"Sharpen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... never to have had any neighbours whose studies have led them towards the pursuit of natural knowledge; so that, for want of a companion to quicken my industry and sharpen my attention, I have made but slender progress in a kind of information to which I have been ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... watching Uncle Remus sharpen his shoe-knife. The old man's head moved in sympathy with his hands, and he mumbled fragments of a song. Occasionally he would feel of the edge of the blade with his thumb, and then begin to sharpen it again. The comical appearance of the venerable darkey finally had its effect upon ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... once crossing a series of undulating ranges abutting on Mount Hermon with an English tourist who was making merry at the utterly barren appearance of "the promised land." It turned out, however, that his attempted wit served to sharpen our observation, and we found that all the hill-sides had once been terraced by human hands. A few miles further on we came to Rasheiya, where the vineyards still flourish on such terraces, and we had no difficulty ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... how to learn is a much greater thing than to be crammed," said Carey. "Of course when one begins to teach oneself, the world has become "mine oyster," and one has the dagger. The point becomes how to sharpen the dagger." ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... proprietor will not do all the talking. Everybody in the little room will join. Wits will sharpen against wits; and if the company is of a grave and respectable sort, the conversation will grow brisk upon Plato's theory of the "reality of ideas," upon Euripides's interpretation of the relations of God to man, or upon the spiritual symbolism ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... garrulous, have I not? Now I must disturb some document-dust, and sharpen my pen afresh to the police-official style, for the president of the provincial court and the government. Could I but enclose myself herewith, or go along in a salmon-basket as mail-matter! Till we meet again, dearest black one.[13] I ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... than the Gitano, and, in imitation of him, her arms are in continual motion, to give more expression to the imagery with which she accompanies her discourse; her whole body contributes to her gesture, and to increase its force; endeavouring by these means to sharpen the effect of language in itself insufficient; and her vivid and disordered imagination is displayed ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... followed the course of the river for some distance on foot, struck into the woods, sought for and found the track of the bear, and, looking carefully to the priming of his gun, and knocking the edge of the flint to sharpen it, pushed forward in pursuit with the ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... a million of swords ready to spring forth from a million of scabbards. It was well enough to be neighbourly when those who lived in your vicinity were benevolently inclined. But when they showed a disposition to be offensive, then it was necessary to sharpen your swords and keep your power dry. They had already conquered France, and were not afraid of Russia. Besides, the Army contained young soldiers who would be the better for a real campaign. He himself had no objection to visiting Paris and St. Petersburg, as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... you know how fah Proudfit is fum being an a-able man; and so does he. He's evm fool enough to think he can sharpen his wits with whiskey, which you know, March, that if that was so I'd myself be as sharp as a ra-azor. But I don't suspicion but what everything's clean and square—Oh, I wouldn't swear nobody does; you know, yo'self, what double-ba'lled ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... that that knowledge of Christianity which is sufficient for entrance at the University is all that is incumbent on students who have been submitted to the academical course. So that we are unavoidably led on to the further question, viz., shall we sharpen and refine the youthful intellect, and then leave it to exercise its new powers upon the most sacred of subjects, as it will, and with the chance of its exercising them wrongly; or shall we proceed to feed it with divine truth, as it ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... idea was not muttered; it was only thought, but the thought banished the smile of satisfaction from Ian's face. In a meditative mood he took up his gun, refreshed the priming and slightly chipped the flint, so as to sharpen its edge and make sure ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... very remarkable, that although we found no kind of metal in any of these islands, yet, the inhabitants of all of them, the moment they got a piece of iron in their possession, began to sharpen it, but made no such ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... office of Referendarius, and show by your exercise of it to what learning men may attain by sharing our conversation. Under us it is impossible for an officer of the Court to be unskilled in speech. Like a whetstone we sharpen the intellects of our courtiers, and polish them by ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... politician, that made him in some ways a real touchstone of the time. It is noticeable about him that he is always turning up everywhere and that he brings other people out, generally in a hostile spirit. His Byronic and almost Oriental ostentation was used by the young Thackeray as something on which to sharpen his new razor of Victorian common sense. His pose as a dilettante satirist inflamed the execrable temper of Tennyson, and led to those lively comparisons to a bandbox and a lion in curlpapers. He interposed the glove of warning and the ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... beaten them? How much cleverer if he has taken three lieutenant-generals and an hundred pieces of cannon? How much cleverer still, if he has left fifteen thousand Muscovites dead on the Spot?(939) Does the loss of only three thousand of his own men take off from or sharpen the sting of this joke? In short, all this is fact, as a courier arrived at Sion Hill this morning affirms. The city, I suppose, expect that his Majesty will now be"at leisure to step to Ticonderoga ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... lit on Rivers' blotched cheek, and he raised a heavy arm to brush it away. Then he relaxed again with a snore. Liu paused, waiting. The glorious exaltation was mounting higher. It occurred to him to sharpen these sensations, to heighten them. After all, he was about to kill a drunken man in a drunken sleep. He wanted something better. He wanted to feel his power over a conscious man, a man conscious and aware of what was to befall him. Even as his father had been conscious and aware of what ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... to trespass on the rights of others; or servile, mercenary, and base, prepared to relinquish their own. Talents, capacity, and force of mind, possessed by a person of the first description, serve to plunge him the deeper in misery, and to sharpen the agony of cruel passions; which lead him to wreak on his fellow creatures the torments that prey on himself. To a person of the second, imagination, and reason itself, only serve to point out false objects of ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... away, and had put garrisons into the strongest places of the country, and had forbidden them to carry any instrument of iron, or at all to make use of any iron in any case whatsoever. And on account of this prohibition it was that the husbandmen, if they had occasion to sharpen any of their tools, whether it were the coulter or the spade, or any instrument of husbandry, they came to the Philistines to do it. Now as soon as the Philistines heard of this slaughter of their garrison, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... freedom of the kingdom of heaven. There is the other young man in a show window a bit further on who all day long gashes blocks of wood with a magic razor, only to sharpen it to greater keenness, so that before you he continually cuts with it the finest hairs. There is the young woman garbed as a nurse who treats the corns on a gigantic plaster foot. In show windows cooks are cooking appetising dishes; damsels are combing magnificent, patent-medicine grown tresses; ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... senses. But there is nothing paradoxical about all this, for the Yogis, while preaching the folly of sense life, and manifesting the teaching in their lives, nevertheless believe in any and all exercises calculated to "sharpen" the Mind, and develop it to ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... paused, and, raising his right hand, asked the Chamberlain for his snuffbox; he took several pinches, but did not vouchsafe to finish his tale, as though he wished to sharpen the curiosity of his hearers. At last he was beginning—when that tale, so curious and so diligently hearkened to, was again interrupted! For some one had unexpectedly sent a man to the Judge, with the message that he was waiting on business that brooked no delay. The Judge, wishing ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... plan to comment on a man, Whose merit I'm proud to rehearse; For a razor and knife he will sharpen for life, And deserves every ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... the fourteenth century, given by the "Menagier de Paris," is most complicated; but, on examining the receipts, it becomes clear that the variety of those preparations, intended to sharpen the appetite, resulted principally from the spicy ingredients with which they were flavoured; and it is here worthy of remark that pepper, in these days exclusively obtained from America, was known and generally used long before the time of Columbus. It ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... all were the Philistines, who "were repulsed by Shamgar and harassed by Samson," but they continued their hostility, capturing the Ark of the Covenant in the days of Eli, and finally bringing Israel so completely under their power that they had to go to the Philistines to sharpen ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... with his butler, who admitted that 'John did blow like a pauper' (meaning, as I suppose, a porpoise), and undertook to break the subject to him. It is quite common to find candidates for service very deaf, and if they contrive to pass their 'entrance examination' (for which no doubt they sharpen their faculties), they stay with you for a month at least with an excellent excuse for making it a holiday, since, whatever you tell them to do they cannot hear and do not do it, or do something else which they like better. ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... and healthy labour stimulate, without exhausting life. But in proportion as civilization advances, a large class of the community are exempted from the necessity of these, and thrown upon a life of leisure. Then it is that artificial life begins, and artificial expedients become necessary to sharpen the feelings amongst the monotony of existence; every amusement and all literature become more pungent in their character; life is no longer a thing proceeding from powers within, but sustained by ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... laid in a damp hole in the rock, sat down on a heap of ore, and ate his supper. Then he leaned back for five minutes' rest before beginning his work again, and laid his head against the rock. He had not kept the position for one minute before he heard something which made him sharpen his ears. It sounded like a voice inside the rock. After a while he heard it again. It was a goblin voice—there could be no doubt about that—and this time he ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... never tired of visiting the museum in the tower, and spent endless hours in inspecting the exhibits, till he was thoroughly familiar with every detail of all of them. He asked permission to clean and polish and sharpen them—a favour which was readily granted. In addition to the above objects, there were many things of a kind to awaken human fear. Stuffed serpents of the most objectionable and horrid kind; giant insects from the tropics, fearsome in every detail; fishes and crustaceans ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... toughness: They are formed of different sizes; some, that are intended for felling, weigh from six to eight pounds; others, that are used for carving, not more than so many ounces; but it is necessary to sharpen both almost every minute; for which purpose, a stone and a cocoa-nut shell full of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... unused to the task of careful observation, can tell the number of the musk-mallow's petals, or mark on paper the depth of fringe on a gentian, or match from a series of dyed silks the hues of a common buttercup? Drawing and painting sharpen the eye, and make the fingers its trained and ready servants. From the very beginning of one's task in limning bud and blossom, we see them richer in grace and loveliness than ever before. When wild flowers are sketched as they grow it is often easy to give them ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... clerk with compliments and inspected the ten-pound note, Miss Sally showed little emotion and that of no pleasurable kind, for as the tendency of her legal practice had been to fix her thoughts on small gains and gripings, and to whet and sharpen her natural wisdom, she was not a little disappointed that the single gentleman had obtained the lodgings at such an easy rate, arguing that when he was seen to have set his mind upon them, he should have been at the least charged double or treble the usual terms, and that, in ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... grandmother, and scoured away, jostling each other as they ran, into some remote corner of the tenement, where the young hero of the evening was deposited. When Caleb saw the coast fairly clear, he took an invigorating pinch of snuff, to sharpen and confirm ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... men chiefly went up and down, and the coals were drawn up, though the furnace shaft could also be used for that purpose. There were men to tend the furnaces, and stable-men to look after the horses, and lamp-men, and blacksmiths to sharpen the tools and mend the iron-work of the wagons, and rolley-way-men to keep the roads in order, besides several for other sorts of jobs. All these were busy working away at their several posts. Samuel Kempson was among the hewers farthest from the main shaft. Near ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... Greece, every free citizen was instructed, under the direction of the public magistrate, in gymnastic exercises and in music. By gymnastic exercises, it was intended to harden his body, to sharpen his courage, and to prepare him for the fatigues and dangers of war; and as the Greek militia was, by all accounts, one of the best that ever was in the world, this part of their public education must have answered ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... indeed, were it not the privilege of a principal to lay all his own faults upon his underlings, and never be to blame himself, I should be apt to reflect, that I am more in fault than any body. And, as the sting of this reflection will sharpen upon me, if I recover her not, how shall I ever be able ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... might have been a pleasant companion in happier, easier circumstances. She had banished him, threatened him, wheedled him out of victory. She, too, would be slipping back to the beast. Her body would warp, her skin grow hairy, her teeth lengthen and sharpen—Ugh! ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... blank verse puts the poet to the severest test, and Cowper does not survive the test. Had The Task been written in couplets he might have been forced to sharpen his wit by the necessity of rhyme. As it is, he is merely ponderous—a snail of imagination labouring under a heavy shell of eloquence. In the fragment called Yardley Oak he undoubtedly achieved something worthier of a distant ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... knowledge without toil, for nature has implanted in us the desire of knowing all things, thereby to discern a truth of all things. But our dull wit cannot come unto such perfectness of all art, truth, and wisdom. Yet are we not, therefore, shut out altogether from all arts. If we want to sharpen our reason by learning and to practise ourselves therein, having once found the right path we may, step by step, seek, learn, comprehend, and finally reach and attain unto something true. Wherefore, he that understandeth how to learn somewhat ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... around on the side of the mountain, found a bit of coarse stone which John and he used as a whetstone to sharpen up their knives. They knew well enough that work on the coarse surface of a bear-hide dulls a knife very quickly. It was an hour or two before their leader was satisfied with the preparation of ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... Lord give way to this for a time, to try thy seriousness, patience, submission and faith, and to sharpen thy diligence, and kindle up thy zeal? And should we not submit ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... ironstone pebbles, and large pieces of a fine grained flaggy sandstone on the first plains we crossed; the sandstone was excellent to sharpen our knives. ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... said George, "I have prayed against this on my knees every night of my life, and it is come upon me at last. Sharpen ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... procure, but, at the very moment, a messenger sent by Brother Gerald, the guardian of the convent of Rieti, brought three large fishes of this species, with certain sauces which were calculated to sharpen the appetite and strengthen the patient. Thus it is that it sometimes pleases the Lord to give sensible relief to His friends who have neglected their health and crucified their flesh ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... foretokened it. As he confronts the disgrace almost face to face, how changed is the hideous aspect of his deed, from that fair face of promise with which it tempted him! Conscience, and honor, and plain honesty, which left him when they could not restrain, now come back to sharpen his anguish. Overawed by the prospect of open shame, of his wife's disgrace, and his children's beggary, he cows down, and slinks out of life a ...
— Twelve Causes of Dishonesty • Henry Ward Beecher
... curious to know if the cow was in milk. Dad noticed him; sprang upon him; seized him by the shirt collar and swung him round and trailed him through the yard, saying: "Find me th' knife; d' y' HEAR?" It seemed to sharpen Joe's memory, for he suddenly remembered having stuck it in ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... professors, I can assure them that they do not mourn alone. I live not far from Oxford, and enjoy the advantage of occasionally listening to the jeremiads of English University professors. More than once a German professor has done me the honour to employ me as an object on which to sharpen his English. He also has mourned similar lack of ideals at Heidelberg, at Bonn. Youth is youth all the world over; it has its own ideals; they are not those of the University professor. The explanation is tolerably simple. Youth is young, and ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... watching her, querying how long those clear eyes would have nothing to hide, how long that bright purity could resist the corrosion of the world's breath; and half thinking that it would be better for the spirit to pass away, with its lustre upon it, than stay till self-interest should sharpen the eye, and the lines of diplomacy write themselves on that fair brow. "Better so, ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... sought refuge in the shanty had put Audubon upon his guard. It was midnight, Audubon lay on some bear skins in one corner of the room, feigning sleep. He had previously slipped out of the cabin and had loaded his gun, which lay close at hand. Presently he saw the woman sharpen a huge carving knife, and thrust it into the hand of her drunken son, with the injunction to kill yon stranger and secure the watch. He was just on the point of springing up to shoot his would-be murderers, when the door burst open, and two travellers, each with a long knife, ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... a seemingly solid chunk of the whole. Toward spring I have known squirrels to attack these young cones, but rarely, and I am not sure whether it was because of the pressure of hunger or whether some young squirrel's instinct to sharpen his teeth on them made him a bit precocious. These adolescent cones begin growing again very early in the spring. Youth will have its way, and in this case it seems to seize on the first sap that gets as far as the topmost branch tips, compelling it to the nourishing ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... organization of work during the Revolution, and they answer that the division of labour must be maintained; that if you sharpened pins before the Revolution you must go on sharpening them after. True, you will not have to work more than five hours a day, but you will have to sharpen pins all your life, while others will make designs for machines that will enable you to sharpen hundreds of millions of pins during your life-time; and others again will be specialists in the higher branches ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... "Here's something to sharpen your teeth on, Mr. Ricks," the general manager replied, and presented the cablegram he had been holding for ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... spice-trading, and by emancipation of the slaves in 1861, when the Dutch Government placed the liberated population under police surveillance, compelling each individual to prove honest acquirement of the slender means necessary for subsistence. Contact with the world begins to sharpen native intelligence, already heightened by the fusion of European blood with the island race, and external cleanliness being enforced systematically in Dutch territory, the concrete cottages which alternate with the thatched dwellings are dazzlingly white, the diligent ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... standpoint, whole generations and epochs, when they show themselves infected with any moral fanaticism, seem like those intercalated periods of restraint and fasting, during which an impulse learns to humble and submit itself—at the same time also to PURIFY and SHARPEN itself; certain philosophical sects likewise admit of a similar interpretation (for instance, the Stoa, in the midst of Hellenic culture, with the atmosphere rank and overcharged with Aphrodisiacal odours).—Here also is a hint for ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... quarrel on the wing— But theyr peaceabler in pot-pies than any other thing: And it's when I git my shotgun drawed up in stiddy rest, She's as full of tribbelation as a yeller-jacket's nest; And a few shots before dinner, when the sun's a-shinin' right, Seems to kindo'-sorto' sharpen up a feller's appetite! ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... to sharpen the political sense of the people. Year after year the assemblies had engaged in matters of serious moment They laid heavy taxes and collected them; they discussed foreign policy and their own defence; they protested ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... undesignedly treacherous and fickle. They are prone to admire inordinately at first, and not finding a constant supply of food for this kind of sickly appetite, take a distaste to the object of their idolatry. To be even with themselves for their credulity, they sharpen their wits to spy out faults, and are delighted to find that this answers better than their first employment. It is a course of study, 'lively, audible, and full of vent.' They have the organ of wonder and the organ of fear in a prominent ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... may avail to break it, nor even leave a scratch upon its surface. It is of the length of a good sword, and of the breadth thereof. Shouldst thou prevail against Tharagavverug, his hide may be melted away from Sacnoth in a furnace; but there is only one thing that may sharpen Sacnoth's edge, and this is one of Tharagavverug's own steel eyes; and the other eye thou must fasten to Sacnoth's hilt, and it will watch for thee. But it is a hard task to vanquish Tharagavverug, for no sword can pierce his hide; his back cannot be broken, and he can ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... paid one or two visits to factories, to see what women could do in this sort of work; and, one day, she told Henry she was sure she could sharpen and ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... over to an ornate Louis XV table, picked up a note book, motioned her to be seated, dropped into a chair himself, and began to sharpen a pencil. As yet he had scarcely glanced at her, and now, while he leisurely shaved the cedar and scraped the lead to a point, he ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... innocently enough, but it appeared, as he uttered it, to be the one thing needed to sharpen the edge of my mother's temper. The three frowning lines deepened across her forehead, and she stared straight before her with her perplexed and anxious look ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... of tools; how to sharpen them; to design and layout work. Printed from new plates and bound in cloth. Profusely illustrated. Each book is wrapped ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... O'Brien that's annything else. But Oi niver knew thar was anny of thim other things hereabout. It's no prohibitioner ye are, annyhow, fer that stuff in yer bottle wud cook a snake. Sufferin' ages! but it had an edge to it that wud sharpen a saw. What do ye think of ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... ladies, I need say nothing more on this subject, I believe. After recitations to-day, those who wish may enjoy the pleasure and exercise of ice-skating. The boathouse will be warmed. Samuel will be there to sharpen skates for those who wish. And he can supply you with extra straps or other appliances. You understand that he makes a little extra money that way, and I ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... eat bread in the sweat of his brow. It has compelled him to enter into conflict with natural obstacles, the result of which has been to call forth his powers of industry, of energy, of self-reliance, and to sharpen his intellectual faculties generally. In addition to exercising and strengthening these personal attributes, the climatic influences of what has been called the zone of civilisation have brought man's social characteristics more fully and elaborately into play. The nature of these influences ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... pleasant to do so, for it will certainly provoke much ill-feeling. I must not, however, be deterred by that, for it is the daily concomitant of public life, and hard words break no bones, as they say, but rather serve to thicken the skins and sharpen the tongues of us public men, so that, we are able to meet our opponents with their own weapons. I perceive before me, indeed, a liberal education in just those public qualities wherein I am conscious of being as yet deficient." And his heart sank within ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... illiteracy is gaining fast upon the white ignorance, and the despised Negro is found to be living above many of his illiterate white neighbors. This makes it easy work for designing men to sharpen race prejudices, which by force and fear shall keep the ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... with hopes of success." "While the fiery Hotspurs of the State vociferate their French babble of the natural equality of man, the insulted negro will be constantly stimulated to cast away his cords and to sharpen his pike." "It is, moreover, believed, though not positively known, that a great many of our profligate and abandoned whites (who are distinguished by the burlesque appellation of Democrats) are implicated with the blacks, and would have joined them, if they had commenced their operations.... ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... thus secured another guardian for the sister whom he tenderly loved. "He shall stay, but Sassacus will return to the river of the Pequots, and will speak a loud word in the ears of his tribe, and they shall fill their quivers with arrows, and sharpen their tomahawks, and many will come back with him to ask for Neebin. Sassacus will go alone, and ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... and it is wonderful how much skill can be attained in their use. Any boy with a little mechanical ingenuity can make a pair of skis (pronounced skees). They can be made from two barrel staves. Select staves of straight grained wood. Sharpen the ends of each and score each end by cutting grooves in the wood, as shown in the cut, Fig. 7. A pocket knife or small gouge will suffice for this work. Then smear the end of the staves with oil and hold them close to a hot fire until they ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... envenomed by private injuries, a blow that is not mortal or decisive can be productive only of a short truce, which allows the unsuccessful combatant to sharpen his arms for a new encounter. The strength of Alboin had been found unequal to the gratification of his love, ambition, and revenge: he condescended to implore the formidable aid of the chagan; and the arguments that he employed are expressive ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... though some labour will be required to sharpen them," exclaimed the captain. "We could then easily fix them in handles; and they will be of the greatest use, if not for cutting down the trees, at all events for scoring the trunks for the wedges, and for smoothing the ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... bust of Homer, ideally shaped by the light of the infallible artistic instinct and insight of the Greeks. The poet, it is true, must be born a poet, and the critic is the child of culture. But as the poet, to perfect his birthright, has need of culture, so the man whom culture can shape and sharpen to the good critic, must be born with many gifts, to be susceptible of such shaping. And when we reflect that the task of the critic is to see clearly into the subtlest and deepest mind, to measure its hollows and its ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... complexion reddening in his turn, "I know your quick wit too well of old to have sought an interview that you might sharpen its edge at the expense of my honour. Lord Ruthven and myself, with Sir Robert Melville as a concurrent, come to your Grace on the part of the Secret Council, to tender to you what much concerns the safety of your own life and the welfare of ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... 'Feed a dog for three days,' says a Japanese proverb, 'and he will remember your kindness for three years; feed a cat for three years and she will forget your kindness in three days.' Cats are mischievous: they tear the mattings, and make holes in the shoji, and sharpen their claws upon the pillars of tokonoma. Cats are under a curse: only the cat and the venomous serpent wept not at the death of Buddha and these shall never enter into the bliss of the Gokuraku For all these reasons, and others too numerous to ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... led them into a beautiful room, where she gave them food to eat, and showed them a soft cushion on which they might sleep. Then she left them and went down into the palace kitchens, where she told the servants to sharpen the knives, and to make a great fire ready, and hang a large kettleful of ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... her lover be impartial? Yes, if her instincts be pure and harmonious, and her worldly knowledge that of a child. Her discrimination between right and wrong would be at once accurate and involuntary, like the test of poison. Love for the criminal would but sharpen her intuition. The sentence would not be spoken, but would be readable in eyes untainted alike by ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... superciliously to a debate in the literary club upon the Evils of the Stage, and passed two solid afternoons in the circle about the stove in the drug-shop, where the squire and the Methodist parson, and even the mild, white-cravated young rector of St. Mark's, were wont to sharpen their wits by friction. What more was left? I was positive that I knew the mental gauge of every man in ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... delight, but when she had finished she put out the candles. I complained of this act of hers, but she said she could not sleep with the light shining on her. I began to suspect that I might have some difficulties thrown in my way to sharpen the pleasure, but I determined to be resigned and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... isn't sharp', said the lad. 'Just let me sharpen it for you, and then you'll find it easier ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... wolf with a gallop like that of a horse! The driver was new to these parts; he had but lately come from the Baron's establishment in St. Petersburg. He had never been in this wood after dark, and he had never seen a wolf save in the Zoological Gardens. The atmosphere now began to sharpen. From being merely cold it became positively icy, and muttering, "I never felt anything like this in St. Petersburg," the driver shrank into the depths of his furs, and tried to settle himself more comfortably in his seat. The horses, too, four in number, ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... at his wife, who, overcome with fatigue, had sunk to sleep in a corner of the carriage. He compared, in spite of himself, the toilette of Louise and that of Emilie. Now on occasions of this kind the presence of a wife is singularly calculated to sharpen the unquenchable desires of a forbidden love. Moreover, the glances of the baron, directed alternately to his wife and to her friend, were easy to interpret, and Madame B——- ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... France, it was a common joke amongst the English, when speaking of the rarity of an object, to observe that it was as scarce as a knife in France that would cut, its appearance also was as dull as its edge, soon however their cutlery, with their ideas, began to brighten, and to sharpen; but even as recently as 1830, they were still so outshone by England, that if it was known that you were going from Paris to London, with the intention of returning, every lady asked you to bring her a pair of scissors, every man a pair of razors, and by all medical ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... wandering about the scrub in the neighborhood of Ballarat one day, sat down at the foot of a tree to rest. While sitting there he took out his knife to cut a stick, and finding the knife was dull, he proceeded to sharpen it by rubbing it upon a stone that lay almost completely imbedded in the ground. As he rubbed, he found that the surface of the stone became yellow. He was greatly surprised at this, and then he dug around the stone with his knife, scraping it in several places, and ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... was an Embryo in a glass case; And F a Foramen, that pierced the skull's base. G was a Grinder, who sharpen'd the fools; And H means the Half-and-half drunk at the schools. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... smitten with another woman, isn't he likely to lose interest in his wife's studies for that reason, and is not his wife's interest in her studies likely to languish for the same reason? Would not the mere sight of those books of hers sharpen the pain that is in her heart? This sudden breaking down of a mutual intellectual interest of two years' standing is coincident with Shelley's re-encounter with Cornelia; and we are allowed to gather from that time forth for nearly two ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... made up to date," said Ned. "The man who owns these outfits is working up some good routes. If you have anything to sharpen, now, I'll show you the ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... or grower of flax would necessarily die of hunger if he could not certainly count on the grower of corn. The workman in a pin-factory, who prepares only the heads of pins, must be sure of his colleagues who sharpen the points, if his labor would not be entirely in vain. The labor of the merchant is not even thinkable without that of the different producers between whom he mediates. Where the production of a certain article depends on the services of six different kinds of ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... targets for the beams of a blazing sun, they were partly relieved from their sufferings; but a few handfuls of barley they had managed to secrete and bring in from the field, proved only sufficient to sharpen an appetite which they could devise no ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... marked them was the Cretan king; High on a rising ground, above the ring, The monarch sat: from whence with sure survey He well observ'd the chief who led the way, And heard from far his animating cries, And saw the foremost steed with sharpen'd ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... would be without home, food, and resting-place; except, possibly, the flicker, or high-hole, who is either a retrograde or a genius, whichever we may choose to consider him, and could live well enough upon ground ants. But as to his nest—he would have to sharpen his wits still more to solve successfully the question of the woodpecker motto, "What is home without a ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... it looked as if every one would die. But in the end this period of suffering proved a real blessing. It killed all the weaker people and forced the survivors to sharpen their wits lest ...
— Ancient Man - The Beginning of Civilizations • Hendrik Willem Van Loon
... is trained by it to quick perception, rapid judgment, prompt decision. His imagination cunningly suggests a thousand things to be done, and then trains the will and every power of body and mind in the effort to do them. The sports of childhood are admirably adapted to quicken the senses and sharpen the wits. Nature has effective ways in her school of securing the exercise which is needed to develop every mental and every bodily power. She fills the activity brimful of enjoyment, and then gives her children freedom, assured that they will be ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... did much to sharpen reason and to develop the mind, but they failed for want of data. Indeed, this has been the common failure of man, for in the height of civilization men speculate without sufficient knowledge. Even in the beginning of scientific thought, for lack of facts, men spent much of their ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... day and night succeeded each other, with no friendly sail to cheer their failing sight and drive away the horrible visions which haunt those who are perishing of hunger and thirst. He saw Ned's stalwart form grow gaunt and lean, and Sibylla's rounded outlines sharpen and waste away under the fierce fires of hunger; and his soul sickened within him as their moans of anguish smote upon his ear. And at last he heard Sibylla, in her agony and despair, entreat Ned to take away the life which had become a burden to her. And he ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... errand, and the two men, in rather a surly manner, promised to meet Mr. Hancock. The next afternoon Mr. Hancock gave us a couple of stakes, which he told us to sharpen, and then we went up to the Salem road together. We found Sam and Jesse sitting on a stone ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... persevering and persistent. He discovered, staked off, owned and worked many claims in Leavenworth and other gulches. Sometimes he had streaks of luck and often the reverse. When lucky he would hire men to help him, when "broke" he would put more patches on his clothes, sharpen his own tools, borrow a sack of flour and work away. Some years later he discovered a really rich gold mine, then worked a silver mine in Utah and became a millionaire. During the spring of 1861 and the winter previous, he prospected ...
— A Gold Hunter's Experience • Chalkley J. Hambleton
... within my breast, And I must mouth it, else this heart will burst! (Sings) We'll smite the grafters; smite them hip and thigh; Our motto shall be ever, "Do or die." We've got 'em on the run, And with every rising sun, We'll oil the new machine; Its blade we'll sharpen keen. Revenge shall fill the goblet to the brim, And "Pleasure saturnine" shall be our hymn. Francos, applauding: 'Twere well, sweet Quezox! Thou in happy tone Hast voiced a noble sentiment in rhyme. But lurking in my mem'ry it doth seem That I recall in part those words so apt. ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... finished, but the whole of the front was open. He dreaded the search for more logs, so tried a new plan. He found, first, some sticks about six feet long and two or three inches through. Not having an axe to sharpen and drive them, he dug pairs of holes a foot deep, one at each end and another pair near the middle ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... thus to try the Greeks, and see of what courage they were, for his desire was still to burn Troy town and to slay Paris with his own hand. Then up rose Diomede, and swore that never would the Greeks turn cowards. No! he bade them sharpen their swords, and make ready for battle. The prophet Calchas, too, arose and reminded the Greeks how he had always foretold that they would take Troy in the tenth year of the siege, and how the tenth year had come, and victory was almost in their hands. Next Ulysses stood up ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... then they marked the camp. When these crazy dogs found a location for the camp they were fortunate enough to find a big herd of buffalo. On their return, before they reached the camp they began to sing a crazy dog song, riding abreast. It means: 'A song to sharpen your knife, and patch up your stomach, for you are going to have something good to eat.' They made a circle, coming to camp from the sunrise, and moved toward the sunset, and then the leaders told the camp they had seen ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... in his desire to find a fair resting place for his feet. (p. 186) "I'm 'ungry. Call this the best fed army in the world. Dog and maggot all the bloomin' time. I need all the hemery paper given to clean my bayonet, to sharpen my teeth to eat the stuff. How are we goin' to ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... out in the air, I mind, to sharpen up the appetites; an' a-boardin' with a widdy, too, bad 'cess ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... does well to carry in his pocket a small flat file with which to sharpen his broad-heads before shooting them. They should have a serrated, meat-cutting edge. Even carrying arrows in a quiver tends to dull them, because they chafe each other while in motion. From time to time you should rub the shafts and heads with the mixture ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... that without much trouble or fatigue. Business by this Means becomes a Pleasure. The greatest Labours and Cares are easy and entertaining to Him who pursues his Genius. Inclination still urges the Man on: Obstacles and Oppositions only sharpen his Appetite, and put Him upon summoning all his Powers, that He may exert Himself to the uttermost, and get over his Difficulties. All the several Arts and Sciences, and all the Improvements made in them from ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... dog,' the skipper said, 'you've been shamming for the last six weeks. I reckon I'll sharpen you up now,' and he hit me a heavy blow with a rattan he held in his hand. There was a cry of 'Shame!' from some of the men. As quick as thought the skipper pulled ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... wold her wonyynge were in wildernesse, And fals freres forboden the fayre ladis chaumbres; 16 For knewe lordes her craft treuly I trowe They shulden nought haunten her house so ho[m]ly[64] on nyghtes, Ne bedden swich brothels in so brode shetes, 20 But sheten her heved in the stre to sharpen her wittes. ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... now hearts beat high; Each sword is sharpen'd well; And who dares die, who stoops to ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... continued my friend, 'so as not to lose a word. "Neatly enough," was the reply. "You see our friend the lawyer can't refuse a drink. He's got a strong head, and can take twice as much as the next man without showing it. A single glass makes no impression on him, unless it be to sharpen him up. So a plan was laid to get half a dozen glasses aboard, more or less, before court opened on the morning the case of Walker vs. Carlton was to be called. But not willing to trust to this, we had a wine-supper for his special benefit on the night before, so as ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... I got someting to say. Beesvings don't have all dis to herselluf. Now it is my turn. Come up closer so I get hold of you. Vait, and I git back on de platform. Here, you olt frent of mine, Dan Porterfield, here is a new butcher-knife sharpener for you, to sharpen your knives on ven you cuts dem bifsteaks. And, Heffern, come close; here is a silver-plated skimmer for dot cream you make, and a pig fan for your daughter. And Polly Codman—git out of de way dere, and let Polly Codman come up!—here, Polly, is a pair ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... more than that—a furlong on—why, there! What bad use was that engine for, that wheel, 140 Or brake, not wheel—that harrow fit to reel Men's bodies out like silk? with all the air Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware Or brought to sharpen its ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... instruction of some of its younger members, or to the examination of the state of their wardrobe, leaving the later portion of the morning for reading, or for some amusing recreation. "Recreation," says Bishop Hall, "is intended to the mind as whetting is to the scythe, to sharpen the edge of it, which would otherwise grow dull and blunt. He, therefore, that spends his whole time in recreation is ever whetting, never mowing; his grass may grow and his steed starve; as, contrarily, he that always toils and never recreates, is ever mowing, never whetting, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... time when you see me, won't you, old smarty? Oh, I mean you, old figger-head,—just the same party! Take out your pensivil, d—n you; sharpen it, do! Any complaints to make? Lots ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... Peary were from the American North Polar Expedition puppies. Borup was used in Dimitri's dog team which got right on to the Beardmore Glacier, but Peary was never any use except for the other dogs to sharpen their teeth on. He was a ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... to sharpen her wits, to follow the strait road. At first with some stumbling, of course, and frequent backslidings. Intellectual curiosity could not, she discovered, be awakened to order; and she often caught herself napping. Thus though she speedily became one of the most ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... days now passed away, during which we just worked sufficiently to sharpen our appetites; the planters leniently exempting us from any ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... a thing for the Fashionable World to sharpen its wits upon," he continued, keeping his stern gaze perseveringly averted. "And so, my lady—because I cannot any longer cheat folks into accepting me as a—gentleman, I shall in all probability become a ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... around them. These men, however, knew that one result achieved would lead to another, if similar means were used; they saw that a pointed stone would inflict a deeper wound than a blunt one on the animal they hunted, and therefore they learnt to sharpen stones artificially; the skins of beasts, flung over their shoulders, protected them from cold, and they learned to make garments; seeds sprouted around them, and they learned to plant them; they noticed ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... Hosley (provided my connection with the case was not revealed). Now, when I saw him and felt his hand once more in the grasp of comradeship, I was with him heart and soul, and scoundrel though he might be, a lineal descendant of old Bluebeard, perhaps, I stood ready to sharpen and pass his knives to him and assist in any humble way a willing and obliging servant could to ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... energy rendered idleness, when it could be avoided, another name for weariness, had seated herself at her desk, and was making sketches for Ruth to copy. Bertha sat beside her, destroying pencils in her awkward attempt to sharpen them. Madeleine did not desist from her occupation, but Bertha's was quickly ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... amazement. The amazement changed to suspicion. His whole face seemed to narrow and sharpen out of his own likeness into something foxy ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... lifted him in time, for a Constable of the Hundred came hither this morning to get old Gaffer Pinniewinks, the trier of witches, to go with him to the Vale of Whitehorse to comprehend Wayland Smith, and put him to his probation. I helped Pinniewinks to sharpen his pincers and his poking-awl, and I saw the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... a ship of war, for instance, [2] the ship is on the high seas, and the crew must row whole days together to reach moorings. [3] Now note the difference. Here you may find a captain [4] able by dint of speech and conduct to whet the souls of those he leads, and sharpen them to voluntary toils; and there another so dull of wit and destitute of feeling that it will take his crew just twice the time to finish the same voyage. See them step on shore. The first ship's company are drenched in sweat; but listen, they are loud in ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... the negro came aft; and we were each upon our guard as he passed us, for we had seen him sharpen his knife. He went to the stern-sheets, where the poor woman sat, and we all knew what he intended to do, for he only acted our own thoughts. She was still hanging over the gunnel, with her eyes fixed downwards, and she heeded not his ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... boys warned me that the fresh air might sharpen up some of our appetites," replied Thad; ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... in contempt, Tata," she admonished with a laugh of some unsteadiness. "It is not certain that I am going to belie you to the guards, or that I have lost faith in your sign. Let me sharpen my weapon for some space among these precious things, and it may be that I shall go hence panting ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... friend," she said at last. "You have a friend here in the room, here at the window, here on your breast." And she threw herself on the Burgundian maiden's breast, weeping and laughing alternately. "Give me your needle—your fine beautiful needle; I will thread it. No! I will sharpen it on steel; no, I will dip it in my perfume-flask, my own special little perfume flask, and then together we will sew up the Tiger's mouth, so that ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... Delvile, after a pause, "can you wish to see Mortimer merely to behold his grief? Can you desire he should see you, only to sharpen his affliction at ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... for the present she worshipped Winifrede. To be singled out for favour by the head girl was in itself a distinction; but, apart from that, Marjorie keenly appreciated her society. She would wait about to do any little errand for her, would wash her brushes after the oil-painting lesson, sharpen her pencils, set butterflies for her, mount pressed flowers, or print out photographs. Winifrede was fond of entomology, and Marjorie, beforetime a lukewarm naturalist, now waxed enthusiastic in the collection of specimens. She was running one day in pursuit of a ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... eager or unhappy, and our eyes are apt to get dulled to this eventfulness of form in those things which we are always looking at. Now it is one of the chief uses of decoration, the chief part of its alliance with nature, that it has to sharpen our dulled senses in this matter: for this end are those wonders of intricate patterns interwoven, those strange forms invented, which men have so long delighted in: forms and intricacies that do not necessarily imitate nature, but ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... how, with Bruennhilde wiped from his memory, he can proceed, Hagen hands him a horn filled with wine, in which he has been seen expressing the juice of an herb; this, the Nibelung's son, wise in the virtues of simples, tells him, will sharpen his memory ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... be seen of the warm, delicate blendings. There is always the look of a flowerbed at dawn, before Chanticleer's second call has brought the sun to sharpen outlines, before dreams and night-mist have altogether quitted the place. Plenty of warm wood colours are there, of lake blues, of smothered reds. Precious they are to the eye, these scenes, but hard to find now except in bits which some dealer has preserved by framing in a screen ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... Caraway seeds sharpen the vision, promote the secretion of milk, and are good against hysterical affections. They are also useful in cases of colic. When used to flavour cakes the seeds should be pounded in a mortar, especially if children are to ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel
... two of the other Evangelists, and the condensed account of it which we have in this Gospel, by its omission of Peter's walking on the water, and of some other smaller but graphic details that the other Evangelists give us, serves to sharpen the symbolical meaning of the whole story, and to bring that as its great ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... are, sir, you fetch the larfin' gas, while I sharpen the knives, (sharpens two long knives from ...
— Oh! Susannah! - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Mark Ambient
... and studies it, a machinist; nor have we any desire to present a lot of useful articles as samples of what to make. The object is to show the boy what are the requirements necessary to make him a machinist; how to hold, handle, sharpen and grind the various tools; the proper ones to use for each particular character of work; how the various machines are handled and cared for; the best materials to use; and suggest the numerous things which can be done in a shop which will pave the way for ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... want me butting in. Nonsense! What's the use of having a grandson if a fellow doesn't hustle up something for the boy to sharpen his teeth on when he grows up? Here I've been living from day to day, just marking time on the road to eternity and figuring life wasn't worth while because the stock was going to die out with me. Up until recently I was content with a little old one-horse ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... his left forefinger as if it were a pencil and began to sharpen it derisively with his right forefinger. They came closer, and sang like a trained chorus, "A-fray-ed ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... particular experiences which his being true makes for us, that is part of his cash-value when he is pragmatically interpreted. Farther than that the ordinary lay-reader in philosophy who thinks favorably of absolute idealism does not venture to sharpen his conceptions. He can use the Absolute for so much, and so much is very precious. He is pained at hearing you speak incredulously of the Absolute, therefore, and disregards your criticisms because they deal with aspects of the conception that ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... guanandee, batetenandinglastampai, etc. This latter we did not use the saw upon at all, it being very hard, but hewed it with the axe, bearing in mind that we had but one file, whereas for the edged tools we had but to go down to a brook hard by to find stones in abundance suitable to sharpen ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... accuse them to their faces of shooting Barney and the burros from the rim-rock. It had occurred to him that if they believed Barney dead, they might reveal something of their purpose in the attack. Concealment, he felt vaguely, would serve merely to sharpen their suspicion of him. It had seemed very important to Casey that these three should not know that Barney was probably well on his way to Barstow ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... stumbled dismally off. But I haven't enjoyed it. They seem to keep a specially cutting east wind, waiting for me, when I go to bathe in the early morning; and they pick out all the three-cornered stones, and put them on the top, and they sharpen up the rocks and cover the points over with a bit of sand so that I can't see them, and they take the sea and put it two miles out, so that I have to huddle myself up in my arms and hop, shivering, through six inches ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... go to work," said our hero, as he saw Mr. Dale come up close behind the wild man. "But sharpen the ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... that on board the "Startler" there was no little excitement. The grindstone was in full use to sharpen cutlasses, and in addition there was a great demand made on the armourer for files to give to the lethal weapons a keener edge, one which was tried over and over again, as various messmates consulted together as to the ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... should be partakers of His holiness.' Is not that God's way of glorifying us before heaven's glory? When a blunt knife is ground upon a wheel, the sparks fly fast from the edge held down upon the swiftly-revolving emery disc, but that is the only way to sharpen the dull blade. Friction, often very severe friction, and heat are indispensable to polish the shaft and turn the steel into a mirror that will flash back the sunshine. So when God holds us to His grindstone, it is to get a polish on the surface. 'I will deliver ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... when the pencil might be pointed the other way, the risk of amputation avoided, and the shavings and pulverised graphite left safely to the action of gravitation and centrifugal force. Yet the entire race of men refuse to see the true value of the feminine method, and, indeed, any man would rather sharpen any woman's pencil than see her do ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... lion. Rubens has lifted his great hand, and the mark he has made has endured for two centuries, and we still continue wondering at him, and admiring him. What a strength in that arm! What splendor of will hidden behind that tawny beard, and those honest eyes! Sharpen your pen, my good critic, shoot a feather into him; hit him, and make him wince. Yes, you may hit him fair, and make him bleed, too; but, for all that, he is a lion—a mighty, conquering, generous, rampageous Leo Belgicus—monarch of his wood. And he is not ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... intrigues, by all which he had gained nothing but the character of a plotter, whose word could not be trusted. Saint Aldegonde expressed the hope that the seizure of Namur Castle would open the eyes of the people, and certainly the Prince did his best to sharpen their vision. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... refined than those of the intellect. He looked upon imaginative pleasure as consisting in resemblances discovered between imitations and things imitated, between copies and originals, an exercise adapted to sharpen the spirit of observation. ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... the same place of worship is used by different religious bodies. In Brussels I have seen the Episcopalians, the Germans, the French Protestants, all assembling at different times in the same building. There was a time when a similar custom prevailed in Southwold, and that was when Master Sharpen, who had his abode at Sotterley, preached at Southwold once a month. There were Independents in the towns in those days, and 'his indulgence,' writes a local historian, 'favoured the Separatists with the liberty and free use of the ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie |
