Old pheasants may be known by the length and sharpness of their spurs; in young ones they are short and blunt.

There came to me swiftly, from the sharpness of his question, the paralyzing knowledge that I was a servant addressing my master.

Under these circumstances, it can hardly happen that the translator should succeed in reproducing all the sharpness and vivacity of Campanella's style, or should wholly refrain from softening, simplifying, and prettifying Michael Angelo in his attempt to produce an intelligible version.

He had diminished the sharpness of his hunger by taking up a few links of his belt, but he was glad when he saw smoke twisting over a hill and came, on the other side, in view of a crossroads village.

Blue-Star Woman had not yet detected any particular sharpness about their ears, but by an impulse she looked up into their faces and scrutinized them.

"No, sir; certainly notmost peremptorily not," answered Marston, with more sharpness than, in his early days, he would have thought quite consistent with politeness.

To prevent any reflected light from striking the plate and interfering with the sharpness of the picture, the interior of the photographic camera box is darkened.

We shall use the dissecting knife with a kindly sharpness.

She spoke with a touch of sharpness.

But in general we search in vain for some roughness to relieve the eye, and some sharpness to provoke the palate.

This distinction loses its sharpness when we consider not the affairs of a particular business, but the industrial system as a whole.

I further calculated that once we had joined in public service together the edge of hostility would lose its sharpness.

"Dickie, stop that, please!" He looked up, startled by her sharpness.

Affectionate, suffering natures came to Rome for comfort; but her scanty kindness is only to be drawn with anguish from the cruel sharpness of asceticism.

As to the age of the machine, there are evident signs of wear, for some of the letters have lost their sharpness, and this is most evident in the case of those letters which are the most usedthe 'e,' you will notice, for instance, is much worn; and 'e' occurs more frequently than any other letter of the alphabet.

My task is done now; my fears have ceased to prey upon me; the sharpness of early sorrows has yielded something of its edge to time.

He had no words for such a thought, but he knew now, in all the sharpness of the bitter certainty, that between them there was a great gulf never to be passed.

There was an inexpressible bitterness on his face, as he lay down on the bed, taking the bit of tin, which he had rasped to a tolerable degree of sharpness, in his hand,to play with, it may be.

He had hardly thanked me when he set off running homeward to show how he had been rewardedfor his sharpness in thinking that I should lose my way, and allowing me to do so before saying a word.

So forth they fared with sweetness in their hearts, That took the sense of sharpness from the thorn.

There was nothing else remarkable about him but his quickness; he was perpetually on the alert; by constant activity, the rust was never allowed to collect on his faculties; his sharpness was distressing,he appeared subject to a tense strain.

They seek sharpness of impression by excluding one side of the matter and exaggerating another, and most aphorisms are to be read as subject to all sorts of limits, conditions, and corrections.

At Matthew's approach, he commenced feeling the teeth of the saw, as if to test their sharpness.

You write the principle which was so hard to receive upon the tablet of your memory; and day by day a gentle hand comes over it with a bit of india-rubber, till the inscription loses its clear sharpness, grows blurred and indistinct, and finally quite disappears.

But a slight tremble of the hand he held acknowledged the intruding sharpness, and then the red parabola rose from the golden bowl.