"Sharp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who had got a sharp pair of eyes, whatever might be said about his wits, had one evening accompanied Desmond. They stood for some minutes scanning the horizon, but not a speck was visible in the blue sky except here and there, where a sea-fowl was winging ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... ill-humor, and this most frequently in the morning, at his levee. There, amid his assembled chiefs, in whose anxious looks he imagined he could read disapprobation, he seemed desirous to awe them by the severity of his manner, by his sharp tone, and his abrupt language. From the paleness of his face, however, it was evident that Truth, whose best time for obtaining a hearing is in the stillness of night, had annoyed him grievously by her presence, and oppressed ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... such a man as Washington, the case is still stronger. Men seem to have agreed that here was greatness which no one could question, and character which no one could fail to respect. Around other leaders of men, even around the greatest of them, sharp controversies have arisen, and they have their partisans dead as they had them living. Washington had enemies who assailed him, and friends whom he loved, but in death as in life he seems to stand alone, above conflict and superior to malice. In his own ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... in answer to that defiance, she saw part of a man's shadow thrown by the westering sun on the sand before her. She swerved sharp round—not startled—not afraid; but filled with an extraordinary fury against Godfrey which may have been partly ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... not a man, however, to give way to obstacles, and with characteristic vanity and self-reliance, he had, shortly after her return from school, greatly astonished the proud Oriana with a bold declaration of love and an offer of his hand and fortune. Not intimidated by a sharp and decidedly ungracious refusal, he had at every opportunity advocated his hopeless suit, and with so much persistence and effrontery, that the object of his unwelcome passion had been goaded from indifference to repugnance and absolute loathing. Harold Hare, whose name he had mentioned ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... in the office when the new clients entered. A girl and an elderly man. The girl smiled at Mike. Then she looked at Nicko and a sharp involuntary scream got past ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis
... a thing very delightful to God to see hope rightly given its colour before him; hence he is said, 'to laugh at the trial of the innocent' (Job 9:23). Why at his trial? Because his trial puts him upon the exercise of hope: for then indeed there is work for hope, when trials are sharp upon us. But why is God so delighted in the exercise of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Lou looked up. Emmy Lou was pink-cheeked and chubby and in her heart there was no guile. There was an ease and swagger about the little boy. And he always knew when to stand up, and what for. Emmy Lou more than once had failed to stand up, and Miss Clara's reminder had been sharp. It was when a bell rang one must stand up. But what for, Emmy Lou never knew, until after the others began to ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... horses, we went up hill, with perpetual groanings, and grumblings, and grindings, and whip-smacking and come-up-ing, for an indefinite period; and then we came to a cluster of cottages, suspended high up in the sharp autumn atmosphere as it seemed to me; and the driver of the vehicle came to my little peephole of a window, and told me with some slight modification of the Carthaginian patois that ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... rear, and, thence, to turn the left, and gain the rear, of the breast-work; while Hand, aided by the artillery, should attack in front. These orders were promptly executed. While the artillery played on the works, Poor pushed up the mountain, and a sharp conflict commenced, which was sustained for some time, with considerable spirit on both sides. Poor continued to advance rapidly, pressing the Indians before him at the point of the bayonet, and occasionally firing on them. They retreated from tree to tree, keeping up an irregular ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... came from Jack Wrench—three sharp, piercing cries; but there seemed to be a note of alarm in the last, it ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... those Swedish, Irish, English, Polish, German, or Bohemian dairymaids," we murmured, dreamily, and when our reader roused us from our muse with a sharp "What?" we explained, "Of course they were not American dairymaids, for it stands to reason that if they were dairymaids they could not be Americans, or if Americans they could not ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... bills, pikes, and a halberd, have been excavated. The recovered halberd (a polearm with sharp cutting edges and a spearlike point) is typical of the late 16th century, and may have been made as early as 1575. A few bills were unearthed, all dating around 1600. (A bill is a polearm, having a long staff terminating in a hook-shaped ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter
... the idea. "Indeed you haven't," she declared. "If you don't mind my sayin' so, Mr. Bangs, the angel Gabriel couldn't keep me waitin' breakfast till half past nine on a Saturday mornin'. Primmie and I were up at half-past six sharp. That is, I got up then and Primmie was helped up about five minutes afterward. But what I want to know," she went on, "is why you got up at all. Didn't the doctor say you were to stay abed ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... better get used to skating up here before we talk about a race," said Bob. "This ice looks tremendously hard and slippery. You won't be able to do much on your skates unless they are extra sharp." ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... the folk who had crowded into that room, all agog to hear whatever could be told, went out of it more puzzled than when they came in. They split up into groups outside the inn, and began to discuss matters amongst themselves. And presently two sharp-looking young fellows, whom I had seen taking notes at the end of the big table whereat the coroner and the officials sat, came up to me, and telling me that they were reporters, specially sent over, one from Edinburgh, ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... with a restrained sharp eagerness toward the dining-room or leaving it in a more languid flushed repletion. There were, among them, men; but somehow the men never seemed to be of the least account. It was a women's paradise. The glow from above always emphasized the gowns, ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of it well by the close of day. The Leading Gentleman took that evening to sharpening the already sharp blade of the knife. As he sharpened it on his sandal and the side of the boat, and tried its edge on his thumb, he regarded the thin body of Moussa ...
— 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
... garments, with dishevelled hair, unloosed girdle, and streaming eyes; appears at the town-house and afterwards in the market place, humbly to intercede for her servants, are fruitless There is no help for the juggling diplomatists. The punishment was sharp. Was it more severe and sudden than that which betrayed monarchs usually inflict? Would the Flemings, at that critical moment, have deserved their freedom had they not taken swift and signal vengeance ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... is a small slight person, in very good black clothes, not at all as if they were meant to ape a gentleman, and therefore thoroughly respectable. He has a thin face, rather pointed as to the chin and nose, and the eyes dark and keen, so that it would be over-sharp but that the mouth looks so gentle and subdued, and the whole countenance is grave and thoughtful. You could not feel half so sure that he is a certificated school-master, as you can that his very brisk- ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not going to inflict on the reader a detailed account of this remarkable trial, which turned, as barristers would say, on a beautiful point of circumstantial evidence. Along with the attorney, a sharp enough person in his way, I examined various parties at the hotel, and made myself acquainted with the nature of the premises. The more we investigated, however, the more dark and mysterious—always supposing Harvey's innocence—did the whole case appear. There was not ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... garden she wore on her breast, And John, as her fingers he tenderly press'd, Seemed to feel a sharp arrow ('twas Cupid's first dart) Come straight from the rosebud and enter ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... distress! What ignorance and delusion (he reflected) overshadow their minds: "Surely they ought to consider old age, disease, and death, and day and night stir themselves up to exertion, whilst this sharp double-edged sword hangs over the neck. What room for sport or laughter, beholding those monsters, old age, disease, and death? A man who is unable to resort to this inward knowledge, what is he but a wooden ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... Pentecost seeking hospitality, were two strangers in especial, who because of being meanly garbed and of a seeming awkwardness brought forth the mockery and jest of Sir Kay the Seneschal. Nor did Sir Kay mean harm thereby, for he was knight who held no villainy. Yet was his tongue overly sharp and too oft disposed ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... about with pocketed squirts, for the hypodermal injection of opium. Almost all those whom I knew there, wanting to be better, went away worse; and, in my own case, a whole month of Midian sun, and a sharp attack of ague and fever were required to burn out the Hexenschuss and to counteract the deleterious effects ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... reserved, he would have us think, in the final counsels of the Almighty as the place of punishment for convicted and deposed American Presidents. At first I thought that his mind had become so enlarged that it was not sharp enough to discover that the Constitution had limited the punishment, but on reflection I saw that he was as legal and logical as he was ambitious and astronomical, for the Constitution has said ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... excited, huddled eyes. Then one started forth, advancing over the sand, and he had a small gourd filled with some powder which he threw before him. He scattered it ceremonially between us and himself and his fellows, a slow, measured rite with muttered words and now and then a sharp, rising note. ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... legitimate means of attracting people to the church. Relief as a gospel agency has done far more harm than good: you cannot buy a Christian without getting a bad bargain, and yet, competition among rival churches working in the same poor neighborhood is so sharp that even now, in these days of cooperative {172} effort, we find that the sordid appeal is made. "I call it waste," wrote the late Archbishop of Canterbury, "when money is laid out upon instinct which ought ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... of these nights Cal Galbraith dropped in. Encouraging news had just come down from Stuart River, and Madeline had surpassed herself—not in walk alone, and carriage and grace, but in womanly roguishness. They had indulged in sharp repartee and she had defended herself brilliantly; and then, yielding to the intoxication of the moment, and of her own power, she had bullied, and mastered, and wheedled, and patronized them with most ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... of water. I had heard this on waking in the morning, but at the time I had imagined it to proceed from distant thunder. By ten o'clock the current had so increased as we proceeded that it was distinctly perceptible, although weak. The roar of the waterfall was extremely loud, and after sharp pulling for a couple of hours, during which time the stream increased, we arrived at a few deserted fishing-huts, at a point where the river made a slight turn. I never saw such an extraordinary show of crocodiles as were exposed ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... just laid an egg, that's all," replied a small, but sharp and distinct voice, and looking around her the little girl discovered a yellow hen squatting in the opposite corner of ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... presence; there he hears surpriz'd The mortal charge of felony devis'd: Stern did the monarch look, and sharp upbraid For foul seducement of his queen assay'd: The knight, whose loyal heart disdain'd the offence, With generous warmth affirm'd his innocence; He ne'er devis'd seduction:—for the rest, His speech discourteous, ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... with his voice very near to tears. Then he gulped and took a more warlike tone. "I don't set m'self up t' be a know-it-all—but I guess I can tell when a man's full uh booze. And I ain't claimin' t' be no Jiujitsu sharp" (with a meaning glance at Pink) "and I know the chances I'm takin' when I stand up agin the bunch—but I'm ready, here and now, t' fight any damn man that says I'm a liar, er that Weary was jest throwin' ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... these seances led to a rather amusing incident. One night I was awakened from first slumbers by a sharp ring at my bell, and when, after some parleying, I opened the door, I found myself confronted by two individuals. One I recognised as an "inquirer" who had been brought to my rooms some time previously; the other was a lad I had not seen before. The inquirer, ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... unique faculty of diversifying dry and technical argument with outbursts of rhetoric. These last are not mere purple patches; they do not come in with the somewhat ostentatious usherment and harbingery which, for instance, laid the even more splendid bursts of Jeremy Taylor open to the sharp sarcasm of South. There is nothing theatrical about them; they rise quite naturally out of the level of discussion and sink into it again, with no sudden stumble or drop. Nor are they ever (like some of Sidney's poetical excrescences) tags and hemistichs ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... he had now planned. I tried to obtain from him some further details, but his replies were sharp and firm. ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... rode up, rescued the Governor from his perilous position and conveyed him home, when it was found that the principal bone of his right leg, above the knee, had sustained an oblique fracture, and that the limb had also received a severe wound from being bruised against a sharp stone, which had cut deeply and lacerated the flesh and sinews. Notwithstanding these serious injuries, and the shock which his nervous system had sustained, his medical attendants did not at first anticipate danger to his life. He continued free from fever, and his wounds seemed ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... bare, miserable board which served for the bed, and its rude pillow, were glorified. A stray sunbeam, too, fluttered down on the floor like a pitying spirit, to light up that pale, thin face, whose classic outlines had now a sharp, yellow setness, like that of swooning or death; it seemed to linger compassionately on the sunken, wasted cheeks, on the long black lashes that fell over the deep hollows beneath the eyes like a funereal veil. Poor man! lying crushed and torn, like a piece of rockweed wrenched from its rock ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... enough to justify their worst anticipations. The canon was narrower than any they had traversed, and the current extremely swift. There seemed but few broken rocks in the channel, but on either side the walls jutted out in sharp angles far into the ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... this second hole? Because the old one was judged a little too narrow and they wished to enlarge it, and in enlarging it they broke off the point of a hat-pin in it. Madame, the point is there yet, filling up the little old hole and the piece of metal is very sharp and very bright." ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... combination of simple pathos and genial drollery, however, it was a story that no other could by possibility have told than the great English Humorist. If there was something really akin to the genius of Andersen, in the notion of the Cricket with its shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounding through the house, and seeming to twinkle in the outer darkness like a star, Dickens, and no other could, by any chance, have conjured up the forms of either Caleb Plummer, or Gruff-and-Tackleton. The cuckoo on the Dutch clock, now like a spectral ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... of relief when he sank into his chair and felt himself safe from error if he kept a sharp lookout and did only what the others did. Bellingham had certain habits which he permitted himself, and one of these was tucking the corner of his napkin into his collar; he confessed himself an uncertain shot with a spoon, and defended his practice on the ground of neatness and common-sense. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... lowlife for you," he said. "That feller tells me I should be here at three o'clock sharp and he fools ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... New Guinea—and of making acquaintances with a variety of interesting savage and semi-civilised people. But apart from experience of this kind, and the opportunities offered for scientific work, to me personally the cruise was extremely valuable. It was good for me to live under sharp discipline; to be down on the realities of existence by living on bare necessities; to find out how extremely well worth living life seemed to be when one woke up from a night's rest on a soft plank with the sky for canopy, and cocoa and weevilly ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... too sharp-sighted not to have observed how it fared with Sarah in her married life, and, moreover, there was not any especial force in Sarah's exhortation when she ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... that which is evil and encourage that which is good. This was the excellent rule of antiquity. Conceal not, therefore, the good qualities of others, and fail not to correct that which is wrong when you see it. Flatterers and deceivers are a sharp weapon for the overthrow of the State, and a pointed sword for the destruction of the people. Sycophants are also fond, when they meet, of dilating to their superiors on the errors of their inferiors; to their ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... all the animals which live in the forest and its outskirts towards the savannahs! There is the singular opossum, and there is the sluggish, scaly armadillo, which loves the detestable termites—those white ants which, with their sharp mandibles, gnaw to pieces paper, clothes, wood, the whole house in fact. Then there is the climbing sloth, with its round monkey head and large curved claws. All day long it remains sleepily hanging under a bough, and only wakes up when night falls. It lives ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... but must duly rebuke it. Those who have acquired the respect of the believers, and would be exemplary Christians, must take heed lest they accustom themselves to flattery and luxury; they must even submit to sharp admonitions ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... defences could be discovered, and just as it seemed possible that a daylight attack would be held up, a thick mist rolled up the valley and settled down over Enab. The 2/3rd Gurkhas seized a welcomed opportunity, and as the light was failing the shrill, sharp notes of these gallant hillmen and the deep-throated roar of the 1/5th Somersets told that a weighty bayonet charge had got home, and that the keys of the enemy position had been won. The men of the bold 75th went beyond ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... formed, on the ground floor, colonnades that served for warehouses, and under which merchandise was landed.[449] The famous London Bridge, built under King John, almost new still, for it was only entering upon its second century and was to live six hundred years, with its many piers, its sharp buttresses, the houses it bore, its chapel of St. Thomas, stood against the line of the horizon, and connected the City with the suburb of Southwark. On that side were more houses, a fine Gothic church, which still exists, hostelries in abundance, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... moral peripety we may turn to the great scene between Vivie and her mother in the second act of Mrs. Warren's Profession. Whatever may be thought of the matter of this scene, its movement is excellent. After a short, sharp opening, which reveals to Mrs. Warren the unfilial dispositions of her daughter, and reduces her to whimpering dismay, the ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... epithet "far-off" should be altered, and the lion himself brought from the interior. But we cannot believe that lions were permitted to live in dens within ear-shot of Nineveh. Nimrod had taught them "never to come there no more"—and Semiramis looked sharp after the suburbs. But, not to insist unduly upon a mere matter of police, is it the nature of lions, lying in their dens among far-off hills, to start up from their sleep, and "breathe hot roarings out" in fierce reply to the shouts of armies? All stuff! ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... all began counting. Dorry seized the clock—shook it, slapped it, turned it upside-down. But still the sharp, vibrating sounds continued, as if the clock, having got its own way for once, meant to go on till it was tired out. At last, at the one-hundred-and-thirtieth stroke, it suddenly ceased; and Dorry, with a red, amazed countenance, ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... boulevards, before the brilliant shops or performing jugglers, trying to learn how to steal from open stalls, and at night asking in a plaintive voice for alms in behalf of her poor sick father. When twelve years old she was as thin as a plank, and as green as a June apple, with sharp elbows and long red hands. But she had beautiful light hair, teeth like a young dog's, and large, impudent eyes. Merely upon seeing her go along, her head high with an air of saucy indifference, coquettish under her ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... to me: I am his wife," said the voice, clear and sharp now with the anguish those hard words ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... Miss Leo. Bedney and me never is beholdin' to nobody for money. We was too sharp to drap our savings in the 'Freedman's Bank', 'cause we 'spicioned the bottom was not soddered tight, and Marster's britches' pocket was a good enough bank for us. We don't need to beg, borrow, nor steal. As I tole ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... good my Fellowes, do not please sharp fate To grace it with your sorrowes. Bid that welcome Which comes to punish vs, and we punish it Seeming to beare it lightly. Take me vp, I haue led you oft, carry me now good Friends, And haue my thankes ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... mercenary soldiers and two thousand Macedonians, under command of Milo, with order to hasten and possess themselves of the passes. Polybius relates that the Romans found these men asleep when they attacked them; but Nasica says there was a sharp and severe conflict on the top of the mountain, that he himself encountered a mercenary Thracian, pierced him through with his javelin, and slew him; and that the enemy being forced to retreat, Milo stripped to his coat and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... state aimless, evanescent, and of utter subjugation. Fortunately these social reformers, however daring, use no other instruments of warfare than speech and pamphlets; they do not betake themselves to the sharp weapons of political conspiracy. They must be permitted, therefore, to rave themselves out. And this they will do the sooner from their very number. There are too many prophets; they spoil the trade; the Mesmerizers disturb and distract each other's efforts; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... pay consisted of a yearly uniform. Six yards of tawney medley at 13s. 4d. a yard, with a fur of black budge rated at L10, is the warrant for 1592. The cost in the next reign was estimated at L14. Ralegh had to fill vacancies in his band of fifty. He was known to have a sharp eye for suitable recruits, young, tall, strong, and handsome. The regular duty was to guard the Queen from weapons and from poison; to watch over her safety by day and night wherever she went, by land or water. ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... replied, "in a rich house like this, one has to keep a sharp lookout. I am responsible for everything when the masters are away, and I can't open the door to ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... nearly eight o'clock before she was awakened again by sharp knocking on her door; and on opening it, found the landlady' standing there, examining a letter with great attention. (It had already been held up to the light against the ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... stopped short; then, "Oh, because you played the fool with Agatha in the canoe? You two will find yourselves in a crankier craft than that if you don't look sharp." ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... contagious malady. Reproaches were not spared him; the leper heard them and could not hide his sadness and distress; it seemed to him like being a second time banished from the world. Francis was quick to remark all this and to feel sharp remorse for it; the thought of having saddened one of God's patients was unendurable; he not only begged his pardon, but he caused food to be served, and sitting down beside him he shared his repast, eating from the same porringer.[40] ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... hurl'd the pond'rous spear; Full on Aretus' broad-orb'd shield it struck; Nor stay'd the shield its course; the brazen point Drove through the belt, and in his body lodg'd. As with sharp axe in hand a stalwart man, Striking behind the horns a sturdy bull, Severs the neck; he, forward, plunging, falls; So forward first he sprang, then backwards fell: And quiv'ring, in his vitals deep infix'd, The sharp spear soon relax'd his limbs in death. Then at Automedon great Hector ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... which I could give full effect to the sale of my publications, as well as if they were sold openly, and which would defy prosecution, as the vender could not be identified. I dislike this mode of doing business; I like open, fair play; and I now make a proposition to Stoddart, Clarke, Murray, and Sharp, that I will do every thing openly, and give them the name of every individual in my employ from time to time, if they will confine themselves to the professions they have made through "Cato," their scribe, and not arrest ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... another; they are struck off with wonderful dexterity, as far as the eye or hand is concerned, but the mind is totally wanting; neither do they possess the peculiar features of natural truth, whose lines are filled with variety, sometimes sharp, sometimes round—in parts faint and delicate, and in other places strong and cutting. On the other hand, when the drawings of great painters are examined, the master mind shines forth in every touch, and we recognise ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... it may have been the very assertion he desired from me, but his manner showed displeasure, and the quick "How?" he uttered was sharp ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... Anabasis-heart! How often, ah! how sadly often Wast thou pressed hard by the North's fair Barbarians! From large and conquering eyes They shot forth burning arrows; With crooked words as sharp as a rapier They threatened to pierce my bosom; With cuneiform angular missives they battered My poor stunned brains; In vain I held out my shield for protection, The arrows hissed and the blows rained ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... to fasten an ugly and uninteresting girl on Charles, whose life in the West Indies had rendered him very attractive. His complexion had bronzed, his manners had grown decided and bold, like those of a man accustomed to make sharp decisions, to rule, and to succeed. Charles breathed more at his ease in Paris, conscious that he now ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... The line is single, and has a gauge of three feet, the standard of the existing narrow gauge lines in Ulster. The gradients are exceedingly heavy, as will be seen from the diagram, being in parts as steep as 1 in 35. The curves are also in many cases very sharp, having necessarily to follow the existing road. There are five passing places, in addition to the sidings at the termini and at the carriage depot. At the Bushmills end, the line is laid for about 200 yards along ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... with strawberries, which ripen on the Apennines many months in continuance, and some other berries of sharp and grateful flavour, has been my only diet since my first residence here. The state of my health requires it; and the habitude of nearly three months renders this food not only more commodious to my studies and more conducive to my sleep, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... beech-leaves, which were of more immediate importance to him than anything else. Indeed, these trifles drew his attention strangely from his own doubtful and uneasy state of mind; for relief, mixing itself with pain, stirred up a most curious hurry and tumult in his breast, almost concealing his first sharp sense of bleak and overwhelming disappointment. In order to relieve this restlessness and close a distressingly ill-ordered scene, he rose abruptly and helped Katharine to her feet. She smiled a little at the minute care with which he tidied her and yet, when ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... cattle a huge, black, grotesque shape was clearly outlined. It was waving to and fro, as though it were some giant-winged monster of the night trying to rise from the earth. Sanderson could hear the flapping noise it made; it carried to him with the sharp resonance of a ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Him—and His words at the table were also strange. For He first rebuked the guests, and then the host; telling the former to take the lower rooms, and bidding the latter widen his hospitality to those that could not recompense him. It was a sharp saying; and one of the other guests turned the edge of it by laying hold of our Lord's final words: 'Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just,' and saying, no doubt in a pious tone and with a devout shake ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... peacefulness of the night was once more broken by the fierce howls, and this time they were answered by the sled dogs, who, raising their sharp muzzles in the air, sent their ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... creek valley toward the Reserve far more rapidly than the weaker car of Big Aleck had climbed the same grade the day previous, but the main body of the forest lay three thousand feet above the valley floor, and the ascent was so sharp that at times they were obliged to stop in order to ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... fixed upon the girls. Minnie's face expressed the utmost horror. She opened her mouth to speak; her sharp eyes darted dagger thrusts at her mother; it was evident that she was bursting with remonstrance and denunciation. Chatty, on the contrary, looked at her mother, and then at the stranger, with a soft look of pleasure stealing over her face. It softened still more ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... over to card table]. There remains only one thing for me to say. If I have used sharp words, I want ...
— Moral • Ludwig Thoma
... it so—for to the chill night shower And the sharp wind his head he oft hath bared; A Sailor he, who many a wretched hour Hath told; for, landing after labour hard, Full long [1] endured in hope of just reward, 50 He to an armed fleet was forced away By seamen, who perhaps themselves had shared Like fate; was hurried off, a helpless ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... rocks and comes up with too scanty room, alas! he caught on a rock that ran out; the reef ground, the oars struck and shivered on the jagged teeth, and the bows crashed and hung. The sailors leap up and hold her with loud cries, and get out iron-shod poles and sharp-pointed boathooks, and pick up their broken oars out of the eddies. But Mnestheus, rejoicing and flushed by his triumph, with oars fast-dipping and winds at his call, issues into the shelving water ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... asserted their usual ascendant over the effeminate natives of Asia. [49] The battle of Lyons, where one hundred and fifty thousand Romans [50] were engaged, was equally fatal to Albinus. The valor of the British army maintained, indeed, a sharp and doubtful contest, with the hardy discipline of the Illyrian legions. The fame and person of Severus appeared, during a few moments, irrecoverably lost, till that warlike prince rallied his fainting troops, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... accept Amelia Sedley for a very woman; they believe in Colonel Newcome—'by Don Quixote out of Little Nell'—as in something venerable and heroic; they regard William Dobbin and 'Stunning' Warrington as finished and subtle portraitures; they think Becky Sharp an improvement upon Mme. Marneffe and Wenham better work than Rigby; they are in love with Laura Bell, and refuse to see either cruelty or caricature in their poet's presentment of Alcide de Mirobolant. Thackeray's fun, Thackeray's wisdom, ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... chief holding a pipe and a golden tobacco-stalk on the rear. The pedler drove a smart little mare and was a young man of excellent character, keen at a bargain, but none the worse liked by the Yankees, who, as I have heard them say, would rather be shaved with a sharp razor than a dull one. Especially was he beloved by the pretty girls along the Connecticut, whose favor he used to court by presents of the best smoking-tobacco in his stock, knowing well that the country-lasses of New England ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... them in the field, not Carbo or Marius, but two warlike nations bearing immortal hatred to Rome, the Samnites and Lucanians, to grapple with. But he put them by, and commanded the trumpets to sound a charge, when it was now about four o'clock in the afternoon. In the conflict which followed, as sharp a one as ever was, the right wing where Crassus was posted had clearly the advantage; the left suffered and was in distress, when Sylla came to its succor, mounted on a white courser, full of mettle and exceedingly swift, which ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... "Take sharp aim and make every shot tell!" Menzies cried hoarsely. "Fire at those nearest your own side. My ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... mist rolls into crimson clouds and scales the craggy cliffs; it dies softly away into the blue depths of the infinite sky. The valley glitters like a sea of light, throws back the dewy sunshine in a dazzling glare, for every hand is armed with sharp and sparkling blades and points of steel—and millions are seen pouring into its depths, numberless as they will pour into the vale ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... sentiments, which were visibly unpleasant, both to the young husband and to the Princess herself. He danced, nevertheless, for some minutes with her; but, suddenly, she feigned to be seized with a sharp pain in the spleen, and was conducted to a sofa. The young Comte de Vermandois came and sat there near her. They were both exhibiting signs of gaiety; their chatter amused them, and they were seen to laugh with great freedom. Although Monsieur le Dauphin was assuredly not ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... Falmouth packet on the 20th ult. The ladies are not changed since then. Me and Cousin Will are very good friends. We have rode out a good deal. We have had some famous cocking matches at Hampton and Winton. My cousin is a sharp blade, but I think I have shown him that we in Virginia know a thing or two. Reverend Mr. Sampson, chaplain of the famaly, most excellent ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to fade and the first little breath of a new morning ruffled the soft gray silence a sudden sharp volley rang out. It was the Green Valley boys setting off cannon crackers in front of the bank. And it must be said right here that that first signal volley was about all the fireworks ever indulged in in Green Valley. This little town, nestling in the peaceful shelter ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... of Pickering we find that on the 13th August 1694 Archbishop Sharp held a confirmation in the church and confirmed about a thousand persons. The note is given in ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... ever seen the agave, that hard wild African shrub, so sharp, bitter, and tearing, with huge bristles instead of leaves? Ten years through it loves and dies. At length one day the amorous shoot, which has so long been gathering in the rough thing, goes off with a noise like gunfire, and darts skyward. And this shoot ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... rather absurd about the past. For us, who have fared on, the silhouette of Error is sharp upon the past horizon. As we look back upon any period, its fashions seem grotesque, its ideals shallow, for we know how soon those ideals and those fashions were to perish, and how rightly; nor can we feel a little of the fervour they did inspire. It is easy to laugh at these Mashers, ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... it is midnight. The fire glows brightly, crackling with a sharp and cheerful sound, as if it loved to burn. The merry cricket on the hearth (my constant visitor), this ruddy blaze, my clock, and I, seem to share the world among us, and to be the only things awake. The wind, high and boisterous but now, has died away and hoarsely mutters in its ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... He didn't say he was offered a higher salary. Ah! guess I've got it now. It's only a bit of a ruse on his part to get me to increase his wages. I didn't think of this before. Well, it has succeeded; and, in truth, he's worth all I've offered him. Shrewd, quick, and sharp; he's a young man just to my mind. Should he grow restless again, I must tempt him with the idea of a partnership at some future period. If business goes on increasing, I shall want some one with me whom I can trust and depend on more fully than ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... little old woman and her two children, whose names were Connla and Nora. Right in front of the door of the little house lay a pleasant meadow, and beyond the meadow rose up to the skies a mountain whose top was sharp-pointed like a spear. For more than halfway up it was clad with heather, and when the heather was in bloom it looked like a purple robe falling from the shoulders of the mountain down to its feet. Above the heather it was bare and gray, but when the sun was sinking in the sea, its last ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... too sharp," wailed Ans, while Flaxen went off into a peal of laughter. "Say, Bert's be'n in the damnedest—excuse me—plaguedest temper fer the last two munce ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... it out. The boy went to sleep as soon as he was born, and has but just waked up—that's my notion about it. So now, instead of starting, the way most of us do, at the point of helplessness, he begins life with a body full of seven years' pith, and faculties sharp set as a new watch. Till now he has but dreamed; now he's going to exist, with so much the more extra impetus. He don't recollect what he's been dreaming—why ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... from the camp. Ten minutes passed and Stane still listened for her shot. Then it came, and sharp and clear on the heels of it came a cry of triumph. The injured man ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... they have been gratified by the shining coat, the sparkling eye—sure symptoms of fitness for the fight;—how when thrown in to covert every hound has been hidden; how every sprig of gorse has bristled with motion; how when viewed away by the sharp-eyed whipper-in, the fox stole under the hedge; how the huntsman clapped round, and with a few toots of his horn brought them out in a body; how, without tying on the line, they 'flew to head'; how, when they got ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... not very long before Scott arrived. He clumped solemnly up the stairs with a thick stick in his hand, and Bill, his sharp little fox terrier, at his heels. Mrs. Wilson accompanied him, bearing the kitchen poker; and the parlour-maid followed, holding the yard dog by the collar, in case Bill should miss his prey. Miss Frazer and Miss ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil |
