"Whet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... questioning look upon his face whenever anyone surprised him in the daytime, Solomon Owl was the noisiest of all the different families of owls in Pleasant Valley. There were the barn owls, the long-eared owls, the short-eared owls, the saw-whet owls, the screech owls—but there! there's no use of naming them all. There wasn't one of them that could equal Solomon Owl's laughing and hooting ...
— The Tale of Solomon Owl • Arthur Scott Bailey
... request. To the Count's entreaties they only replied by hints of the difficulty or impropriety of summoning the spirits in the presence of a stranger; or of one who might, perchance, have no other motive than the gratification of a vain curiosity: but they only meant to whet the edge of his appetite by this delay, and would have been sorry indeed if the Count had been discouraged. To show how exclusively the thoughts both of Dee and Kelly were fixed upon their dupe, at this time, it is only necessary to read the introduction to their first interview with ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Paul's Churchyard. Much as we have to regret the scantiness of all material for a study of the lives of the early English printers, it is doubly felt in the case of Reginald Wolfe. The little that is made known to us is just sufficient to whet the appetite and kindle the curiosity. It reveals to us an active business man, evidently with large capital behind him, setting up as a bookseller, under the shadow of the great Cathedral, and rapidly becoming known to the learned and the rich. We see him passing backwards ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer
... where of old the Eccentrics {*} met; When mortals were Brilliants, and fond of a whet, And Hecate environ'd all London in jet. Where Adolphus, and Shorri',{**} and famed Charley Fox, With a hundred good whigs led by Alderman Cox, Put their names in the books, and their cash in the box; Where ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... some education and familiar with the history of my case. But this man, who had tried to induce me to speak when delusions had tied my tongue, now, when I was at last willing talk, would scarcely condescend to listen; and what seemed to me his studied and ill-disguised avoidance only served to whet my desire to ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... Me and my wife here, we whet away and stayed two months. Was 5 feet in this house, and if it ever gets in here agin, we're goin down in Kentucky and never comin' back ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... sensation in excess, With the vespertinal rumour and the matutinal lie Which adorn the lucubrations of the Press), Then I turn me to the columns where there's nothing to attract, Or the interest to waken and to whet, And I revel in a banquet of unmitigated fact ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... themselves into short, almost gasping asseverations. God is angry with the wicked; as angry with the living wicked as 'with many of those miserable creatures that He is now tormenting in hell.' The devil is waiting: the fire is ready; the furnace is hot; the 'glittering sword is whet and held over them, and the pit hath opened her mouth to receive them.' The unconverted are walking on a rotten covering, where there are innumerable weak places, and those places not distinguishable. The flames are 'gathering and lashing about' the sinner, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... keep the whole work sacred to your credit. And if ever I go into print—which is most unlikely—I'll refer to this essay in such a way as to whet public curiosity to a feather edge. Again, if anything should happen to this copy, you'll have ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... rushed Hammergray, Soon he stood by Vidrik knight: "Whet your spears, and sharp your swords, For the King is bent ...
— Ulf Van Yern - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... away from worldly associations and topics into more abstract and untrodden ways of thought. As far as contrast, indeed, is an enlivening ingredient of such intercourse, it would be difficult to find two persons more formed to whet each other's faculties by discussion, as on few points of common interest between them did their opinions agree; and that this difference had its root deep in the conformation of their respective minds needs but a glance through the rich, glittering labyrinth ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 470 - Volume XVII, No. 470, Saturday, January 8, 1831 • Various
... assertions, and thus they very often obtain victory in minor matters of detail. They see and know with admirable penetration, when one of them presents to another a weapon which she herself is forbidden to whet. It is thus that they sometimes lose a husband without intending it. They apply the match and long afterwards are terror-stricken ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... before light, we took out our gentleman, dragged by an immense string of oxen, to introduce him to his future victims and whet his appetite by a taste. The Boer position lies some six miles to the north of the river. The most conspicuous feature of it is a hill projecting towards us like a ship's ram and dipping sharply to the plain. Magersfontein, ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... was greater, And around his hip 'twas doubled. 160 Then he sharpened keen the axe-blade, Brought the polished blade to sharpness; Six the stones on which he ground it, Seven the stones on which he whet it. ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... this spot had nothing but a misty and spectral outline. It was indefinite in the date, uncertain as to persons, mysterious as to the event,—just such a tradition as to whet the edge of one's curiosity and to leave it hopeless of gratification. I may relate ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... women of all sorts here and at Nice do without such a choice temple of scandal to whet their teeth upon? Well, I suppose you and your precious daughter can take care of yourselves. There are the gardens, or you can tell Gregorio to ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... us; and he sometimes expressed much regret at being unable to join us. I used to do my best to gratify him, poor fellow, by relating all the wonders that we saw; but this, instead of satisfying, seemed only to whet his curiosity the more, so one day we prevailed on him to try to go down with us. But although a brave boy in every other way, Peterkin was very nervous in the water, and it was with difficulty we got him to consent to be taken down, for he could never have managed to push himself down ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... end his Life, And with a keen-whet Chopping-Knife In a Thousand pieces cleave him, Let the Parliament first him undertake, They'll make the Rascal stink at stake, And so, like a Knave, let's ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... (lemonade) and a distressing sickly drink called "champagne cider" and all manner of vanities. In one corner of the square a theatre was in full swing, the actors making up in public on a balcony above the crowd, so as to whet their curiosity and attract their custom. Beyond was a cinematograph, advertised by lurid paintings of murders and apparitions; and farther on there was a circus ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... the summarizing lead is the informal, or suspense, lead. This type begins with a question, a bit of verse, a startling quotation, or one or two manifestly unimportant details that tell little and yet whet the appetite of the reader, luring him to the real point of interest later in the story. Such leads, sometimes known as "human interest" leads, are admittedly more difficult than those of the summarizing type, their difficulty being but one effect of the ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... sole fault is, that he was too indulgent to his wife. Well, he married for love, and nothing good ever comes of those love-marriages,"—added the old woman, casting a sidelong glance at Marya Dmitrievna, and rising.—"And now, dear little father, thou mayest whet thy teeth on whomsoever thou wilt, only not on me; I'm going away, I won't interfere."—And ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... in which they dress their food is this: They kindle a fire by rubbing the end of one piece of dry wood, upon the side of another, in the same manner as our carpenters whet a chissel; then they dig a pit about half a foot deep, and two or three yards in circumference: They pave the bottom with large pebble stones, which they lay down very smooth and even, and then kindle a fire in it with dry wood, leaves, and the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... a woman's beauty did not depend for its existence upon the eyes that look upon it, I should want to give more to my hero than love and beauty. I should want to give him help in the battle of life, Henry. I should want to buckle on his armour, and sharpen the point of his lance, and whet the edge of his sword; a rich man's armour is bank-notes, and Winnie knows nothing of such paper. His spear, I am told, is a bullion bar, and Winnie's fingers scarcely know the ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... threescore and ten, let not an old penitent despair. Only take axe in hand and see if the sun does not stand still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon till you have avenged yourself on your enemies. And always when you stop to wipe your brow, and to whet the edge of your axe, and to wet your lips with water, keep on saying things like those of another great sinner deep in his thicket of vice, say this: O God, he said, Thou hast not cut off as a weaver my life, nor from day even to night hast ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... of religion are all moulded upon this familiar and sensible relation of father and child: and to understand whet the human heart is capable to conceive on this subject, we have only to refer to the many eloquent and glowing treatises that have been written upon the love of God to his creatures, and the love that the creature in return owes to his God. I am not now considering religion ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... handful of barley bestow On the child of Apollo, the sleek sable crow; Or a trifle of whet, O kind friends, give;— Or a wee loaf of bread ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... King And Queene wassailing; And though, with ale, ye be whet here, Yet part ye from hence As free from offence As when ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... will get through most work with his tools, if he stops from time to time to sharpen them up. The son of Sirach says, speaking of a carpenter—"If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength; but wisdom is profitable to direct."—Ecclesiasticus. A small fine file is very effectual in giving an edge to tools of soft steel. It is a common error to suppose that the best ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... sighed more deeply than ever, and the refrain then was that bread and porter were so dear that the poor people must starve to feed fat lords, stag-hounds, and priests, and that there was only one remedy. At these words he was wont to whet his razor, and as he drew it murderously up and down the strop, he murmured grimly to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... farm-house. Owing to causes which will hereafter be explained, they exhibited less than the usual plethoric satisfaction after the hospitality of the country, and were the first to welcome the appearance of a square black bottle, which went the rounds, with the observation: "Whet up for a start!" ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... speaking quickly, and raising his gun with a gesture of menace, "pay 'tention to whet I'm 'beout to say. Look savagerous at me, an' make these yeer verming b'lieve you an' me's que'lling. Fo'most tell me, ef they've krippled ye 'beout the legs? I know ye can't speak; but shet yeer eyes, an' ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... week without any word of love between them; and for all that time I believe Will was nearly as happy as a man can be. He rather stinted himself the pleasure of seeing her; and he would often walk half-way over to the parsonage, and then back again, as if to whet his appetite. Indeed, there was one corner of the road, whence he could see the church-spire wedged into a crevice of the valley between sloping fir-woods, with a triangular snatch of plain by way ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... appetite and gusto. Fee, faw, fum! Wife, where is that tender little Princekin? Have you trussed him, and did you stuff him nicely, and have you taken care to baste him and do him, not too brown, as I told you? Quick! I am hungry! I begin to whet my knife, to roll my eyes about, and roar and clap my huge chest like a gorilla; and then my poor Ogrina has to tell me that the little princes have all run away, whilst she was in the kitchen, making the ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... families had also taken advantage of this privilege, and elected to pay tuition and place their children under his instruction, thus bringing together forty-nine energetic boys and girls to whet each other's ambition and incite class rivalry. Among the number were the five clever children of the Hon. Tod Robinson; three sons of Judge Robert Robinson; Colonel Zabriskie's pretty daughter Annie; Banker Swift's stately Margaret; General Redding's two sons; Dr. Oatman's ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... Ausonia from her sleep. Forth swarm Footmen and horsemen, and in wild career Whirl up the dust. "Arm," cry the warriors, "arm!" With unctuous lard their polished shields they smear, And whet the axe, and scour the rusty spear. Their banners wave, their trumpets sound the fight. Five towns their anvils for the war uprear, Crustumium, Tibur, glorying in her might, Ardea, Atina strong, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... experience and your years Would have proved patience rather to your soul, Then with this frantique and untamed passion To whet their skeens; and, but for that I hope their friendships are too well confirmd, And their minds temperd with more kindly heat, Then for their froward parents soars That they should break forth into publique brawles— How ere the rough hand of th' untoward world Hath moulded your ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... My sorrow shall make thee its god, and set Thy naked presence on the parapet That looks over the seas of future times. Some shall say all our love was vice and crimes. Others against our names, as stones, shall whet The knife of their glad hate of beauty, and make Our name a pillory, a scaffold and a stake Whereon to burn our brothers yet unborn. Yet shall our presence, like eternal morn, Ever return at Beauty's hour, and shine ...
— Antinous: A Poem • Fernando Antonio Nogueira Pessoa
... snow, tumbled about, Anon becomes a Mountaine. O noble Dolphine, Go with me to the King, 'tis wonderfull, What may be wrought out of their discontent, Now that their soules are topfull of offence, For England go; I will whet on ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... when there is no idea existing of bettering one's self, so here I'll roost until daylight, unless Doctor comes back to hunt me up!" I judged it was not far from 2 o'clock, A. M., and believed it possible that our venison might only whet a grizzly bear's appetite to follow up the pursuit and gormandize me!—A proper site for a roost was the next matter of importance, and a scrubby oak with a thick top, close by, offered an ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... might at least claim to be worthy to exercise the intellect of superior men and to inspire the eloquence of orators. That a set of people on the other side was professing to do the same things, with totally different and utterly wrong notions of the results to be obtained, afforded the whet of antagonism, and let in dialectic and partisanship as a seasoning to relieve the high severity of the main topic. Quisante's personal relations with the Church had never been intimate; he was perhaps the ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... that as certain forms of music tend to raise us above the sensuality of the animal, or the more degrading passion of material gain, and to transport us into the ether of higher thought, so other forms are directly calculated to awaken in us luxurious emotions, and to whet those sensual appetites which it is the business of a philosopher not indeed to annihilate or to be ashamed of, but to keep rigidly in check. This possibility of music to effect evil as well as good I have seen recognised, ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... white steel— ah no, it could not take within my reins its shelter; steel must seek steel, or hate make out of joy a whet-stone for a sword; sword against flint, Theseus sought Hippolyta; she yielded not nor broke, sword upon stone, from the clash leapt a ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle
... into it. With one impulse we are carried to the cabin of the musk-rat, that earliest settler, and see him dart away under the transparent ice, like a furred fish, to his hole in the bank; and we glide rapidly over meadows where lately "the mower whet his scythe," through beds of frozen cranberries mixed with meadow grass. We skate near to where the blackbird, the pewee, and the kingbird hung their nests over the water, and the hornets builded from the maple in ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... the Hermitage. Governor Blount was absent from Nashville, but the eager commander went ahead raising troops on his own responsibility. Nothing was so certain to whet his appetite for action as the prospect of a war in Florida. Not only did his instructions authorize him to pursue the enemy, under certain conditions, into Spanish territory, but from the first he himself ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... thou of great intelligence, the Rishis and Brahmanas and the deities, led by the authority of the Vedas, all applaud that religion which has compassion for its indication. But, O king, whet I ask thee is this: how does a man, who has perpetrated acts of injury to others in word, thought and deed, succeed in cleansing ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... a grassy place, was a group of mushrooms which also I devoured, and then I came upon a brown sheet of flowing shallow water, where meadows used to be. These fragments of nourishment served only to whet my hunger. At first I was surprised at this flood in a hot, dry summer, but afterwards I discovered that it was caused by the tropical exuberance of the red weed. Directly this extraordinary growth encountered water it straightway became gigantic and of unparalleled ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... the razor best is whet, So wit is by politeness sharpest set; Their want of edge from their offence is seen, Both pain the heart ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... going on, a seedy-looking old gentleman came in, and I noticed that some younger officers rose and offered him a place, which he rejected, till a vacancy occurred, and then he quietly sat down, swallowed his two dozen of green oysters as a whet, and proceeded to dine with an appetite. By this time, my vis-a-vis had resumed his seat, and, after what had passed, I felt myself at liberty to ask him the favour of informing me who he himself was! I was soon answered. He was a Mr Parish, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... going out to-day. Well, I am content. But what to do for company? Mother is well enough, Aunt Susan is well enough; but these, like the poor, I have with me always. On so grim a day as this, one needs a new interest, a fresh element, to whet the dull edge of captivity. That was very neatly said, but it doesn't mean anything. One doesn't want the edge of captivity sharpened up, you know, but ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... independence rests, in large measure, on confidence in America's word and in America's protection. To yield to force in Vietnam would weaken that confidence, would undermine the independence of many lands, and would whet the appetite of aggression. We would have to fight in one land, and then we would have to fight in another—or abandon much of Asia to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... to get, Wherefore, dear lord, be wise, take care that yet A like misfortune happen not to you. Still in their lair the cubs and she-bear,[Q] who Rough pasturage and sour in May have met, With mad rage gnash their teeth and talons whet, And vengeance of past loss on us pursue: While this new grief disheartens and appalls, Replace not in its sheath your honour'd sword, But, boldly following where your fortune calls, E'en to its goal be glory's path explored, Which fame and honour to ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... of approval it was plain the captain agreed with every interruption, and they seemed to whet his interest in the story he had undertaken to ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... but an expert can guard against. In fashioning the nodules of amber, whether genuine or fictitious, into pipe mouth-pieces, they are split on a leaden plate in a turning lathe, smoothed into shape by whet-stones, rubbed with chalk and water, and polished with a piece of flannel. It is an especially difficult kind of work; for unless the amber is allowed frequent intervals for cooling, it becomes electrically excited by the friction and shivers into fragments; the men, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... It comes from the powerful attraction for us of that world which is opened to us through introversion. We descend there to whet our arms for fresh battles, but we lay them down; for we feel ourselves embraced by soft caressing arms that invite us to linger, to dream enchanting dreams. This fact coincides in large part with the previously mentioned tendency toward comfort, which is unwilling to forego childhood ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... greatly lacking in foresight. Hence the servants and stewards do not advise their master to procure any article until it is completely gone. Therefore when they say that there is no more sugar or no more oil, it is when there is not [oil] enough to whet a knife. [207] Consequently, great deficiencies and annoyances are ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... is not endless discussions of Beethoven's works which the public—at all events, our public—demands. We wish his biography,—the history of his life. What has been given us does but whet the appetite. We wish to have the many original sources, still sealed to us, explored, and the results of this labor honestly given us. None of the writers above-mentioned have been in a position to do this, and their publications are but materials ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Green, would be pointed out by the knowing ones as a fellow that was going to ride in the contest and that stood a good chance of winning. For Andy was but human, that he dreamed of these things; besides, does not the jumping through blazing hoops and over sagging bunting while one rides, whet insiduously one's appetite for the plaudits of ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... frame of body as of mind he strays on along the street. There is no lack of food before his eyes, almost within reach of his hand; but only to tantalise, and still further whet the edge of his appetite. Eating-houses are open all around him; and under their blazing gas-jets he can see steaming dishes, and savoury joints, in the act of being set upon tables surrounded by guests seeming hungry as himself, but otherwise better off. He, too, might ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... in choosing your characters: the wilder and uglier the better. Try every combination of shaggy mane, and squinting eye, and mouth like a gaping volcano; build mountains upon your shoulders, or fatten yourselves into Falstaffs; and as a whet to your inventions, I hereby promise a kiss from the bride to the figure that would be the likeliest to make her miscarry. A wedding is such a strange event in one's life; the bride and bridegroom are so suddenly plunged, as it were by magic, head ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... lambasted me to his heart's content. In spite of all this discipline, which one would have thought effective enough to take me out of the lists of Parnassus forever, it on the contrary served only to whet my thirst for writing, and from that time until now I have never gotten over my desire to chisel out sonnets, triolets, rondeaux and lyrics of one ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... in a literary sense,—even in the Boston Public Library, which is admitted to be a model of good sense and wide liberality,—all books are not bought or issued indiscriminately to all readers, irrespective of age and so forth. The necessity for making special application may, in some cases, whet curiosity, but it also, undoubtedly, acts as a check upon unhealthy tastes, even when the book may be publicly purchased. I have heard Russians who did not wholly agree with their own censorship assert, nevertheless, that a strict censure was better than the ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... struggle between Will and Power. The former faculty exacted approbation of that which it was considered orthodox to admire; the latter groaned forth its utter inability to pay the tax; it was then self-sneered at, spurred up, goaded on to refine its taste, and whet its zest. The more it was chidden, however, the more it wouldn't praise. Discovering gradually that a wonderful sense of fatigue resulted from these conscientious efforts, I began to reflect whether I might not dispense with that great labour, and concluded ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... walked the old Woman, giving the Cat a piece of her mind; and last of all, out walked the Parrot, with a cake in each claw. Then they all went about their business, as if nothing had happened; and the Parrot flew back to whet his beak on ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... of Goulding, Collis, Ward led Bloom by ryebloom flowered tables. Aimless he chose with agitated aim, bald Pat attending, a table near the door. Be near. At four. Has he forgotten? Perhaps a trick. Not come: whet appetite. I couldn't do. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Irish Footmen. Nor can the vigorousest course Prevail, unless to make us worse; Who still, the harsher we are us'd, 335 Are further off from b'ing reduc'd; And scorn t' abate, for any ills, The least punctilios of our wills. Force does but whet our wits t' apply Arts, born with us, for remedy; 340 Which all your politicks, as yet, Have ne'er been able to defeat: For when y' have try'd all sorts of ways, What fools d' we make of you in plays! While all the favours we afford, 345 Are but to girt you with the ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... a reaper, Death his name; His might from God the highest came. Today his knife he'll whet, 'Twill cut far better yet; Soon he will come and mow, And we must bear the woe— ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... and the dollars are being scooped in, they'll send you back fast enough—that is, if you still want to go," he remarked. "I tell you, Leonard Tavernake, our city men here are out for the dollars. Over on your side, a man makes a million or so and he's had enough. One fortune here only seems to whet the appetite of a New Yorker. By the way," he added, after a moment's hesitation, "does it interest you to know that an old friend of ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... surprise came; the table was cleared and covered with various sorts of prepared dishes—in short, a substantial and sumptuous dinner was served. The collation which had been taken at the commencement, called in the language of the country "Refresco," had been intended only to whet the appetites of the guests for ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... this is sure, you also look your last upon the moon. I am avenged already. The bait that hooked me is a meal for yonder pike, and he will kill you both before her eyes to whet his appetite." ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... The sight! A burning world! And to be dead and miss it! There's an end Of all satiety: such fire imagine! Born in some obscure alley of the poor, Then leaping to embrace a splendid street, Palaces, temples, morsels that but whet Her appetite: the eating of huge forests: Then with redoubled fury rushing high, Smacking her lips over a continent, And licking old civilisations up! Then in tremendous battle fire and sea Joined: and the ending of the mighty sea: Then heaven ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... us who read With the Persian Expedition know something about the Hush-Hush Army; enough, at any rate, to whet our appetites for more. Let me then recommend The Adventures of Dunsterforce (ARNOLD) to your notice, and assure you that it is a most lively account of as strange an enterprise as any that the War brought forth. Briefly, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various
... was saved. The conquerors either hacked his ships with their swords or sunk them in the sea; not content to have defeated gods, they pursued the wrecks of the fleet with such rage, as if they would destroy them to satiate their deadly passion for war. Thus doth prosperity commonly whet the edge of licence. The haven, recalling by its name Balder's flight, bears witness to the war. Gelder, the King of Saxony, who met his end in the same war, was set by Hother upon the corpses of his oarsmen, and then laid on a pyre built of vessels, and magnificently honoured in his funeral ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... first point, it may be conceded, without deducting much from his sincere zeal in the cause, that the gratification of his thirst of fame, and, above all, perhaps, that supply of excitement so necessary to him, to whet, as it were, the edge of his self-wearing spirit, were not the least of the attractions and incitements which a struggle under the banners of Freedom presented to him. It is also but too certain that, destined as he was to endless disenchantment, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... any pity on them, had already devoured them with his eyes; he told his wife they would be delicate eating, when tossed up with good savoury sauce. He then took a great knife, and coming up to these poor children, whetted it upon a great whet-stone which he held in his left hand. He had already taken hold of one of them, when his ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... as to an "austere regimen in scenery"; and such a discipline was then recommended as "healthful and strengthening to the taste." That is the test, so to speak, of the present essay. This discipline in scenery, it must be understood, is something more than a mere walk before breakfast to whet the appetite. For when we are put down in some unsightly neighbourhood, and especially if we have come to be more or less dependent on what we see, we must set ourselves to hunt out beautiful things with all the ardour and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... perhaps old friends are rather like old wine, and can never be too old. Yet who does not mark in the calendar those days wherein he has met a new rich soul, that has a physiognomy, a grace and expression, peculiarly its own? Even decided repulsions have also a use. We whet our conscience on our neighbors' faults, as sober Spartans were made by the spectacle of drunken Helots;—though he who makes habitual talk about his neighbors' faults whets his conscience across the edge. If there ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... and a year's imprisonment; while to join the Romish Church was to become a traitor, and to be subject to a like penalty. Churchwardens were to make a monthly report of persons absent from church, and to whet the zeal of wardens and constables, for each conviction of offending parties, they were to have a reward of forty shillings, to be levied out of the recusant's estate and goods. Catholics might escape these penalties by quitting the country, and taking the oath ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... is necessary to whet the chisel and other edged tools. (See also under oilstones, p. 121.) First see that there is plenty of oil on the stone. If an iron box be used, Fig. 77, the oil is obtained simply by turning the stone over, for it rests on a pad of felt which ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... are epithets That suit with any word— As well as Harvey's Reading Sauce With fish, or flesh, or bird. Such epithets, like pepper, Give zest to what you write; And, if you strew them sparely, They whet the appetite; But if you lay them on too thick, ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... 1877. It was arranged that he should pass as a nephew of Madame Boyer, the cousin of Marie. He arrived at Marseilles on January 1, and received a cordial welcome. Of the domestic arrangements that ensued, it is sufficient to say that they were calculated to whet the jealousy and inflame the hatred that Marie felt towards her mother, who now persisted as before in parading before her daughter the intimacy of her relations ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... at it as though he regretted it had been seen, then added carelessly, apparently to appease but really to whet the Duchess's curiosity: ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... have a buzz on, lush*, bib, swig, carouse; sacrifice at the shrine of Bacchus[obs3]; take to drinking; drink hard, drink deep, drink like a fish; have one's swill*, drain the cup, splice the main brace, take a hair of the dog that bit you. liquor, liquor up; wet one's whistle, take a whet; crack a bottle, pass the bottle; toss off &c. (drink up) 2198; go to the alehouse, go to the public house. make one drunk &c. adj.; inebriate, fuddle, befuddle, fuzzle[obs3], get into one's head. Adj. drunk, tipsy; intoxicated; inebrious[obs3], inebriate, inebriated; in one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... persistent effort along the lines of experimental work has been generously rewarded by a steady improvement in the general results now attained. Nor is the situation injured by a slight tinge of friendly rivalry among clubs, to lend an additional zest to their labors, and to whet the praiseworthy ambition of each to make every succeeding issue a little better than the last. There are many zealous bibliophiles who belong to two or three book clubs at once, finding it interesting to collect and compare the works produced by ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... Presle Twirl her light limbs, that spurn the needless veil; Let Angiolini bare her breast of snow, Wave the white arm, and point the pliant toe; Collini trill her love-inspiring song, 630 Strain her fair neck, and charm the listening throng! Whet [97] not your scythe, Suppressors of our Vice! Reforming Saints! too delicately nice! By whose decrees, our sinful souls to save, No Sunday tankards foam, no barbers shave; And beer undrawn, and beards unmown, display Your ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... fickle fiddle-sticks!" he interrupted. "That's only a tag. The people whose business it is to decide these things—DIE HERREN DICHTER—are not agreed to this day whet it's man who's fickle or woman. In this mood it's one, in that, the other; and the silly world bleats it after them, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... flew (upon a day when as it Snew;) Which to my Brains the Vapors drew And there began to work and brew, 'Till in my Pericranium grew Conundrums, how some Peal that's New Might be compos'd? and to pursue These thoughts (which did so whet and hew My flat Invention) and to shew What might be done, I strait withdrew Myself to ponder—whence did accrue This Grandsire Bob, which unto you I Dedicate, as being due Most properly; for there's but few Besides, so ready at their Q—— (Especially at the first View) To apprehend a thing ...
— Tintinnalogia, or, the Art of Ringing - Wherein is laid down plain and easie Rules for Ringing all - sorts of Plain Changes • Richard Duckworth and Fabian Stedman
... the way of slaveholders? Darkness they court—they will have darkness. Doubtless "because their deeds are evil." Can we confide in methods for the benefit of our enslaved brethren, which it is death for us to examine? Whet good ever came, what good can we ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... launce haue an hooke, wherewithall they attempt to pull men out of their saddles. The heads of their arrowes are exceedingly sharpe cutting both wayes like a two edged sworde, and they alwaies carie a file in their quiuers to whet their arrowheads. They haue targets made of wickers, or of small reddes. Howbeit they doe not (as we suppose) accustome to carrie them, but onely about the tents or in the Emperours or dukes guards, and that only in the night season. [Sidenote: Their experience and cunning in warres.] ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... heard a great noise of voices and laughter in the drawing-room, and when he went in he found Captain Beausire and Mme. Rosemilly, whom his father had brought home and engaged to dine with them in honor of the good news. Vermouth and absinthe had been served to whet their appetites, and every one had been at once put into good spirits. Captain Beausire, a funny little man who had become quite round by dint of being rolled about at sea, and whose ideas also seemed ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... very effectual as regarded the cony, but it was not much to gurr about in the way of breakfast. It was a mere whet to the appetite, which ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... to business and not to our absorbing more than enough to whet our descriptive powers quickly conducted us into a large room where, on single bamboo couches or bunks, rather tastefully made, perhaps half a dozen habitues lay stretched at full length smoking their pipes in peace, or preparing them in great expectation from the ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... behind.) O lud! he'll murder my poor boy, my darling! Here, good gentleman, whet your rage upon me. Take my money, my life, but spare that young gentleman; spare my child, if you ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... concert was Saturday—a day on which I rarely saw her, as it was my habit to spend all Sunday with her. I was always somewhat an epicure in my moral nature. I liked to pet my inclinations, as I have seen good livers whet their ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... Fought for it. Fought every boy who wouldn't acknowledge it.... When I went to sea as cabin-boy on the "Mary R." of Gloucester, the men on the trawler tried to "lick me into shape," as they called it. They didn't know what they were up against. I used those men as whet-stones—used them to kick fear out of myself. You notice that I limp a little? That's a legacy from the days of ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... but the guests. The breakfast was by no means a matter of form. People had evidently come with more serious intentions, than merely to display new bonnets, and trifle with grapes and peaches. Sea-air gives a whet to even a lady's appetite, and if the performances that morning were any criterion of the effects of that of Glyndewi, the new Poor Law Commissioners, in forming their scale of allowances, must really have reported it a "special case." The fair Cambrians, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... the state of the national finances is now sufficiently matured to enable you to enter upon a systematic and effectual arrangement for the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt, according to the right which has been reserved to the Government. No measure can be more desirable, whet her viewed with an eye to its intrinsic importance or to the general sentiment ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... Jim, "but they didn't seem so lively. I don't give them any more than just enough to whet their appetites. At first they sat round the door begging for more, half the morning, and I had to stone them away; now they understand it. In a few minutes, they'll all be off; and you won't see much of any of them till to-morrow morning. They are all on hand then, as ...
— The Hunter Cats of Connorloa • Helen Jackson
... tie combat; and the frequent visits of the whisky bottle to the ugly mouth of their dam I hoped would soon reduce her to a like state. Judge of my astonishment, reader, when I saw this incarnate fiend take a large carving-knife and go to the grindstone to whet its edge. I saw her pour the water on the turning machine, and watched her working away with the dangerous instrument, until the cold sweat covered every part of my body, in spite of my determination to defend myself to the last. Her task finished, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... his favour should flit thee; He quoth that first had it King Heorogar of old, The king of the Scyldings, a long while of time; But no sooner would he give it unto his son, 2160 Heoroward the well-whet, though kind to him were he, This weed of the breast. Do thou brook it full well. On these fretworks, so heard I, four horses therewith, All alike, close followed after the track, Steeds apple-fallow. Fair grace he gave him ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... toils are pitched, and the stakes are set,— Ever sing merrily, merrily; The bows they bend, and the knives they whet, ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... should perceive it else, and sent him home to buy him a nightcap. If I wist there were any such knavery, or Peter Bales's brachygraphy,[58] under Sol's bushy hair, I would have a barber, my host of the Murrion's Head, to be his interpreter, who would whet his razor on his Richmond cap, and give him the terrible cut like himself, but he would come as near as a quart pot to the construction of it. To be sententious, not superfluous, Sol should have been beholding to the barber, and not to the beard-master.[59] Is it pride that is shadowed under ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... piles. I have found it after we have had considerable freezing weather. The plants in the figure were frozen when I found them, the 27th of November. Dr. McIlvaine says in his book, "If the collector gets puzzled, as he will, over one or all of these species, because no description fits, he can whet his patience and his appetite by calling it H. perplexum ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard
... his cloud-hued cloak, and journeyed off to Joetun-heim. On his way to the giant's dwelling he passed by a field where nine ugly thralls were busy making hay. Odin paused for a moment, watching them at their work, and noticing that their scythes seemed very dull indeed, he proposed to whet them, an offer which the thralls ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber |
