found that the whole ocean was covered with ice! It did not, indeed, look very like ice, because, being so thin, it did not prevent the ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... little, very bent, very old. "A t'ousand and noine, sure," she always answered when Maida asked her how old. Her skin had cracked into a hundred wrinkles and her long sharp nose and her short sharp chin almost met. But the wrinkles surrounded a pair of eyes that were a twinkling, youthful blue. And her down-turned nose and up-growing chin could not conceal or mar the lovely sweetness ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... long blue silk tassel, a vest of black cloth embroidered with gold, pantaloons of deep red, large and full gaiters of the same color, embroidered with gold like the vest, and yellow slippers; he had a splendid cashmere round his waist, and a small sharp and crooked cangiar was passed through his girdle. Although of a paleness that was almost livid, this man had a remarkably handsome face; his eyes were penetrating and sparkling; his nose, quite straight, and projecting direct from the brow, was of the pure Greek type, while his teeth, as white ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... impatient of delay as the session neared its close, called up a House bill entitled "An Act granting the right of way to ditch and canal owners over the Public Lands in the States of California, Oregon and Nevada," and succeeded, by sharp practice, in carrying a motion to strike out the whole of the bill except the enacting clause, and insert the bill which the Senate had already enacted and was then before the House Committee. This maneuver succeeded, and the bill, thus enacted ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... Man finished his lunch in silence and was just about to light a cigar when a sharp exclamation brought him hastily ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... is it not?" rejoined Zenobia, with a sharp, light laugh. "And you are willing to allow, perhaps, that I have had hard measure. But it is a woman's doom, and I have deserved it like a woman; so let there be no pity, as, on my part, there shall be no complaint. It is all right, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... other employments that would divert his attention, makes the execution of that same plan his sole study and business." Fontenelle was of the same opinion, for he remarks that "a single great man is sufficient to accomplish a change in the taste of his age." The life of GRANVILLE SHARP is a striking illustration of the ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... an unseen hand, and borne high over the dune, and before I had time to realize what was happening I was fighting for my life in the howling darkness of a terrific sandstorm. The wind was demoniacal; it apparently blew from all quarters at once, in short, sharp, incessant gusts, lifting and whirling away everything that came in its path, shifting the loose sand in such masses, and hurling it with such force that to stand still would have meant being buried. Luckily ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... clashed his harness in the icy caves And barren chasms, and all to left and right The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he bas'd His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang Sharp-smitten with ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... character and uncompromising prejudices. And she also felt a little disappointed in his personality, which contradicted her ideal of a Yorkshire squire. For he was small and slender in stature, and his face was keen and thin, from the high cheek bones to the sharp point of the clean-shaven chin. Yet it was an interesting face, for the brows were broad and the eyes bright and glancing. That his nature held the opposite of his qualities was evident from the mouth, which was composed and discreet and generally clothed with a frank smile, negatived by the deep, ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... a sharp shower would give her more time, as it would compel the three men, Beauchene, Denis, and Blaise, to seek shelter in some doorway. And when the carriage reached the works she hastily stopped the coachman, without even conducting her companion to the ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... department, or in the excellence of the field support given the pitchers, it is lacking in one essential element of strength if it be not up to the mark in base stealing by its players. Effective pitching and sharp fielding are, of course, very necessary to success in winning games, as also skilful batting, especially of the strategic kind. While it is a difficult task to get to first base safely in the face of a steady and effective fire from the opposing "battery," backed up by good support ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... cascades is the hillside, rising sheer, like a Rhine rock clothed with moss and heather, gullied like it, again, by sharp ridges of schist and mica sending down, here and there, white foaming rivulets to which a little meadow, always watered and always green, serves as a cup; farther on, beyond the picturesque chaos and in contrast to this wild, solitary ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... standing up out of the dull mists of the sea. But as we bore down upon it the sun came out and made it a beautiful picture—a mass of green farms and meadows that swelled up to a height of fifteen hundred feet and mingled its upper outlines with the clouds. It was ribbed with sharp, steep ridges and cloven with narrow canyons, and here and there on the heights, rocky upheavals shaped themselves into mimic battlements and castles; and out of rifted clouds came broad shafts of sunlight, that painted ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the sailors are supposed to have reached their destination, the strictness of these rules is somewhat relaxed; but during the whole time that the voyage lasts the girls are forbidden to eat fish which have sharp bones or stings, such as the sting-ray, lest their friends at sea should be involved ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Paul de), wife of the preceding, born Mademoiselle Natalie Evangelista, non-lineal descendant of the Duke of Alva, related also to the Claes. Having been spoiled as a child, and being of a sharp, domineering nature, she robbed her husband without impoverishing him. She was a leader at Paris as well as at Bordeaux. As the mistress of Felix de Vandenesse she disliked his dedication to a story, for in it he praised Madame de Mortsauf. Later, in ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... Sharp commands from the ship's officers hastened the work of the crew in making things snug, and life lines were strung along deck for the safety of such of the passengers as might venture up when the ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... do, tell me that there are generally faults on both sides. To make matters worse, they were a poor family; the one rich relative being a sister of the first wife, who disapproved of the widower marrying again, and never entered the house afterwards. Well, the step-mother had a sharp tongue, and Mellicent was the first person to feel the sting of it. She was reproached with being an encumbrance on her father, when she ought to be doing something for herself. There was no need to repeat those harsh words. The next day she answered an advertisement. Before the week ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... away from him with a sharp little cry of amazement and chagrin, but his great arms closed round her ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... was to be worked by a committee, (or indeed by comity,) would have been very likely to meet with but an indifferent reception; but, catching a glimpse of the laughing eyes of Eve, as well as of the amused faces of Mr. Sharp and Mr. Blunt, by the light of the moon, he very gravely signified his entire approbation of the chairman named, and his perfect readiness to listen to the report of the aforesaid committee as soon as it might ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... wonder?" said he of the file. "We're all ready for the fakement—pops primed—and I tell you what, Rob Rust, I've made my clasp-knife as sharp as a razor, and damme, if Lady Rookwood offers any resistance, I'll spoil her talking ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... first sharp pangs there is no comfort;—whatever goodness may surround us, darkness and silence still hang about our pain. But slowly the clinging companionship with the dead is linked with our living affections and duties, and we begin to feel our sorrow ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... a very vague apprehension of what he was about to do. The sharp, stinging stroke of the ruler the next moment upon her open palm, made her understand very thoroughly. It drew from her one cry of mixed pain and terror; but after that first forced exclamation Daisy covered her face with her other hand and did not ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... who had formerly accompanied Captain Flinders in the Investigator, and also on a previous occasion in the Norfolk schooner. This man is well known in the colony as the chief of the Broken Bay tribe; he was about forty-five years of age, of a sharp, intelligent, and unassuming disposition, and promised to be of much service to us in our intercourse with the natives: this addition made our number amount to nineteen, for which we carried provisions for nine months, ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... on nevertheless. But two roads offered: Suzanne wanted to take the one leading to the pass, on the left; Marthe, the one on the right, through the woods. They exchanged sharp words, blocking ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... the door to see if any one came, and so he remained for a time. When about one third of the night had passed he heard some one walking near and stepping rather heavily; so he immediately took his axe, which was very sharp, and wanted to know what was the matter. There came a man with a big basket on his back; he put it down and looked round, but saw no one outside. He rummaged about among the fish and seemed to think ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... she said to herself. 'Because Owen, dear Owen my brother, wishes me to marry him. Because Mr. Manston is, and has been, uniformly kind to Owen, and to me. "Act in obedience to the dictates of common-sense," Owen said, "and dread the sharp sting of poverty. How many thousands of women like you marry every year for the same reason, to secure a home, and mere ordinary, material comforts, which after all go far to make life endurable, ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... having work that forenoon, which kept him near the house, promised to keep a sharp lookout while the boys went after the team, and to give the alarm in case the men should come ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... no less full of talk: there seemed so much to say! The pauses were frequent in which she straightened herself from the hips and turned to thrust chin and voice into the debate. You saw then the sharp angle, the fine line of light along that raised chin, the charming turn of the neck, her free young shoulders and shapely head; also you marked her lively tones of ci and si, and how her shaking finger drove them ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... politicly begun my reign, And 'tis my hope to end successfully. My falcon now is sharp and passing empty. And till she stoop she must not be full-gorg'd, For then she never looks upon her lure. Another way I have to man my haggard, To make her come, and know her keeper's call, That is, to watch her, as ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... together at six in Colston's rooms, and at seven sharp his servant announced that the cab was at the door. Within ten minutes they were bowling along the Embankment towards Westminster Bridge in a luxuriously appointed hansom of the newest type, with the precious case ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... happened? Had she been seized with a sudden persuasion that he would not answer, that it was all useless trouble; and in one of those accesses of blind rage by which her clear, sharp brain-life was at all times apt to be disturbed, had she rushed out to end it all at once and for ever? It made him forgive her that she could have destroyed herself—could have faced that awful plunge—that icy water—that ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... never ceased barking, began to howl and seek for shelter beneath our hammocks. Sometimes, after a long silence, the cry of the tiger came from the tops of the trees; and then it was followed by the sharp and long whistling of the monkeys, which appeared to flee from the danger that threatened them. We heard the same noises repeated, during the course of whole months, whenever the forest approached the bed of the river. The security evinced ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... Professor," he said, with meaning; "you'd better rest most of the day. Get out your work for Monday, you won't feel much like studying to-morrow, you know, and don't forget to be at the house at six sharp." Then, since the Freshman had visibly wilted, Smith grinned all the way across ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... boil them gently in their skins for fifteen minutes, lift them carefully out and place on one side to cool. Mix together all the ingredients for the stuffing, cut the potatoes carefully in half, scoop out the centres with a sharp pointed knife and fill the hollow places with the mixture. Remove the skins, and brush over the divided parts of the potatoes with egg, join again and bind with thread if necessary, place in a baking tin with the butter, which has been previously melted, ...
— New Vegetarian Dishes • Mrs. Bowdich
... them all how they must be Made into soup at last; And how the serpent sharp can see When ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... passion—unbounded pride. Dangers, in common with others, I had often faced, and been the first to encounter; but to dare that which a gallant and hardy crew of a frigate had declined, was a climax of superiority which I had never dreamed of attaining. Seizing a sharp tomahawk, I made signs to the captain that I would attempt to cut away the wreck, follow me who dared. I mounted the weather-rigging; five or six hardy seamen followed me; sailors will rarely refuse to follow where they find an ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... like doing it!" And she passed on, smiling, towards Lady Tonbridge, whose sharp eyes had seen the trivial contact between Winnington and the girl. How the mere sound of his voice had changed the aspect of the young face! ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... trail and up the canyon. Gradually the trees and caves and objects low down turned black, and this blackness moved up the walls till night enfolded the pass, while day still lingered above. The sky darkened; and stars began to show, at first pale and then bright. Sharp notches of the rim-wall, biting like teeth into the blue, were landmarks by which Venters knew where his camping site lay. He had to feel his way through a thicket of slender oaks to a spring where he watered Wrangle and drank himself. Here he unsaddled and turned ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... his yards up till after we had started, and now hung a pale faint mass in the windy darkness on the quarter. A tincture of rusty red hovered like smoke coloured by the furnace that produces it, in the west, but the night had drawn down quick and dark; the washing noise of the water was sharp, the wind piercingly cold; each sweep of the schooner's masts to windward was followed by a dull roaring of the blast rushing out of the hollows of the canvas, and she swung to the seas with wild yaws, but with ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... struggle, reinforcements arrived, and the battle was renewed with a supreme effort on both sides. For three hours longer, from nine o'clock to midnight, the battle was fought in the darkness, only relieved by the unceasing flashes from the guns, whose sharp reports mingled with the deep and monotonous roar of the great falls. It was a scene worthy of a painter whose imagination could grasp all the incidents of a situation essentially dramatic in its nature. The assailants of the Canadian position gave way at last and ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... you not well?" said she. At the same instant of her pausing, Miss Sampson entered from the hall, behind her. Mr. Armstrong's eye, lifted toward Faith in an attempt to reply, caught a glimpse of the sharp, pronounced outlines of the nurse's face. Before Faith could comprehend, or turn, or cry out, the paleness blanched ghastlier over his features, and the strong ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... dusty, and hot to walk on. But we can step on to the railway, and walk between the rails, or take to the cycle-track. If a train comes up behind, the engine-driver will whistle to give us warning, but we must keep a sharp lookout for cyclists, who seldom ring their bells, but rush swiftly and silently past, and perhaps shout something rude to us for being on their track. There are no fences or hedges, but a straggling row of tall poplar-trees on each side ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Belgium • George W. T. Omond
... a formality about her ways, which are examples to her feathered companions. At night she is as serviceable as the best watch-dog, warning all trespassers by her piercing shriek, and by a furious dash at them with her strong neck and sharp-pointed beak. Grulla abominates all new-comers, and it was long before she was reconciled to the presence of her crocodile companions. When first their objectionable society was thrust upon the huge bird, she became nearly beside herself with vexation, ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... very blacksmith shop, and at two sharp," declared the chairman, decisively; "and any scout who is tardy will be given one or more bad marks that he must carry as a load in the competition. Punctuality is a leading trait in Stanhope Troop No. 1, you ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... find that there were sharp differences of opinion among those present, for there were obvious objections to supporting the amendment and equally obvious objections to voting against it. The opposition of Ulster for more than a quarter of a century had been directed ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... thee loyal counsel; when offence is offered to thee, neglect it; abstain from contention; enjoin thy subjects to the observance of the divine laws and of praiseworthy practices; abate ignorance with a sharp sword; withhold thy regard from treachery and its untruth; and, lastly, do equal justice between the folk, so they may love thee, great and small, and the wicked and corrupt of them may fear thee." Then he ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... of Fraunheim the road took a sharp bend, and began to mount the slopes of the Taunus suddenly. It was an abrupt, steep climb; but I flatter myself I am a tolerable mountain cyclist. I rode sturdily on; my pursuer darted after me. But on this stiff upward grade my light weight and agile ankle-action ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... strong vein of stubbornness. The country gentlemen could no longer blind themselves to the scandals of the Court, and the intractable mood bred by these scandals could be skilfully turned to their own purposes by Clarendon's enemies. What had at first been only dilatoriness soon developed into sharp criticism and angry remonstrance, for which Clarendon knew that there was only too good ground. It was an ill time to press for new supplies when the national resources were drained to the dregs. If the King needed more after ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... is famous for his corrections and improvements of the text, many of which are followed by all later editors of Shakespeare. The most notable of these is Mrs. Quickly's remark in Falstaff's deathbed scene, "His nose was as sharp as a pen and a' babbled of green fields." The previous texts had given "and a table of green fields." Pope had said that this nonsense crept in from the name of the property man who was named Greenfield, and thus there must have been a stage direction here,—"Bring ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... much chilled the ardor of the Reich! Mayer has two Free-Corps, his own and another; about 1,300 of foot; to which are added a 200 of hussars. They have 5 cannon, carry otherwise a minimum of baggage; are swift wild fellows, sharp of stroke; and do, for the time, prove didactic to the Reich; bringing home to its very bosom the late great lesson of the Ziscaberg, in an applied form. Mayer made a pretty course of it, into the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... left, in this street, and going down a sharp descent, we observed a stand of hackney coaches in a small square, called La Place de la Pucelle: that is, the place where the famous JEANNE D'ARC[62] was imprisoned, and afterwards burnt. What sensations possess us as we gaze on each surrounding object!—although, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... perambulators, horses and carts, were passing over the bridge as on her first day in Radstowe, but there was now no Francis Sales on his fine horse. The sun was bright but clouds were being blown by a wind with a sharp breath, and she went quickly lest it should rain before her business was accomplished. She had no fear of not finding Francis Sales: in such things her luck never failed her, and she came upon him even sooner than she had expected in ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... heart of the best of mankind, Upon the bed of death reclined; In mind and body ill at ease, Betwixt remorse and the disease, Vext by sharp pangs and dreading more. O mortal poor! O dreadful hour! Horrors surround him! To the end of the vain world he has won; And dark and dun The eternal ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... its warm, bright golden meaning before it also inevitably catches the chill. Too precious, surely, for us not to suffer it to help us as it may is the faculty of putting together again in an order the sharp minutes and hours that the wave of time has been as ready to pass over as the salt sea to wipe out the letters and words your stick has traced in the sand. Let me, at any rate, recover a sufficient number of such signs to make a sort ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... his examination of Mr. Schuyler's body and testified that death was practically instantaneous as a result of a single stab of the short, sharp knife. The knife was produced and identified. It had been carefully taken care of and had been photographed to preserve the faint fingermarks, which were on its handle, and which might or might not be the prints of ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... the gate peered through the iron railings, pressing her nose quite flat, to give the sharp, restless, black eyes the ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... there was a sharp crack and a loud cry. The crack was neither the snapping of a branch, nor the tapping of a woodpecker; the cry was neither the scream of the parrot, nor ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... no notice of her. As quickly and as dexterously as she could, she was tearing open the heavy leather case with a sharp pair of scissors, and very soon its contents were scattered ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... conquered; and, four years later, a carpenter, named Miguel Legaret, suspected of Cagot descent, having placed himself in the church among other people, was dragged out by the abbe and two of the jurets of the parish. Legaret defended himself with a sharp knife at the time, and went to law afterwards; the end of which was, that the abbe and his two accomplices were condemned to a public confession of penitence, to be uttered while on their knees at the church door, just after ...
— An Accursed Race • Elizabeth Gaskell
... rub it with salt, and then with a sharp knife make deep incisions all over the surface, the bottom as well as the top and sides. Make a stuffing of grated stale bread, butter, chopped sweet marjoram, grated lemon-peel, nutmeg, pepper and salt, mixed up with beaten yolk of egg to bind and give it consistency. Fill the holes or incisions ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... of sharp points and indentures between them, the prince meditating, entered into one of the cavities, and looking about, beheld an iron door, which seemed to have no lock. He feared it was fastened; but pushing against it, it opened, and discovered an easy descent, which ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... completely surrounded, they fought with the energy of despair. Some few of the younger men, seeing relatives and friends among their assailants, pleaded for mercy, but they pleaded with those to whom mercy was unknown. The sharp assegais of Cetchwayo's warriors did their death work rapidly and surely. His victorious bands pressed forward, closing in on ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... creature, but was shaken enough to give a sharp growl of fear when, from the other side of the rigid form upon the ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... His monosyllable was sharp and incisive. His face was grey and anxious. She herself remained lifeless. All that there was of emotion between them seemed to have become vested ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... courtesy I should like also to acknowledge. After a hurried visit to the castle we started on the long drive to Oberleutensdorf, a smaller Schloss near Komotau, where the Waldstein family was then staying. The air was sharp and bracing; the two Russian horses flew like the wind; I was whirled along in an unfamiliar darkness, through a strange country, black with coal mines, through dark pine woods, where a wild peasantry dwelt in little mining towns. ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... little Bunkers and the others went out on the porch to rest and wait for the water to boil. Russ, a little later, wanted a drink, and, going into the kitchen, he turned to go to the sink. He was barefooted, and suddenly he felt a sharp pain on one toe. ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope
... gait, ambled by and caught Kate's eye. Instead of the formidable Stetson hat mostly in evidence, this man wore a baseball cap—of the sort usually given away with popular brands of flour—its peak cocked to its own apparent surprise over one ear. The man had sharp eyes and a long nose for news and proved it by halting within earshot of the conversation carried on between Kate and the two men. He looked so queer, Kate wanted to laugh, but she was too far from home to dare. He presently ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... is very safe in here at night," he whispered to James. Several of the men were keeping a sharp watch, peering into the trees and turning to look behind. They wondered if Jesus knew that the tangled undergrowth might conceal ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith
... rare nights among these waterways When Spring first treads the meadows of the marsh, Leaving faint footprints of elusive green To glimmer as she strays, Breaking the Winter silence with the harsh Sharp call of waterfowl; Rubbing dim shifting pastels in the scene With white of moon And blur of scudding cloud, Until the myrtle thickets And the sand, The silent streams, And the substantial land Go drifting down the ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... or give me an opening to speak frankly about it, I might help him; but he finds it too horrible to be uttered, and fancies himself the only mortal that ever felt the anguish of remorse. Yes; he believes that nobody ever endured his agony before; so that—sharp enough in itself—it has all the additional zest of a torture just invented ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... night and by day, Prepare for war with gestures of rage and hate, With combined might to begin the battle. The mother of the abyss, she who created them all, Unconquerable warriors, gave them giant snakes, Sharp of tooth, pitiless in might, With poison like blood she filled their bodies, Huge poisonous adders raging, she clothed them with dread, Filled them with splendor.... He who sees them shuddering shall seize him, They rear their bodies, none can resist their breast. Vipers she made, terrible ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... stared at his questioner. He was wearing a blue serge suit, obviously ready-made, thick boots, a doubtful collar, a machine-knitted silk tie of vivid colour. He had curly fair hair, a sharp face with narrow eyes, thick ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sun set, Moussa Isa earned a sharp rebuke for inattentive slacking, as he stood sighing his soul to where it sank in the West over Aden and Somaliland.... Wait till his chance of escape arrived; he would journey straight for the sunset, day after day, until he reached a sea-shore. There he would steal a canoe and paddle ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... clear sound of a bell that she stood still to hearken. It was upon the mid summit of the Sun's hill; the air perfectly calm, and around, far and near, not a creature to be seen. From the distant hamlet in the valley clinked only the sharp tones of the whetting scythe. Maud believed that she had had a ringing in her ears, and walked on. The singular sound was repeated, resembling the tone exactly of a small ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... a sharp suspicion. Indeed, it was Harriet who was being carried out—and a good thing, he thought, that they didn't have to support her full weight. He wondered vaguely if she would die before they got her to a doctor. He could not give the thought ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... two large baskets, and so provide to be let down thereto, that he may sit in the one and be covered with the other: for otherwise the eagle would kill him and tear the flesh from his bones with her sharp talons, though his apparel were never so good. The common people call this fowl an erne; but, as I am ignorant whether the word eagle and erne do shew any difference of sex, I mean between the male and the female, so we have great store of ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... notorious Mr. JOHN CASTLES, a gemman that I had never seen before. I soon found that it was impossible to address such an immense multitude from such a situation as that of the top of a coach, and as the wind blew very sharp, our birth was a very disagreeable one. While we were looking round for a better situation, we were hailed by some gentlemen from the window of a house in the neighbouring row, and a young person, whom I afterwards found to be Mr. William Clark, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... woman knew too well exile. Strong of soul that earl, sorrow sharp he bore; To companionship he had care and weary longing, Winter-freezing wretchedness. Woe he found again, again, After that Nithhad in a need had laid him— Staggering sinew-wounds—sorrow-smitten man! That he overwent; this also ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... the rip of the first boat under the counter of the sloop and a sharp command in French, sounding strange and terrible ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... twenty years in India also presents an anomalous type, proving how climate and mode of life may alter the original; for it is curious to contrast the round, rosy faces of the fresh English girls outward bound with the sharp, sallow faces and flashing, restless eyes which characterize those who are returning. The babel of tongues at these tables-d'hote, where conversations are being carried on in every European language, is most perplexing at first, though French and English predominate. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... about one mile from the town, a well-to-do farmer, having around him an interesting family, the eldest one a gallant young man in the 16th Virginia Regiment. When Gen. Longstreet invested Suffolk a sharp artillery and infantry skirmish took place near Mr. Smith's residence, and many balls passed through his house. The Yankees finally advanced and fired the houses, forcing the family to leave. Mrs. Smith, with her seven children, the youngest only ten months old, attempted to escape ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... character was somewhat concealed at the time by two black eyes, a swollen nose, a cut lip, and a torn cheek. Poor fellow, he had suffered severely at the hands of the pirates, and suddenly checked the stretch in which he was indulging with a sharp groan, or growl, as he sat up and pressed ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... remembrance of him, constantly renewed by Wentworth, had become like a poignard in a wound that would not heal. Wentworth had to-day yet again unconsciously turned the dagger in the wound, and her whole being sickened and shuddered. Oh! if she could only tear out that sharp-bladed remembrance and cast it from her, then in time the aching wound in her life might heal, and she might become happy and well and at peace once more;—at peace like Magdalen. An envious anger flared up in her mind against ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... don't know," said Soames, and flurried by that sharp look he was unable to say more. "Don't say I didn't tell you," he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... calling out the name of each article of dress, as he raised it from its receptacle, and passing it over to him who stood there in the character of a sort of heir-at-law. The last gave each garment a sharp look, and prudently put his hand into every pocket, in order to make sure that it was empty, before he laid the article on the floor. Nothing was discovered for some time, until a small key was found in the fob of a pair of old 'go-ashore' pantaloons. As there was ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Mrs. Elliott say anything unpleasant, and the village, knowing her usually sharp tongue, thought she did remarkably well, and took but little ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... falcon on his wrist, and his greyhound and cat behind him, the young man walked a long way, inquiring of everyone he met whether they had seen his enemy the ogre. But nobody had. Then he bade his falcon fly up into the sky—up, up, and up—and try if his sharp eyes could discover the old thief. The bird had to go so high that he did not return for some hours; but he told his master that the ogre was lying asleep in a splendid palace in a far country on the shores of the sea. This was delightful news to the young man, who instantly bought ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... were above the middle size, well made, with sharp, intelligent, copper-coloured faces, large prominent eyes, flat noses, large mouth, and teeth regular, but stained a deep red, from the immoderate use of tobacco; the forehead is high, and the turban, which is a deep indigo colour, is worn high on the head, and ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... of real bewilderment that was upon her young spiritual perceptions, getting their first glimpse of a tangled and conflicting and distorted world,—she drew wondering comparisons between her elder children and this odd, anxious, restless, sharp-spoken girl. ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... bred to ease and wealth, and who had cultivated, if not very disciplined, minds. Their intellectual dissipation had apparently made them a different race from the simpler-hearted womenkind of his neighbors, apt to judge men in a sharp ignorance of what is fascinating in heroes; and it would not be strange if he included Grace in the sort of contemptuous amusement with which he regarded these-flatteringly dependent and submissive invalids. He at least did not conceive ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... from this to success with little consciousness of effort, and from this to success with such complete absence of effort that he now acts unconsciously and without power of introspection, and that, do what he will, he can rarely or never draw a sharp dividing line whereat anything shall be said to begin, though none less certain that there has been a continuity in discontinuity, and a discontinuity in continuity between it and certain other past things; moreover, ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... "He said some sharp things to that wretched creature at the meeting of the Board—called him a thief, and I dare say other hard names—and told him that the best thing that could happen to him was a railroad accident on his ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... amputate the hand, the doctor, after having washed it in warm water, informed him that he would save his thumb and little finger, if he would stand steady while he took off the three middle fingers. "Very well, sir, if you please, but be sharp," was his reply.—I held his arm, and Mr. Clare, who was a skilful surgeon, in a very few minutes took out the three middle fingers nearly up to the wrist, and having bound up the wound and pressed the thumb and little finger nearly together, he desired the man to ride slowly ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... is a changed one. By God's grace his footsteps are set in the right path. No more rebellious outbursts will there be against those whom the will of God has set over him. A sharp lesson taught him the world's cruel hardness to the defenceless, and showed the true value of a good father and a ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... be used is in the shape of a drawing or engraving, a sheet of gelatin may be laid over it and the outlines traced with a sharp-pointed instrument. More often a photograph is taken on a ferrotype plate and the outlines scratched into the plate. These outlines are filled with vermilion. A piece of paper is then laid on the plate and the two passed through a hand-press. This is called "pulling" an impression. While the ...
— What Philately Teaches • John N. Luff
... nearly dark. Suddenly the lid falls out of his hand with a clatter—the only sound that has broken the silence—and he stands staring intently at the wall where the stuff of the shirt is hanging rather white in the darkness—he seems to be seeing somebody or something there. There is a sharp tap and click; the cell light behind the glass screen has been turned up. The cell is brightly lighted. Falder is seen gasping ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... the band. When at twenty yards distant the hunters broke with a sudden rush into the herd, the living mass giving away on all sides in their heedless career. They separated on entering, each one selecting his own game. The sharp crack of the rifle was heard, and when the smoke and dust, which for a moment blinded them, had cleared away, three fine cows were rolling in the sand. At that moment four fierce bulls charged on Sidney, goring his mustang ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... immediately off Toulon; and there, with incessant vigilance, waited for the coming out of the enemy. The expectation of acquiring a competent fortune did not last long. "Somehow," he says, "my mind is not sharp enough for prize-money. Lord Keith would have made L20,000, and I have not made L6000." More than once he says that the prizes taken in the Mediterranean had not paid his expenses; and once he expresses himself as ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... twisted them till they went to the brain. They put men into prisons where adders and snakes and toads were crawling, and so they tormented them. Some they put into a chest short and narrow, and not deep, and that had sharp stones within, and forced men therein so that they broke all their limbs. In many of the castles were hateful and grim things called rachenteges, which two or three men had enough to do to carry. It ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... distinguishing feature, the fin, from which he derives his name, is often a conspicuous object. This fin is some three or four feet long, growing vertically from the hinder part of the back, of an angular shape, and with a very sharp pointed end. Even if not the slightest other part of the creature be visible, this isolated fin will, at times, be seen plainly projecting from the surface. When the sea is moderately calm, and slightly marked with spherical ripples, and this gnomon-like ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Floss,' he said, 'for I'm afraid you don't understand marketing—it's best for me to go, for I'm quite old, and I know the way mother talks to the baker's man and the milkman when they come to the door. I must be sharp with them, Floss; that's what I must be, and I don't think you could be; so you had better hold the baby while I fetch our dinner. Oh dear, what a good thing it ...
— Dickory Dock • L. T. Meade
... very well, for she was sharp enough to distinguish between genuine and spurious affection. Strange as it may appear, the refined and educated young clergyman was deeply in love with this handsome, bold woman of the people. Some lovers of ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... heights, the branches appear to be covered with masses of peculiarly soft and rounded foliage like the piled-up banks of a white cumulus cloud before a thunderstorm. At the base of such a tree the eye is caught by the sharp, triangular outline of one of its young progeny. The lower branches sweep the ground. The foliage is harsh and rough. In almost no other species of trees is there such a change from comparatively ungraceful youth to a ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... that the square space, with the church in the midst of it, was filled all day long with the dull and droning sound of many waterfalls, while from dawn to dusk this drone of waters was constantly cut through by a sound that was like the sharp screaming and moaning of women. This was caused by hundreds of saws at work beside the waterfalls, taking advantage of that force. "Afterwards, when I read about the guillotine, I always thought of those saws," said the poet, whose earliest flight of fancy seems to have been this association ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... Mrs. Leishman's, Chase, Enfield. Why not come down by the Green Lanes on Sunday? Picquet all day. Pass the Church, pass the "Rising Sun," turn sharp round the corner, and we are the 6th or 7th house on the Chase: tall Elms darken the door. If you set eyes on M. Burney, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... standing ankle deep in the snow that lay upon the stoop. I caught but a dim glimpse of her form, for the night was cloudy; but I could hear her teeth rattling like castanets, and, as the sharp wind blew her clothes close to her form, I could discern from the sharpness of the outlines that she was very scantily ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... man a heavier grief reveal? Can sharper pang from hate or scorn arise?— Yes! one more sharp there is that deeper lies, Which fond Esteem but mocks when he would heal. Yet neither scorn nor hate did it devise, But sad compassion and atoning zeal! One pang more blighting-keen than hope betray'd! And this it is my woeful hap to feel, When, at her Brother's hest, the twin-born ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... upon him. His complexion was of the muddy and unwholesome kind which tells a tale of bad health, late hours and penury, and almost always of a bad disposition. The best description of him may be given in two familiar expressions—he was sharp and snappish. His cracked voice suited his sour face, meagre look, and magpie eyes of no particular color. A magpie eye, according to Napoleon, is a sure sign of dishonesty. "Look at So-and-so," he said to Las Cases at ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... immediately become loves, turns."—Lowth's Gram., p. 46; Hiley's, 45. This etymology may possibly be just, but certainly such contractions as are here spoken of, were not very common in Lowth's age, or even in that of Ben Jonson, who resisted the s. Nor is the sound of sharp th very obviously akin to flat s. The change would have been less violent, if lov'st and turnst had become loves and turns; as some people nowadays are apt to change them, though doubtless this is a ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... A sharp walk took him to the cottages Adair had mentioned. He rapped at the door of the first, and the ground-man came out in his shirt-sleeves, blinking as if he had just woke up, as ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... birds huddled on the cold pall that covered a numb world,—crowned with icicles that clasped her silver locks, shedding tears that froze upon her marble cheeks; standing on the universal grave where Nature lay bound in cerements, hearkening to the dismal hooting of the owl at her feet, the sharp insistent cry of gray killdees hovering above icy marshes, the wailing tempest dirge over the dead earth; and while with one benignant hand she tenderly folded her mantle about the sleepers, the other kindled a conflagration along the western sky, that reddened and warmed ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... in spite of her friend's earnest efforts to teach her. She had the idea vividly (that was the marvel) of the cruelty of man, of his immemorial injustice; but it remained abstract, platonic; she didn't detest him in consequence. What was the use of her having that sharp, inspired vision of the history of the sex (it was, as she had said herself, exactly like Joan of Arc's absolutely supernatural apprehension of the state of France) if she wasn't going to carry it out, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... on a trumpet down on the bank of the river, and we could hear the echo from the rocks and mountains on the other side. He also fired a gun two or three times. After the gun was fired, for a few minutes all was still; but then there came back a sharp crack from the other shore, and then a long, rumbling sound from up the river and down the river, like a peal of ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... inscribed in clear, bold letters, these two words: 'My Son.' The second piece of property remaining behind with 'my son's portrait, were 'my son's elegant French boots—a wonderful pair, shiny as satin, and of some peculiar and exquisite style, long and narrow, with sharp-pointed and slightly turned-up toes. They were of beautiful workmanship, but being made of a firm and unaccommodating material, and in form utterly unadapted to any possible human foot, they had probably pinched 'my son's feet so unendurably that no amount ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... through the cordon of police. I followed him. At first the people drew back a little and let us pass into the middle of the crowd. Then one man after another began to hustle us. Moyne linked his arm in mine and helped me along. A man struck him in the face with the flat of his hand. It was a sharp slap rather than an actual blow. Moyne flushed deeply, but he neither spoke nor struck back. Then suddenly the people seemed to forget all about us. A wild cheer burst from them. Hats were flung into the air. Sticks were waved. Some one began ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... who remembered Flore in all her beauty, expected to see some frightful change, he was not prepared for the hideous spectacle which now smote his artist's eye. In a room with bare, unpapered walls, under the sharp pitch of an attic roof, on a cot whose scanty mattress was filled, perhaps, with refuse cotton, a woman lay, green as a body that has been drowned two days, thin as a consumptive an hour before ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... rate, and, the nearer I am to old Johnstone and this pretty heiress to be, the better my all-round chances are." So, he contented himself with watching the pictured shores of Lake Leman glide by, and wondering if he might not turn aside safely to the chase of the bright-eyed, sharp-featured, Miss Genie Forbes. He had profited by Phineas Forbes's frank disclosures, and yet the Madame Sans Gene manners of the heiresses rather frightened him. He was aware from the amatory failure in the dim old cathedral that Miss Genie was armed cap-a-fie. "Those American ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... contained the plate, was securely locked, and the key nowhere to be found. Anxious to get at the rich booty, the leader, with an angry imprecation, put the muzzle of his heavy horse-pistol to the lock; a sharp report followed, and the lid thus unceremoniously opened offered no further obstacle to the rapacity of the invaders. Donna Ignazia took advantage of the joyful excitement of the band, and left the room to descend into the lower story of the ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... note How cordial intercourse resolves itself To sparks of sharp debate! The lesser guests Are fain to steal unnoticed from a scene Wherein they feel themselves as surplusage Beside the official minds.—I catch a sign The King of Prussia makes the English Duke; They leave ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... looked at him that evening, I noticed he did not have the long ears and heavy jaws of the common American deer or foxhound. His long, sharp nose and slender proportions indicated the blood of the Scotch staghound, or that of some ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... restored, the Senhora De Sylva was entering a gate that led to the left front of the house, when the young man came out whom she had seen leaving the headquarters tent. Again he rode like one in a hurry, and she noted that he emerged from a side path which gave access to the lawn. He gave her a sharp glance as he passed. She received an impression of a strong face, with stern-looking, bright, steel-blue eyes, a mouth tensely set, an aspect at once confident yet self-contained. She was sure now he was not a Brazilian, ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... most remarkable tree. To this tree, the world owes a debt of gratitude for its generous unfailing supply of a rich wholesome food. Almost every child through the sense of sight, touch and taste, is familiar with that peculiar, triangular-shaped, sharp-edged, black-coated nut of commerce, with such a delicious kernel, known as the brazil nut. Very few however, know anything of the tree which bears them, or how they are attached to the branches from which they are ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... be no poetic justice in her doom. To drag her out of a steamer wreck, only to make her the victim of a scoundrel, later an adventuress, and finally a murderess, all may be good art, but of a very bad kind. Laura is a sort of American Becky Sharp; but there is retributive justice in Becky's fate, whereas Laura's doom is warranted only by the author's whim. As for her end, whatever the virtuous public of that day might have done, a present-day audience would not have pelted her from the stage, destroyed ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... has something queerer than all these. Its body is covered all over with two sets of quills. One set is long, slender, and curved; the other, short and straight, very stout, and with sharp points. ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... end he might be king Sufficient: not the number to search out Of the celestial movers; or to know, If necessary with contingent e'er Have made necessity; or whether that Be granted, that first motion is; or if Of the mid circle can, by art, be made Triangle with each corner, blunt or sharp. ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... of my companion, I had made myself a good stout bow and plenty of arrows, and had exercised myself so frequently at aiming at a mark, as to have acquired very considerable skill in the use of them. I had now several arrows of hard wood tipped with sharp fish-bones, and some with iron nails, in a kind of pouch behind me; in its sheath before me was my American knife, which I used for taking the plants from the ground. I had a basket made of the long grass of the island, slung around me, which served to contain our treasures; ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... gave orders, a sharp authoritative voice. The battering squad dissolved, and there was a general withdrawal out of the line of fire from the window. Was it possible that he had intimidated them? He could hear the sound of voices, and then a single figure came into sight again, ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... canoe showed signs of more advanced civilisation than any seen by Columbus before in these waters. They wore clothing, they had copper hatchets, and bells, and palm-wood swords in the edges of which were set sharp blades of flint. They had a fermented liquor, a kind of maize beer which looked like English ale; they had some kind of money or medium of exchange also, and they told the Admiral that there was land to the west ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... unsupported to receive their first fire. The bridge had been burned when the Confederates retired to their works. Directly in front of the crest, and somewhat below it, a rugged bluff stands a little apart, projecting boldly from the main height with a sharp return to the right, so as to form a natural outwork of great strength, practically inaccessible save by the road that winds along the bottom of the little rivulet at the foot of the almost perpendicular flank. This detached ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... unpleasant to the eye. The wonderful blue of the Mediterranean, the storms, and the sunsets and clouds behind and above the sharp peaks of the island of Samothrace—some 40 miles away—made believers of those who had seen copies or prints of Turner's pictures. Farther south, and 12 or 15 miles distant, lay the less mountainous island of Imbros, where Sir Ian Hamilton had his headquarters. ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... In sharp contrast to this state of oneness of the child's soul, in regard both to its own body and to the surrounding world, there stands the separatedness of the adult's intellectual consciousness, severed from both body ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... way of keeping them fit. A platoon lay flat on their stomachs in the long grass, the burnished nails on the soles of their boots twinkling in the sun like miniature heliographs. From all quarters of the field sharp words of command rang out like pistol shots. "Three hundred. Five rounds. Fire." As the men obeyed the sergeant's word of command, the air resounded with the clicking of bolts like a chorus of grasshoppers. We pursued a section of the Royal Fusiliers in command of a corporal until he halted ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... in future, Peter, and avoid quiet streets after dark, and keep a sharp look-out at all times, or we shall get a knife between our ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... Vargrave's anxiety and resolve; nay, it seemed almost to sharpen his sharp features as he muttered sundry denunciations on Messrs. Douce and Co., while arranging his ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book V • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... prison even when acquitted. In Paris, where there had been 1877 prisoners on September 13, there were 2975 on October 20. On September 25, the mismanagement of the Vendean War, where even the Mentz garrison had been defeated, led to a sharp debate in the Convention. It was carried away by the attack of the Dantonists; but Robespierre snatched a victory, and obtained a unanimous vote of confidence. From that date to the 26th of July 1794, we count the days of his established reign, and the Convention makes way ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... man as scarcely to believe what I see, am induced to think that this is not entirely false, and in a matter of this kind it is a proper thing to be deceived. Run then to Cosmo,—press him,—importune him to make an advance for these books to be brought to you safe and sharp. Adieu. Rome, the 8th of January, 1424. What you do, mind you let me know. In haste. Tell this to our Chancellor, Leonardo. In that monastery nearly all the kings of ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... previously said to you, the doctrinaire Hanslick could not be favorable to me; his article is perfidious, but on the whole seemly. Moreover it would be an easy matter for me to reduce his arguments to nil, and I think he is sharp enough to know that. On a better opportunity this could also be shown to him, without having the appearance of correcting him. I suppose the initials C. D. in the Vienna paper mean Dorffl—or Drechsler? No matter by whom the critique is written, ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... we were surprised to find clear water at all, even in the Green River. Rowing downstream we found that the country sloped gently towards the mountains. The river skirted the edge of these foot-hills as if looking for a possible escape, then turned and entered the mountain at a sharp angle. The walls sloped back considerably at first, and there was a little shore on ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... How sharp and bitter the contrast between the soul of this chivalrous boy and his vain conceited brother! She loathed herself for her blind stupidity. Why had she preferred him? Why—why—why! The very question cut her. It was ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... in a sharp, sibilant breath, clicked his tongue—a sound of devil-may-care and hopelessness at once—and turned to a little cupboard behind him. The chair squeaked on the floor as he turned, and he frowned, shivered a little, and kicked it ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
