"Double-edged" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nobles, the venality of military leaders, threw daily fresh stumbling-blocks in his heroic path. It was not six months after the advent of Farnese to power, before that bold and subtle chieftain had seized the double-edged sword of religious dissension as firmly as he had grasped his celebrated brand when he boarded the galley of Muatapha Bey, and the Netherlands were cut in twain, to be re-united nevermore. The separate treaty of the Walloon provinces ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... zones, but our great men are ranged in two hostile camps. The Royalists are 'Romantics,' the Liberals are 'Classics.' The divergence of taste in matters literary and divergence of political opinion coincide; and the result is a war with weapons of every sort, double-edged witticisms, subtle calumnies and nicknames a outrance, between the rising and the waning glory, and ink is shed in torrents. The odd part of it is that the Royalist-Romantics are all for liberty in literature, and for repealing laws and conventions; while the Liberal-Classics are for maintaining ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... tried the other side of the double-edged blade, continuing obstinately, and Moussa Isa contrived a strange sound which died away on a curious bubbling note and ...
— 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
... contact. It is desirable in making this adjustment that the eye should be assisted by a magnifying-glass. The reading of the scale should then be taken and entered in the column appropriated to it in the proper form. If the instrument have no tubular or double-edged index, the eye should be placed carefully at the level of the upper surface of the mercury and the index of the vernier brought gently down to the same level so as apparently just to touch the surface, great care ...
— The Hurricane Guide - Being An Attempt To Connect The Rotary Gale Or Revolving - Storm With Atmospheric Waves. • William Radcliff Birt
... double-edged compliment. However what you say is very interesting. Well now, my idea is that David Vavasour Williams did not die in a military hospital; he recovered and returned, firmly resolved to lead a new life.—Is ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... as it may, there is no doubt that the short Roman sword, which was practically a large heavy dagger, sharp-pointed, double-edged, and straight-bladed, was extensively used for thrusting. For cutting purposes, however, it could not, from the absence of curve in the edge of the blade, have been equal to the early ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... of the German mind, as it has been developed by the war: "Let Belgium know that she is suffering for England's sake. Let England know that, as long as she enforces her blockade, her friends in Belgium will have to pay for it." It is the same kind of double-edged declaration as that used on the occasion of the Allied air-raid on Brussels. Literally speaking, it cuts both ways. The excuse becomes a threat and the untruth savours of blackmail. Healthy minds work by single or treble propositions. If ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... it through the air, sending it a long distance over the heads of the spectators. His next performance was even more startling. First, he dexterously laid himself upon his back along the pole on top of the ladder. Thus balanced, he had six native daggers, with broad, double-edged blades, thrown to him, and caught each one in turn. Having got them all, he threw them one by one several yards above his head, catching them as they fell, and having always four in the air at the same moment. ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... knife—gave a bag—struck—I ran as I could—bag must lie there.' Kaspar was found to have a narrow wound, 'two inches and a half under the centre of the left breast,' clearly caused by a very sharp double-edged weapon. In three or four days he died, the heart had been injured. He was able to depose, but not on oath, that on the morning of the 14th a man in a blouse (who had addressed him some days earlier) brought him a verbal message from the Court ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... in remaining at Monte Carlo was double-edged—to bring Olive into the orbit of his fascination, and to mark time until the mystery of John Riviere had ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... Supernatural Religion has a right to suppose, though he cannot prove, that the fourth and fifth were written during the episcopate of Victor (A.D. 190-198 or 199). But in his partiality for late dates he forgets that the weapon which he wields is double-edged. If the fourth and fifth books 'must,' as he confidently asserts, have been written some years after the third, it follows by parity of reasoning, that the first and second must have been written some years before it. Yet, with a strange inconsistency, he assumes in the very same sentence ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... if he was not in this place, where he was. It calls on him loudly to show this, and to show it truly. If he could show it, he would do it. If he does not tell, and that truly, it is against him. The defence of an alibi is a double-edged sword. He knew that he was in a situation where he might be called upon to account for himself. If he had had no particular appointment or business to attend to, he would have taken care to be able so to account. He would have been out of town, or ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... She insists upon her reverence for the priestly (papistical) blessing, while she confides her determination to have it dispensed with in Camilla's case. Irma's known sympathies with the Austrian uniform seasoned the ludicrousness of many of the double-edged verses which she sang or declaimed in recitative. The irony of applauding her vehemently ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... poor finite wretch, to judge my fellows and condemn such as work me evil (and, inadvertently, themselves also, since Evil is double-edged and cuts both ways?) Who am I to despise or dislove them for the pain they cause me to endure (and, inadvertently, themselves also?) Should I not rather seek to forget past wrongs, to cherish and comfort such as despitefully use me? Is ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... Iron. Long swords: spearheads, socketed, often with square or diamond mid-rib: short double-edged daggers with round pommels: chapes (bronze) with moulded or beaten relief-work: knives, small and slightly curved: arrow-heads (usually bronze and triangular): horse- bits (usually bronze) with heavy knobbed side-bars: ear-rings, wire armlets and pins (generally plain) of bronze: fibulae as ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... in high fettle at knowing himself armed with a portentous weapon for the destruction of Anthony Wilding. Upon closer inspection of it, however, he came to realize—as Richard had realized earlier—that it was double-edged, and that the wielding of it must be fraught with as much danger for Richard as for their common enemy. For to betray Mr. Wilding and the plot would scarce be possible without betraying young Westmacott, and that was unthinkable, since to ruin Richard—a thing he would have ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... drew near to the old king, and inspired him with youthful courage. He swung his spear aloft and threw it at the leader of the host and smote him to the earth. Odysseus and Telemachos rushed into the fray with double-edged swords. They would have made an end of the whole multitude, but Athena called aloud: "People of Ithaca, cease from fighting! Retire at once from this contest and shed no ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... them and his bow beautifully painted with some kind of bituminous substance, as smooth and glossy as the finest varnish. The last arrow which he drew out was headed with flint, sharp-pointed, and double-edged like a dagger. Seeing that the Spaniards were all intent upon observing the curious arrows, he cut his own throat with the flint-headed arrow, and immediately fell down dead. The other Indians who accompanied ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... in response to a double-edged, wickedly-barbed remark of Belle's, a memory flashed into being above Lola's shield. It was the veriest flash, instantly suppressed. Her eyes held clear and steady; if she blushed at all it ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... may help you to understand that correspondence is a double-edged weapon which is of as much advantage for the defence of the husband as for the inconsistency of the wife. You should therefore encourage correspondence for the same reason that the prefect of police takes special care that the street lamps of Paris ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... for the first time. "That's rather a double-edged compliment, if I may say so! But I suppose it's true that I would do a good deal more for you than I would for any ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... literal point so sharp that it is like a vast granite bowsprit thrust out into the green plains far below, terminating in a sheer precipice of several hundred feet. Roughly, then, you may visualize this section of the Cumberlands as a giant double-edged saw, a thousand feet thick, laid down across the State, each tooth a "point," each V between the teeth a "cove." Standing far out on one of these rock bowsprits, in the soft, hazy air of the southern ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... consisted of a double-barrelled gun for each man—one barrel being rifled and the other a smooth bore—two cartridge belts, one for the waist and the other for the shoulder, fully stocked; a formidable double-edged hunting knife each; a capacious waterproof bag containing a reserve supply of cartridges, and a small ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... on seeing her, the sacrifice he had made to her so simply—that noble glance as of a dying animal, came to her mind, and the shame of the elder, the favourite child, mingled itself with Bernard's disaster—a double-edged maternal sorrow, which tore her whichever way she turned. Yes, yes, it was on her account he would not speak. But she would not accept such a sacrifice. He must come back at once and explain himself before ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... too, this weapon of wealth, double-edged with the cupidity and misery of mankind, steeped in all the vices of self-indulgence as in a concoction of poisonous roots, tainting the very cause for which it is drawn, always ready to turn awkwardly in the hand. There was nothing for it now but to go on using it. But he promised ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... heard of such a thing! Max at length resented this indifference, by suddenly becoming quite tragical, and actually despatching two or three heroes with very little ceremony. The first of these unfortunate gentlemen perished, if I remember correctly, by "a tremendous backstroke of a two-handed, double-edged sword, that severed his head from his body." At this sentence, which seemed pretty decisive, Johnny was somewhat staggered, but, immediately recovering himself, he bade Max "go on," expecting, I verily believe, that it would turn out that the head was not in fact quite ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... Austro-Hungarian Army pushes forward inside, supported on its right by Boehm-Ermolli, who had been just inside a long time, but could get no farther. They began to shepherd the Russian troops around and in the western passes toward the lower double-edged blade of Von Mackensen's terrible scissors. The Russian retreat to the Wisloka was a serious disaster for Dmitrieff; he had been caught napping, and had to pay dearly in men and guns for not having created a row of alternative positions. His force had been a cover for Brussilov's operations on both ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... sportsmen as any in the world. They told me of many dodges they adopted for killing elephants, ostriches, and gazelles, which they do as follows:—If an elephant is ever seen upon the plains, a large body of men assemble on foot, armed with spears, bows, and sharp double-edged knives, with one man mounted on a white horse, to act as teaser. This man commences by riding in front of the animal, to irritate and absorb his entire attention by riding in repeated circles just in front ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... 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 or a plaster man, what heart-consideration in such a ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... from his waistcoat a curiously-constructed pistol, having a double-edged spring knife attached to the barrel. 'That's a great tempter to a desperate man, is it not? I cannot resist going up with this every night, and trying his door. If once I find it open he's done for; I do it invariably, even though the minute ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... could only come from a people so bred to arms that they do not shrink, even in imagination, from the uses to which arms must be put—a people in love with war, having a mystical feeling for its instruments, such as their remote ancestors had for their battle-axes and double-edged swords. ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... have sent to my brother a (double-edged weapon?) ... and (?) of emeralds, and pure gold ... enclosed in a box, and ... of alabaster, and pure gold, for a ...
— Egyptian Literature
... find a place there. The master-workman must train these notions and vagaries with his two-handed hammer. They twist out of the way of the sword-thrusts; and are invulnerable all over, even in the heel, against logic. The martel or mace, the battle-axe, the great double-edged two-handed sword must deal with follies; the rapier is no better against them than a wand, unless it be the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... bayonet is a formidable weapon with a heavy double-edged blade twenty inches long. Both edges are extremely sharp. I easily sharpened pencils with one ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... might be argued, being double-edged, will ultimately right themselves. But it is otherwise in practice. Such folk as the pastor's harpy relatives will generally have a boat, and will never have paid for it; such men as the pastor may have sometimes ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... splints, or thin plates of steel, ingeniously jointed upon each other; and mail hose, reaching from the ankle to the knee, effectually protected the legs, and completed the rider's defensive armour. In his girdle he wore a long and double-edged dagger, which was the only ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... luxury of the Sikeliot cities in this age is, in the double-edged saying of Empedocles, connected with one of their noblest tastes. They built their houses as if they were going to live for ever. And if their houses, how much more their temples and other public buildings? In ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... to get to it they had to walk miles up and down Glashgar. A mountain in storm is as hard to cross as a sea. Arrived, they did not therefore feel safe. The tendency of the Glashburn was indeed away from the cottage, as the grounds of Glashruach sadly witnessed; but a torrent is double-edged, and who could tell? The yielding of one stone in its channel might send it to them. All night Angus watched, peering out ever again into the darkness, but seeing nothing save three lights that burned above the water—one of them, he thought, at the Mains. The other two went out in the darkness, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... to the side of the Island where great trees grew and she put in his hands a double-edged axe and an adze. Then Odysseus started to hew down the timber. Twenty trees he felled with his axe of bronze, and he smoothed them and made straight the line. Calypso came to him at the dawn of the next day; she brought augers for boring and he made the beams fast. He built a raft, making it ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... Furthermore, debatable and double-edged ideas, about which the reader is in doubt whether they be false or true, fall under the same category of falseness. For this doubtfulness, since it takes away all pleasure, removes also the beauty. For this reason I have never approved the ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... their gospel further; the process seemed to be taking excellent care of itself. But after all, it was not real. A drastic crisis like the present one was required to brand it as delusion. The attitude of the occasional individual was construed as the attitude of the entire community. This has been a double-edged delusion. The Jew has not judged himself as a community in relation to his neighbor, and he has misjudged his individual neighbor as a community in ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... hauberk and the headpiece. His lower limbs were sheathed, like his body, in flexible mail, securing the legs and thighs, while the feet rested in plated shoes, which corresponded with the gauntlets. A long, broad, straight-shaped, double-edged falchion, with a handle formed like a cross, corresponded with a stout poniard on the other side. The knight also bore, secured to his saddle, with one end resting on his stirrup, the long steel-headed lance, his own proper weapon, which, as ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... thinking that to-morrow the same scene of which he had been a mute and invisible witness would infallibly renew itself, his tongue clove to his palate, his forehead became imbeaded with drops of cold sweat, and his hand convulsively grasped the hilt of his great double-edged sword. ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... agriculture by the hand. Before you can cultivate land, you must clear it; and the characteristic weapon of Hephaestus,—which is as much his attribute as the trident is of Poseidon, and the rhabdos of Hermes, is not, as you would have expected, the hammer, but the clearing-ax—the double-edged [Greek: pelekys], the same that Calypso gives Ulysses with which to cut down the trees for his home voyage; so that both the naval and agricultural strength of the Athenians are expressed by this weapon, with which ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... from every gem In that imperial diadem, There came a voice and a whisper clear— I heard it, and I still can hear— Which said, "O Kaiser great and strong, God's sword is double-edged ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... hundred thousand Barbarians. [101] The king, and some chosen followers, were mounted on horseback, and armed with lances; the infantry, without bows or spears, were satisfied with a shield, a sword, and a double-edged battle-axe, which, in their hands, became a deadly and unerring weapon. Italy trembled at the march of the Franks; and both the Gothic prince and the Roman general, alike ignorant of their designs, solicited, with hope and terror, the friendship of these dangerous allies. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... follow where God's hand led; and, if God's hand led towards violent excitements and extraordinary vicissitudes, that it was not only futile, it was impious to turn another way. Fatalism is always apt to be a double-edged philosophy; for while, on the one hand, it reveals the minutest occurrences as the immutable result of a rigid chain of infinitely predestined causes, on the other, it invests the wildest incoherences of conduct or of circumstance with the sanctity ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... feet, and his waist was encircled by a broad leathern girdle, from one side of which depended a short hunting-knife, and from the other a flap, with a slit in it, to support his sword. The latter weapon—a heavy double-edged blade—stood leaning against the forge chimney, along with a huge battle-axe, within reach of his hand. The collar of his shirt was thrown well back, exposing to view a neck and chest whose muscles denoted extraordinary power, and the whiteness of which contrasted strikingly ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... A double-edged satire on both political birds. Neither is a true eagle. They have talons but nothing of the noble air proper to the king of birds. The German bird is not an eagle but a vulture; and he is in a sorry plight, with torn and ruffled feathers, dishevelled, dripping blood. ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... words, did not wait, but walked in, where he found Don Silvio very busy removing a hone upon which he had been whetting a sharp double-edged stiletto. The Sicilian walked up to him, offering his hand with apparent cordiality; but Jack, with a look of defiance, said, "Don Silvio, we know you; my object now is to demand, on the part of my friend, the satisfaction which you do not deserve, but which ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... perhaps, although they were his subordinates in the secrets of the Prefecture, and Claquesous had been such a villain that he might make a very good agent. It is an excellent thing for ruffianism and an admirable thing for the police to be on such intimate juggling terms with the night. These double-edged rascals do exist. However that may be, Claquesous had gone astray and was not found again. Javert appeared to be more irritated ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Dr. Barnard, now Bishop of Killaloc, having once expressed to him an apprehension, that if he should visit Ireland he might treat the people of that country more unfavourably than he had done the Scotch, he answered, with strong pointed double-edged wit, 'Sir, you have no reason to be afraid of me. The Irish are not in a conspiracy to cheat the world by false representations of the merits of their countrymen. No, Sir; the Irish are a FAIR PEOPLE;—they never speak well ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... the call to twenty-five minutes by the French clock on the mantel, and then go she would. As they were leaving Mary noticed on a table near the door two splendid swords, one very large and heavy and one with a double-edged blade of much ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... will perhaps excuse the reminder that the sense in which we (almost exclusively) use this word, and which it had gained in French itself by the time of Talleyrand's famous double-edged sarcasm on person and world (Il n'est pas parvenu: il est arrive), was not quite original. The parvenu was simply a person who had "got on": the disobliging slur of implication on his former position, and perhaps on his means of freeing himself from it, came later. It is doubtful whether ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... her waist she cast a fair golden girdle, and a veil withal upon her head. Then she considered of the sending of Odysseus, the great-hearted. She gave him a great axe, fitted to his grasp, an axe of bronze double-edged, and with a goodly handle of olive wood fastened well. Next she gave him a polished adze, and she led the way to the border of the isle where tall trees grew, alder and poplar, and pine that reacheth unto heaven, seasoned long since and ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... the less said the better; I shall ask you to choose your instances, you see. Will Apollo's answer to the Lydian suit you? That was as symmetrical as a double-edged knife; or say, it faced both ways, like those Hermae which are made double, alike whether you look at front or back. Consider; will Croesus's passage of the Halys destroy his own realm, or Cyrus's? Tet the wretched Sardian paid a long price for his ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... his false Franks came down to see what they could get; all (save a few knights round the king) on foot, without bow or lance; but armed with sword, shield, and heavy short-handled double-edged francisc, or battle-axe. At the bridge over the Ticinus they (nominal Catholics) sacrificed Gothic women and children with horrid rites, fought alike Goths and Romans, lost a third of their army by dysentery, and went ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... to explaining that you realize nothing you can say will be of any comfort to her, and begin at the top of the inside page by telling her how much better off he is to-day—which I have always thought a double-edged assertion when advanced to a man's widow. But you cannot condole with a lantern whose light has been blown out. That ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... the speech he had just made was like the sword of the archangel, double-edged; if Sieyes was unfrocked, Talleyrand was unmitred. He cast a rapid glance at his companion's face; the ex-bishop of Autun was smiling ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... her equilibrium, she staggered forward in renewed pursuit. The broad-bladed, double-edged knife of the Paris assassin gleamed ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... for since the infernal fury with which the heathen clothe themselves on such occasions is assured, one cannot attribute their gentleness on this occasion to natural causes. That most zealous minister put his hand, then, to the double-edged sword of the preaching, and fighting with it according to his wont so skilfully, made himself master almost without any resistance of those hearts which were filled with apostasy and infidelity, setting up in them the banner of our holy Catholic faith. The complete ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... expected a blushing fiancee, in a fool's paradise, asking by manner, if not by word, for his congratulations, and taking a decent feminine pleasure perhaps in the pang she might suspect in him. And he had already taken his pleasure in the planning of some double-edged congratulations. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... only the bars between us. So placed, so separated, it seemed that our proximity, and the continuous and low sounds of my pleading voice, worked progressively and powerfully on her heart, and perhaps not less so on my own. For these spells are double-edged. The silly birds may be charmed with the pipe of the fowler, which is but a tube of reeds. Not so with a bird of our own feather! As I went on, and my resolve strengthened, and my voice found new modulations, and our faces were drawn closer to the bars and to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... convenient place. In the evening he rode to the theatre, and, leaving the animal in charge of an accomplice, entered the house. Making his way to the door of the President's box, and taking a small Derringer pistol in one hand and a double-edged dagger in the other, he thrust his arm into the entrance, where the President, sitting in an arm-chair, presented to his view the back and side of his head. A flash, a sharp report, a puff of smoke, and the fatal bullet had ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... small windows; and of a sudden by fine thin silks lightly overshadowing (the fretwork) just as if there were, after all, secret doors. The whole walls were in addition traced, with no regard to symmetry, with outlines of the shapes of curios and nick-nacks in imitation of lutes, double-edged swords, hanging bottles and the like, the whole number of which, though (apparently) suspended on the walls, were all however on a same level with the surface of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... meek man. The hot blood of the Puritan Cavalier was soon at the boiling point. Disdaining to take advantage even of such a foe, he threw aside his gun, and springing upon the gigantic Peksuot, grasped at the knife which was suspended from his neck, the blade of which was double-edged, and ground to a point as sharp as a needle. There was a moment of terrific conflict, and then the stout Indian fell dead upon the ground, with the blood gushing from many mortal wounds. Another Englishman closed with Wittuwamet, and there was instantly a general fray. ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... it my fault if my letter was a double-edged sword, cutting both ways? How could you be so weak, so stupid, as to deliver such a terrible ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... short-sighted child, who thought she could play with the sword, and did not see that she herself might feel the stroke of this double-edged blade! You wanted to be the servant of the Church, that you might thereby become mistress of the world. You would acquire glory, but this glory must not singe your head with its fiery rays. Silly child! he who plays with fire will be consumed. But we penetrated your thoughts and the wish of which ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... shall Fors to weary Achaians her fiat Deal, of Dardanus-town to burst Neptunian fetters, Then shall the high-reared tomb stand bathed with Polyxena's life-blood, Who, as the victim doomed to fall by the double-edged falchion, Forward wi' hams relaxt shall smite a body beheaded. 370 Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... "And so have I. A six-inch, double-edged knife, sharp as a razor and pointed like a needle. They didn't have sense enough to search us, and we didn't have sense enough to realize it. I can feel mine under me ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... him and the casement, so that Deleroy scarce escaped pinning himself upon the steel that he held in his long, outstretched arm. Indeed, I think it pricked his throat, for he checked himself with an oath and drew his sword, a double-edged weapon with a sharp point, as long as mine ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... to see Nucingen on business; but he waited for Contenson, he was dreaming of Esther, telling himself that before long he would see again the woman who had aroused in him such unhoped-for emotions, and he sent everybody away with vague replies and double-edged promises. Contenson was to him the most important person in Paris, and he looked out into the garden every minute. Finally, after giving orders that no one else was to be admitted, he had his breakfast ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... I will shout with a very loud shout: Ho! Weep, you petty-usurers, both you and your principals, and your compound interests! For you can no longer do me any harm, because such a son is being reared for me in this house, shining with a double-edged tongue, for my guardian, the preserver of my house, a mischief to my enemies, ending the sadness of the great woes of his father. Him do thou run and ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... the peculiar twilight, between profound sense and nonsense, between childish play and matured humor." Two brothers who have lost their sisters appear, and then an insolent giant, swaggering with a double-edged sword and attended by an enamored fool, and finally a knight-errant devoting his fortune to pay the stingy sexton for the burial of a victim of poverty; they are now hunting for the princess, the sisters, and the beloved lady, and to free them from the sorcerer; none of ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... such as those of employees in stores, telegraph offices, etc., in which the two sexes are closely associated in their work, constitute from this point of view a double-edged sword. Other unhealthy and monotonous occupations, combined with bad conditions of food and lodging, and with all kinds of seduction—factory hands for example—have a positively deleterious effect on sexual life, which becomes absolutely depraved when the ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... clasped hands; but again she said, 'Consider:'—and bending all my mind to the hazard, I encountered with calmness their steady radiance, although they burned into my brain. Bound about her sable locks was as it were a chaplet of fire; her right hand held a double-edged sword of most strange workmanship, for the one edge was of keen steel, and the other as it were the strip of a peacock's feather; on the face of the air about her were phantoms of winged horses, and of racking-wheels: and from her ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper |
