"Cunning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the wide walls, the ceilings, the sides of arches, the ribs of groinings—every foot of space, in short—with life and color; and how much more precious is one of those solemn pearly faces than a panel of alabaster or the most cunning mosaic of marbles! In the upper church alone there are twenty-two large frescoes of Cimabue and thirty of Giotto. Over these pours the light from fourteen large colored windows, unimpeded by side-aisles. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... need is some sure, cunning messenger to send to him; a man whose heart and head, soul and body are bound up in the cause he advocates. General, where shall we find ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... of a sensation was the last time my governess was allowed to box my ears. But yet I do myself and your unfortunate enchanted palace some injustice. Here is the last - O positively!' And she told him the story from behind her fan, with many glances, many cunning strokes of the narrator's art. The others had drawn away, for it was understood that Madame von Rosen was in favour with the Prince. None the less, however, did the Countess lower her voice at times to within a semitone of whispering; and the pair leaned ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... learn, and inwardly digest." By rede craft we find out what other men have done; we get our book learning, we are made heirs to thoughts that breathe and words that burn, we enter into the life, the acts, the arts, the loves, the lore of the wise, the witty, the cunning, and the worthy of all ages and all places; we learn, as says ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... insuperable loathing. From that day she no longer regarded herself as a blameless wife. Had she not been false to herself? Why should she not play a double part in the future, and display astounding depths of cunning in deceiving her husband? In her there lay a hitherto undiscovered latent depravity, lacking only opportunity, and her ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... turned over a few boulders, and exposed the sand that lay beneath them. Half a shovelful of this he placed in a tin dish, which he half-filled with water. Then squatting on his heels, he rotated the dish with a cunning movement, which splashed little laps of water over the side and carried off the lighter particles of sand and dirt. When all the water in the dish was thus disposed of, he added more and renewed the washing process, till but a tablespoonful of ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... moment it was clear that something most certainly was arousing the people. The village was in an uproar. "Stay!" cautioned Rolla, catching her friend's arm. "Let us use cunning! ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... men grow better as they grow older; wiser they may grow, but it is the wisdom of the serpent. We scarce grow less sensual, less vain, less eager after what we think pleasure; I would we continued as generous and as warm. We gain the cunning to veil our passions, to regulate even our vices according to the scale (and that no parsimonious one) which what we call "society" allows; we lose the enthusiasm which in some degree excused our follies, with the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... know very well," said Miss Palmer, "when he could learn nothing at the printer's, took the trouble to go all about Snow Hill, to see if he could find any silversmith's." "Well, he was a cunning creature!" said Mrs. Thrale; "but Dr. Johnson's ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... canaries in the bushes as he passed, for once failed to thrill him with joy of life. He was wondering whether to go straight to the house and search it if necessary to make sure that she had not been there, or whether Indian cunning would serve him best. His whole being ached for direct action; his heart trembled with fear lest he should jeopardize Marian's safety by his ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... sympathy on it: it was to him the house in which Europe was stifling its soul; and he knew that our utter enervation and futilization in that overheated drawingroom atmosphere was delivering the world over to the control of ignorant and soulless cunning and energy, with the frightful consequences which have now overtaken it. Tolstoy was no pessimist: he was not disposed to leave the house standing if he could bring it down about the ears of its pretty and amiable voluptuaries; and he wielded the pickaxe with a will. ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... green cathedral whose doors stood invitingly open ... and now he found himself in the hospital ward. Sometimes he felt a desire to question the blue-and-white nurse, but it seemed too much trouble to move his lips. Then in a flash came the solution of the puzzle, and he chuckled to himself over his cunning. Of course it was a dream. The nurse was a dream-nurse, who wanted to make him believe that she was real. But she was not clever enough. The best way to pay her out for her deception was to take no notice of her whatsoever. So comforted, he would go ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... queen bade of craftsmen deft at large to seek the skilfullest, the most curious and cunning to work structures of stone;— upon that chosen site God's temple to grace as the Guarder of souls gave her rede from on high. She the Rood hight with gold to inlay and the glory of gems, with the most prized of precious stones to set with high art;— and in a silver chest ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... and will," was the reply. "Soldiers are the simplest race of mankind, when they come in contact with the cunning men of cities. An army, showy and even successful as it may be, is always an instrument and no more—a terrible instrument, I grant you, but as much in the hands of the civilian as one of your howitzers is in the hands of the men who load and fire it. At this moment sixty commissioners, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... keen swords, so keen, indeed, that if placed in a running stream, they would fairly divide an object, however slight, which was borne against them by the water, and who eventually married a king's daughter, by whom he had a son, who was as bold a knight as his father was a cunning blacksmith. I never see a forge at night, when seated on the back of my horse at the bottom of a dark lane, but I somehow or other associate it with the exploits of this extraordinary fellow, with many other extraordinary things, amongst which, as I have hinted before, are particular passages of ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... a true story. And the Beautiful Wicked Witch said he could see the bird himself if he would come to her house. He could stroke its bright breast, and it would sing perhaps. Then there were other things caged in her house, cunning little animals, and some big ones, worth any ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... majority of the Legislature of his State, who gave him whatever legislation he wanted. Every advantage seemed to be on his side. He would undoubtedly have succeeded but for the opposition of Blair. In him he encountered an equal in cunning, and more than a match ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... devised against "the gods their sons." The inscription being very mutilated here, its full drift cannot be gathered, but from the complete portions which come later it would seem that Mummu's plan was not a remarkably cunning one, being simply to make war upon and destroy the ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Theophilus G. Pinches
... motionless eagerness with which these anglers dwelt upon their floats, grave as herons, could not have been exceeded. There they were day after day, always patient and always hopeful. Occasionally a small catch—a mere "bait "—was handed round for inspection; and once a cunning fisherman, acquainted with all the secrets of his craft, succeeded in drawing forth three perch, perhaps a quarter of a pound each, and one slender eel. These made quite a show, and were greatly admired; but I never saw the same man ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... characters in the dawn of a new age, exploiting the contrast as a form of social commentary. The four former musketeers are now drawn to each represent a virtue. D'Artagnan is Loyalty, Athos is Nobility, Porthos is Strength, and Aramis is Cunning. When Louis XIV dishonors Raoul and casts off Athos, he sheds the ideal of Nobility as he in reality broke the power of the French nobles and brought the entire country under his control. When he tames ...
— Dumas Commentary • John Bursey
... had entered the hive and fixed itself against the glass side. The bees, unable to penetrate it with their stings, the cunning economists fixed it immovably, by cementing merely the edge of the orifice of the shell to the glass with resin, (propolis), and thus it became a prisoner for life." Now the instinct that prompts the gathering of propolis in August, and filling every crack, flaw, or inequality about the ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... dealings with the youth of Chisley, and set himself to work to cultivate his physical qualities. All that the pugilists and wrestlers could teach him he picked up with extraordinary quickness, and to the arts thus acquired he added cunning tricks of offence and defence of his own contriving. He had a peculiar aptitude for wrestling and pugilism, delighted secretly in his strength and swiftness, and would walk five miles to plunge like a porpoise in ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... of the four quarters of the globe. Here are the well-known Newfoundland dog, the wild dogs of different climates, the four-toed hunting dog of Abyssinia and South Africa, the Cape of Good Hope dog, with its long ears; the varieties of fox and wolf; all expressing great activity and extraordinary cunning. Ladies will be pleased to notice a lap-dog almost hidden by his long hair, placed under a particular glass-case: this exclusive little aristocrat ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... whom he disposed of four of his smallest diamonds for five thousand francs each. Dantes half feared that such valuable jewels in the hands of a poor sailor like himself might excite suspicion; but the cunning purchaser asked no troublesome questions concerning a bargain by which he gained a round profit of at least ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... A CUNNING juryman addressed the clerk of the court when administering the oath, saying, "Speak up; I cannot hear what you say."—"Stop; are you deaf?" asked Baron Alderson.—"Yes, of one ear."—"Then you may leave the box, for it is necessary that jurymen ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... was his and the style of address, so that it was evidently one of those queer little bits of transparent cunning which were characteristic of him, to make it come from his wife, that he might not lay himself open to a direct rebuff. The address, curiously enough, was that very Cadogan Terrace at which I had lodged, ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... contrary, was rather abrupt with his valet and spoilt two white ties, and swore at himself because his old Eton hand had lost its cunning. But finally he too went down the shallow steps, and, joining his hostess at the door, sailed in with her to the George I saloon, his fine eyes shining and his bearing more ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... and forth, carrying orders from the castle to various quarters. The ministers were called to meet at twelve o'clock. Underneath all the bustle there was a tremendous impulse of American cunning, energy and resourcefulness. Everyone caught the fever. Reserved old diplomats were overwhelmed by their own enthusiasm; custom-bound soldiers forgot the hereditary caution and fell into the ways of the new leaders without a murmur. The city was wild with excitement, ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes—he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... theories to different results. If I am right, if he is wrong, in our attempts to untie this old Gordian knot, he loses little indeed. That fame of his, the most steady and brilliant light of all which crown the brows of contemporary scholars, is the well-earned reward, not of mythological lore nor of cunning fence in controversy, but of wide ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... recognising the strangers' handicraft from their clothing, stepped up to them without more ado, and asked Wacht if he understood how to manage the machine any better since he looked so cunning about it. "Ah, well!" replied Wacht, without being in the least disconcerted, "ah well; it's a doubtful point whether I know better, for every fool thinks he understands everything better than anybody else; but I can't help wondering ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... constitutional principles, while Jefferson always denounced the political partiality of the federal courts, and above all the "rancorous hatred which Marshall bears to the government of his country, and ... the cunning and sophistry within which he is ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... to grow excited, and he looked like a distorted image of his former self. Anger, suspicion, fear, and cunning were all blended in his face, but he so far mastered himself as to assume a wheedling tone and manner as he came toward her and said, "Nan, it was only a little tonic that I found beneficial while in the South. You must ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... Louis did not travel at night, for fear of passing Charles on the road, alive or dead. He knew his cousin better than any in the Frauengasse had learnt to know this gay and inconsequent Frenchman. A certain cunning lay behind the happy laugh—a great capacity was hidden by the careless manner. If ready wit could bring man through the dangers of the retreat, Charles had as good a ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... her to him, and requested her to sit down. The enchantress readily complied, anticipating a successful issue to her artful stratagems; but the intended victim of her sorcery was too cunning to be imposed upon. He soon perceived what she was, and forthwith cast his kamund over her, and in spite of all her entreaties, bound her too fast to escape. In this extremity, she successively assumed the shape of a cat, a wolf, and a decrepit old man: and so ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... that of any living person that he possessed a form and features of rare beauty; that his courage was surpassed by none, for, when but a stripling, he had handed a knife to the furious Tecumseh, and dared him to fight unto the death, and that his cunning and subtlety were beyond the ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... himself acceptable. A bitter, caustic, and backbiting humour, a malicious wit, and an envy of others more prosperous than the possessor of such amiable qualities, have not, indeed, always been found obstacles to a courtier's rise; but then they must be amalgamated with a degree of selfish cunning and prudence, of which Sir Mungo had no share. His satire ran riot, his envy could not conceal itself, and it was not long after his majority till he had as many quarrels upon his hands as would have required a cat's nine lives to answer. In one of ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... that here, maybe, was to overtake him such an adventure as that which he had just a moment before been desiring so ardently. Nor was he mistaken; for the negress, first looking this way and then that, with an extremely wary and cunning expression, and apparently having satisfied herself that the street, for the moment, was pretty empty of passers, beckoned to him to draw nearer. When he had approached close enough to her she caught ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle
... her so," I exclaimed, warmly. "There isn't an honest or straightforward thing about her. She is weak, too; her only strength is her suppleness and cunning." ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... these destroyers of mankind know their enemy, when they impute the insurrection in Greece to the same spirit before which they tremble throughout the rest of Europe, and that enemy well knows the power and the cunning of its opponents, and watches the moment of their approaching weakness and inevitable division to wrest the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... chagrin experienced in the United States when the Johnson-Clarendon treaty was made public. It gave almost personal offense to the mass of people in the loyal States. It overlooked, and yet by cunning phrase condoned, every unfriendly act of England during our civil war. It affected to class the injuries inflicted upon the Nation as mere private claims, to be offset by private claims of British subjects,—the whole to be referred to a joint ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... letter he refers to the machine as a "cunning devil, knowing more than any man that ever lived." That was a profound truth, though not as he intended it. That creation of James Paige's brain reflected all the ingenuity and elusiveness of its creator, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... immediate attendants, who thereupon kissed their hands with a grave face, and pressed them to their hearts. Then one of the girls, leaving the apartment for a moment, returned with a nargileh of crystal, set by the most cunning artists of Damascus in a framework of golden filigree crusted with precious stones. She presented the flexible silver tube, tipped with amber, to the lady, who, waving her hand that the room should be cleared, smoked a confection of roses ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... you mair afore you're done wi' him," the atheist said maliciously. "I ken the ways o' thae ministers preaching for kirks. Oh, they're cunning. You was a' pleased that Mr. Dishart spoke about looms and webs, but, lathies, it was a trick. Ilka ane o' thae young ministers has a sermon about looms for weaving congregations, and a second about ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... as the Irish will, They gave him credit for cunning and skill, They buried their dead, they bolted their beef, And started anew on the track of the thief Till, in place of the "Kalends of Greece", men said, "When Crook and his darlings come back ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... been so, our judgment of the conduct of individuals proves. Do we go about the streets giving prizes to octogenarians, or put down to wickedness the early death of a child? Why then, should we otherwise regard long life in a whole people? Do we applaud the superior strength or cunning of Cain, or pretend that the discovery of gun-powder strengthened the arm of the good? No, neither loyalty, nor victory is the true test;—it is by their fruits that ...
— A Comparative Study of the Negro Problem - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 4 • Charles C. Cook
... (tasting it, and finding it a cunning compound of curried bananas and chicory). ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... of Imperialism. It is the grim expression of a faith that is everlasting, of a love that shall endure the shocks of years, and all the cunning devilry of such as the Barbarous Huns. Hence this little book. It is an inspiration of the Dardanelles, where I met many of our Australasian friends. It is not an official history. I have, in my own way, endeavoured ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... time the man was flung from the saddle as from a gigantic catapult, to fall upon his shoulders and back in the corral dust, where he lay still. The horse, rid of his enemy, leaped again; then with catlike quickness and devilish cunning whirled, and with wicked teeth bared and vicious, blazing eyes, rushed for the ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... ingenious oven of stones and a glorious fire of brush; and the girls made cunning dishes out of big, clean-washed leaves. Then, when the potatoes and eggs were ready, all was devoured with a zest that paid its own tribute to the fair young cooks; and the health of the fair young cooks was drunk in Swan Creek water, cupped in sturdy masculine hands; and even the girls tried ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... beginning to end of the affair I was wholly concerned in defending myself; this much I achieved successfully for some moments, and I heard Mr Jermyn say, "But he stands his ground well"; then came a cunning feint followed by a fierce attack and a sharp pang in my left arm near the shoulder, while the sleeve of my shirt went red in a moment. The seconds darted in between us, and Darrell caught me round ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... intense satisfaction and cunning at the news. He waved the servant away, picked up his hat and stick, and ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... and that within two months." Without vouching for the absolute accuracy of this intelligence, he implored the Queen to be more upon her guard than ever. "For there is no doubt," said the envoy, "that she is a chief mark to shoot at; and seeing that there were men cunning enough to inchant a man and to encourage him to kill the Prince of Orange, in the midst of Holland, and that there was a knave found desperate enough to do it, we must think hereafter that anything may be done. Therefore ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... remission of sins by compounding for them. And there are many ways of compounding for them. We English have beautiful little quiet ways of buying absolution, whether in low Church or high, far more cunning than any ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... attendants, but the girl saw the movement and instinctively suspected his treachery. He meant her to come to the table, when he would ring the bell and then catch her and hold her by main force till help came. Her faculties were furiously awake under the strain she bore, and outran his slow cunning. ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... Helictis are arboreal in their habits. Then it was accused of eating to such a pitch of distention that it had to squeeze itself between two close-growing trees for relief ere it returned again to the repast. There is no doubt, however, that it is to a great extent voracious and extremely cunning; and what it cannot eat it will carry off and hide. The trappers complain bitterly of it, and spare no pains to kill every one they can come across; but it is not easily to be caught, and only a very cunningly-devised bait ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... reports of rumor. But yet, somehow or other, the abolitionists, with all their fiery, restless zeal, never succeed in laying their hands on the offender himself. He must, indeed, be a most adroit, a most cunning, a most wonderful rogue. He boldly goes into a community in which so many are all eye, all ear, and all tongue, in regard to the black man's rights; he there steals a free negro, who himself has the power to tell when, where, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... from doing something to which he is naturally inclined by arousing fear of disagreeable consequences if he persists. But he may be left in the position which exposes him later on to influences which will lead him to do even worse things. His instincts of cunning and slyness may be aroused, so that things henceforth appeal to him on the side of evasion and trickery more than would otherwise have been the case. Those engaged in directing the actions of others are always in danger of overlooking the importance of the sequential development ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... his counselors gathered round about Beowulf, and looked with wonder and amazement on the head of the fierce sea monster and read with strange thrills of awe the wondrous history of the sword and the cunning work ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... is puss in the study; how cunning she looks! She likes rats and mice far better than books. Ah! that poor little mouse, it is out of its pain, And will never feel pussy's sharp talons again. I hope it has not left some young ones at home, Who with hunger may die ere their mother shall come. ...
— Rhymes Old and New • M.E.S. Wright
... cupidity had been aroused by English gold, had searched the forest far and near for the regicides. Their knowledge of the forest and cunning in following a trail had two or three times brought them face to face with Cromwell's stern old battle-trained warriors. Then they had learned to their cost that they had roused a pair of lions in their lairs; but the regicides finally disappeared. They had last been seen near Hadley, ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... cunning, venal little woman. A woman not at all uncommon upon the stage, or in the ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... sinks ankle-deep in velvet moss, The shroud of some dead giant of his race; Dun gold and green and brown thick interlace, Their tiny exquisite leaves in cunning trace, Weaving their ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... then, in waking delirium or feverish sleep, was the charm that was to control his future. Be it bird or beast, dream or mystic revelation, it was his totem or tomanowos, and gave him strength, cunning, or swiftness, sometimes knowledge of the future, imparting to him its own characteristics. But what it was, its name or nature, was the one secret that must go with him to his grave. Woe unto him if he told the name of his totem. ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... The lights at the tables were turned low. From the darkness laughter arose. McGregor stared about. The people seated at the tables on the terrace caught and held his attention and he began looking sharply at the faces of the men. How cunning they were, these men who had been successful in life. Were they not after all the wise men? Behind the flesh that had grown so thick upon their bones what cunning eyes. There was a game of life and they had played it. The garden was a part of the game. It was ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... arrived, and my vakeel, with his usual cunning, came to ask me whether I intended to start tomorrow. He said there was excellent shooting in this neighborhood, and that Ibrahim's camp not being more than five hours' march beyond, I could at any time join him, should I think proper. ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... undoubtedly the cause of M'Mahon's disgrace, as well as of his projected marriage with Kathleen having been broken up, they did not perceive that she was equally a sufferer; or, if they did, they were either too cunning or too hardened to acknowledge it. For this particular circumstance, Kate, inasmuch as it involved deep ingratitude on their part, could not ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... way to outwit rogues except with their own weapons—cunning and deceit," murmured the fair prisoner, bitterly, as she began to eat her breakfast. "I will be very wary and apparently submissive until I have matured my plans, and then they may chew their cud of defeat as long as it pleases them ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... me?" rejoined the nun, laughing a little. "Edward of Westminster was dead ere I was born. But I have heard of him from them that did remember him well. He was a goodly man, of lofty stature, and royal presence: a wise man, and a cunning [clever]—saving only that he opposed our ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... of his position was made patent. His rough philosophy was good. Had she been his by mere conquest, no man in the Klondyke would have disputed it. Being his wife, legally, his position was doubly strong. Only cunning could win through. She meant to exercise that faculty as soon as opportunity presented itself. And the opportunity was ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... There was hardly a face among that gang of wild riders which did not outdo the face of Texas Smith in degraded ferocity. Almost every man and boy was obviously a liar, a thief, and a murderer. The air of beastly cruelty was made even more hateful by an air of beastly cunning. Taking color, brutality, grotesqueness, and filth together, it seemed as if here were a mob of those malignant and ill-favored devils whom Dante has described and the art of his age has painted ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... was met with address and ability that all but matched his own. The animal he embraced had muscles like tempered springs and the cunning and fury of a wild beast in a trap. For a moment Lanyard was able to accomplish no more than to smother resistance in a rib-crushing embrace; no sooner did he relax it than all attempts to shift his hold were anticipated and met half way, forcing ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... good name and merited reputation would surely find his memory out in this world yet. She had no material possessions save a few of his gorgeous, gruesome, hieroglyphical pictures, and what she had borrowed or inherited of his lower cunning in tinting, a more marketable commodity in the ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... War, Each able to undo mankind, Death's servile emissaries are; Nor to these alone confined, He hath at will More quaint and subtle ways to kill; A smile or kiss, as he will use the art, Shall have the cunning skill to break ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... but unluckily she is as judicious there as in everything else, and the child gets more deplorable every year. She has got the look of deformity, and yet she is not deformed; and the queer sullen ways of deficiency, but she has more wit than her father already, and more cunning.' ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... them the flower of minstrels came, And to their cunning harps did frame In doleful numbers piercing rhymes, Such strains as in the older times Had sooth'd the spirit of Fingal, Echoing thro' ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... ever wished his enemy dead more than I did, and no man ever spent more cunning on the deed. Master in my own house, I contrived a device by which the man who held my fate in his hands fell on my library hearth with no one near and no sign by which to associate me with the act. Does this seem like the assertion of a madman? Go to the old chamber familiarly ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... last Wednesday noon, on Hanover street, that wasn't so coarse for an urchin hardly out of his swaddling clouts. He was a cunning-looking little fellow, and poking his head into a shoe shop, he bawls out in a very ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... assumption of a role is another noteworthy and frequent medium of plot motivation. In As. 407 ff. Leonida tries to palm himself off as the atriensis. Note the violent efforts of the two slaves to wheedle the cunning ass-dealer (449 ff.). In Cas. 815 ff. Chalinus enters disguised as the blushing bride. In Men. 828 ff. Menaechmus Sosicles pretends madness in a clever scene of uproarious humor. In the Mil. (411 ff.) ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... eventually overcame my aversion to change. The basement story of the house was occupied by a bar and oyster saloon; the pungent testaceous odors, mounting from those lower regions, gave the offended nostrils no respite or rest; in a few minutes, a robust appetite, albeit watered by cunning bitters, would wither, like a flower in the fume of sulphur. Half-a-dozen before dinner, have always satiated my own desire for these mollusks; before many days were over, I utterly abominated the name of the species; familiarity only made ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... Society, as it exists, is founded on class distinctions which largely consist in the exaltation of idleness and wealth. Against this we have much eloquent protest. "Venerable to me is the hard hand; crooked, coarse; wherein notwithstanding lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of the Sceptre of this Planet. Venerable too is the rugged face, all weather-tanned, besoiled, with its rude intelligence; for it is the face of a Man living man like." How far away ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... has produced a fifth toe under some influence of the poultry-yard, but no natural bird has more than four. Except in swifts, which never perch, but cling to rocks and walls, one is turned backwards, and, by a cunning contrivance, the act of bending the leg draws them all automatically together. So a hen closes its toes at every step it takes, as if it grasped something, and, of course, when it settles down on its roost, they grasp that tight and hold it fast till morning. But to birds that ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... ruffler shook back the matted hair from his lean, harsh face, and a pair of eyes that of a sudden seemed ablaze glared at his companion; then the lids drooped until those eyes became two narrow slits—catlike and cunning—and again he laughed. ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... give out that we know he has got clear away to America,' said Curtis, with an air of intense cunning. 'And to lull his suspicions, we have notices in print to say that no further rewards are to be given for his apprehension; so that he'll get a false confidence, ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... rational way than that set forth as orthodox by later priestcraft, which taught that to the believer who simply turned round the revolving library containing the canon, the merit of having read it all would be imputed. The rin-z[o][24] found near the large temples,—the cunning invention of a Chinese priest in the sixth century,—soon became popular in Japan. The great wooden book-case turning on a pivot contains 6,771 volumes, that being the number of canonical volumes enumerated in ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... every effort in my power to prevent what I knew was threatening. Until he began to practise deceit, trickery of every kind. What more could I do? If he was determined to deceive me, he would do so; what was gained by my obliging him to exert more cunning? Then I turned sick at ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... of the financial legislation of this session, there were some episodes which deserve to be related. Those members, a numerous body, who envied and dreaded Montague readily became the unconscious tools of the cunning malice of Sunderland, whom Montague had refused to defend in Parliament, and who, though detested by the opposition, contrived to exercise some influence over that party through the instrumentality of Charles Duncombe. Duncombe indeed had his own reasons for hating Montague, who had turned him ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... country, believing that it was being brought to ruin by the counsels of evil men. She prayed daily to be delivered from dissenters, radicals, and wolves in sheep's clothing,—by which latter bad name she meant especially a certain leading politician of the day who had, with the cunning of the devil, tempted and perverted the virtue of her own political friends. And she was one who thought that the slightest breath of scandal on a young woman's name should be stopped at once. An antique, pure-minded, anxious, self-sacrificing matron was Mrs. ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... hardly right to omit this edition of so celebrated a tale pictured by so celebrated an artist, yet Mr. Crane's work breathes mystery and Oriental cunning from every page, and should be given to our youngsters only after examination, as a highly-strung child might be frightened by it. The picture of the resourceful Morgiana filling the oil-jars, while a dreadful robber with saucer-like ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... Colonel and he immediately says, with remarkable cunning, 'Oh—that! I was just quizzing you, Barbara. I hope you will be as happy, dear, staid Barbara, as if you had married——' He sees that he has nearly given away the situation. He looks triumphantly at granny as much as to say, 'Observe me; I'm ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... discipline, expert in strategy, pitiless and rich. They looked wearied of prolonged cares. Their flaming eyes expressed distrust, and their habits of travelling and lying, trafficking and commanding, gave an appearance of cunning and violence, a sort of discreet and convulsive brutality to their whole demeanour. Further, the influence of the god ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... which you will perceive, and especially in the one from New York, much valuable matter. That society mentions a species of kidnapping, which to the disgrace of humanity, has been carried on in that city in a manner at once evincing the barefaced hardiness of its perpetrators, and the wicked and cunning arts practiced, by the enemies of freedom, on an oppressed people. There is good reason to believe, that similar practices are secretly pursued in other parts of the Union. We therefore earnestly press your vigilant ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... and gave right lusty knocks; or again, when work failed, he would lie upon the grass, chin on fist, poring over some ancient legend, or sit with brush and colours, illuminating on vellum, wherein right cunning was he. Now it chanced that as he sat thus, brush in hand, upon a certain fair afternoon, he suddenly espied one who stood watching him from the shade of a tree, near by. A very tall man he was, long and lean and grim of aspect, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... William Gladstone. Doesn't the mill village look cosy? The cunning little houses with their porches and gardens and neat palings. Such a lot of folks living together should ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... was delighted with the account of ma belle's cunning manoeuvres and witty speeches, even to the point of laughing heartily at her satire on himself; and he reveled in L'Isle's ill-concealed mortification, exclaiming: "What a pity the plot failed by Mabel's unmasking too soon. That and your good horse enabled you to keep your appointment ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... and mischief; and had led him into the riot and gambling to which he was not naturally prone. Gilbert Kendal, with more sense and principle, had been led on by the contagion around him, and at last an outrageous wine party had brought matters to a crisis. The most guilty were the most cunning, and the only two to whom the affair could actually be brought home, were Dusautoy and Kendal. The sentence was rustication, and the tutor wrote to Mr. Dusautoy, as the least immediately affected, to ask him to convey the intelligence to ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a great deal it leaves out! Are there no other stories in the world except yours; and are all men busy with your business? Suppose we grant the details; perhaps when the man in the street did not seem to see you it was only his cunning; perhaps when the policeman asked you your name it was only because he knew it already. But how much happier you would be if you only knew that these people cared nothing about you! How much larger your life would be if your self could ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... and go to man; {14} for whom as the other things are, so it seemeth in him her uttermost cunning is employed; and know, whether she have brought forth so true a lover as Theagenes; so constant a friend as Pylades; so valiant a man as Orlando; so right a prince as Xenophon's Cyrus; and so excellent a man every way as Virgil's AEneas? Neither let this ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... give us some heavenly manna or other!" Little Margaret made a wry face; "I see 'Tis, after all, a gift horse," said she; "And sure, no godless one is he Who brought it here so handsomely." The mother sent for a priest (they're cunning); Who scarce had found what game was running, When he rolled his greedy eyes like a lizard, And, "all is rightly disposed," said he, "Who conquers wins, for a certainty. The church has of old a famous gizzard, She calls it little whole lands to devour, Yet never a surfeit got to this ...
— Faust • Goethe
... Bella bridled her head and half shut one eye that gave her an unpleasant look of cunning. "He swore me not to tell and said little girls were often better than ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Who loves his own smart shadow in the streets, Better than e'er the fairest she he meets; Much specious lore, but little understood, (Veneering oft outshines the solid wood), His solid sense, by inches you must tell, But mete his cunning by the Scottish ell! A man of fashion too, he made his tour, Learn'd "vive la bagatelle et vive l'amour;" So travell'd monkeys their grimace improve, Polish their grin—nay, sigh for ladies' love! His meddling vanity, a busy fiend, Still making ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... shall not say that Mrs. Jameson is greater than the writers just mentioned; but we must say, that female tact and deep devotional feeling cut the Gordian knot which has puzzled more cunning heads. Not that Mrs. Jameson is faultless; we want something yet, in the telling of a Christian fairy-tale, and know not what we want: but never were legends narrated with more discernment and simplicity ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... refused to accompany him—when the Thebans were being worsted and had lost a battle, and a trophy had been erected to celebrate their defeat—it was impossible for him to cross the Pass, if you rallied to its defence; and that if he made the attempt he would regret it, unless some cunning could be called in to aid him. How then, he asked, can I avoid open falsehood, and yet accomplish all that I wish without appearing perjured? How can it be done? It can be done, if I can get some of the Athenians to deceive the Athenians. In that ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... father's guilt in my glazed eyes: I must be silent lest my faltering voice should betray unimagined horrors. Over the deep grave of my secret I must heap an impenetrable heap of false smiles and words: cunning frauds, treacherous laughter and a mixture of all light deceits would form a mist to blind others and be as the poisonous simoon to me.[44] I, the offspring of love, the child of the woods, the nursling of Nature's bright self was to submit ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... up with this other girl—a mere nobody. Worse than a nobody, of course. She must be both a bad and a cunning woman to have done what it was plain she had done. She had wound Tunis Latham around her finger, and had hoodwinked the old people ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... family from the quacke or pose, wherewith, as then, very few were acquainted." Again, in chap. xviii.: "Our pewterers in time past employed the use of pewter only upon dishes and pots, and a few other trifles for service; whereas now, they are grown into such exquisite cunning, that they can in manner imitate by infusion any form or fashion of cup, dish, salt, or bowl or goblet, which is made by goldsmith's craft, though they be never so curious, and very artificially forged. In some places beyond the sea, a garnish of good flat English pewter ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... known on the border for their athletic prowess, and for their knowledge of Indian warfare and cunning. They were all powerful men, exceedingly active and as fleet as deer. In appearance they were singularly pleasing and bore a marked resemblance to one another, all having smooth faces, clear cut, regular features, dark ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... . . One rather gets the impression that the stoop is a reflection of the man's nature, which seems vindictive and suggests a low cunning. His eyes are small, deep set, and glitter when he talks. But they are steady and cold—almost merciless. One's thoughts go instantly to the tiger. I shall try to create that impression in the ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... watching him anxiously, though apparently taken up with the children. A pitying expression would have made Pelle furious. Brun guessed that there was some money trouble, but dared not offer his assistance; every time he tried to begin a conversation Pelle repelled him with a cunning look which said: "You're seeking for an opportunity to come with your money, but you won't get it!" Something or other had gone wrong with him, but it would all come right in ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the valley lookin' for your drowned body the while! Women 'mazes me more the wiser I graw. Come this way, to the linhay. There's a sweet bed o' dry fern in the loft, and you must keep out o' sight till mother's told cunning. I'll hit upon a way to break it to her so soon as she's rose. An' if I caan't, Phoebe will. Come along quiet. An' I be gwaine to lock 'e in, Chris, if't is all the same to you. For why? Because you might fancy the van folks was callin' ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... guard against complacency. We must not underrate the enemy. He is powerful and cunning—and cruel and ruthless. He will stop at nothing that gives him a chance to kill and to destroy. He has trained his people to believe that their highest perfection is achieved by waging war. For many years he has prepared for this very conflict—planning, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... him, and always behaves to him with insolence; and yet the poor Jew must suffer with patience. It is true, that he indemnifies himself after his own manner; that is to say, by the address with which he disposes of his merchandise to advantage, and by the cunning by which he overreaches an Arab. The latter, in general, are ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... and back again to the safety of her room with a tin of sweetened condensed milk under her arm. So low in comfort had she sunk it needed but this to make her happy. She had never known so sharp, so sweet a sense of luxury as that with which she prepared the delicacy she had seized by her own cunning. It had not taken her long to learn the possibilities of the American Y.M.C.A., the branch in Bar, or any other which she might pass in ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... thought Adam lost his estate through a cunning notary who persuaded his wife to break the lease he held; and poor Adam lost possession because he could not find a second notary ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the rubicund visage of Mr. Fogg appeared like the head of the Medusa. He said that 'Captain' had ordered the blue roan to be saddled and brought over to me, but I knew that this was a cunning device on his part, to revisit the dwelling. Miss Bell, somehow caught the idea that Fogg was enamored of her, and the poor fellow was subjected to a volley of tender innuendos and languishing glances, that by ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... realized. Near him stood men who apparently had barely enough humanity left to make their dominating animal natures more dangerous and difficult to control. To the instincts of a beast was added something of a man's intelligence, but so developed that it was often little more than cunning. If, when throwing away his manhood, man becomes a creature more to be dreaded than a beast or venomous reptile, whichever he happens most to resemble, woman, parting with her womanhood, scarcely finds her counterpart even in the most noxious forms of earthly ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... man and he may have struck without intention to kill; but this mess means more than a blow with a fist. I think that he was a homicidal maniac and probably plotted the job beforehand with a madman's limited cunning; and if that is so, there's pretty sure to be news waiting for us at Princetown. Before dark we ought to know where are both the dead and the living man. These footprints mean a bather, or perhaps two. We'll study them later and drag the pond, ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... now the more ignominious would be his downfall. The free baron had not hesitated to use any means to obliterate his one foeman from the scene; and he repeated to himself that he would meet force with cunning, and duplicity with stealth, spinning such a web as lay within his own capacity and resources. But in estimating the moves before him, perhaps in his new-found trust, he overlooked the strongest menace to his ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... the great painter (Pulcher, Pictor Magnus), the golden one (Aureus) the excellent one (Excellens) or the strong (Strenuus); or from their deeds, such as Naso the Brave (Nason Fortis) or the cunning, or the great, or very great conqueror; or from the enemy any one has overcome, Africanus, Asiaticus, Etruscus; or if any one has overcome Manfred or Tortelius, he is called Macer Manfred or Tortelius, and so on. All these cognomens ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... twins, in anticipation of success crowning their efforts to become professional instructors in the two country clubs, outlined a splendid and cunning campaign for themselves. By inspiring a fierce rivalry between the would-be golfers of the two clubs, they could build up a thriving practice in their chosen profession. The rivalry was already bitter along other lines. If ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon |
