"Sagacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... attacked by illness, on the strength of that odious foreknowledge often imparted by science, before the white fruit whose core is ashes, and which we call death, has set beneath the pallid and drooping flower of sickness. There is a singular sagacity very often shown in a patient's estimate of his own vital force. His physician knows the state of his material frame well enough, perhaps,—that this or that organ is more or less impaired or disintegrated; but the patient has a sense that ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... faint idea may be formed from our sketch and extracts; but of the beauty of his thoughts, his soundness, sagacity, the perfect simplicity of his whole style of character, a large acquaintance with his free outpourings to his friends can alone give an adequate notion. We regard them as among the very best private letters we know—of their kind, we mean—for they are not witty, not playful. The reader ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... was absolutely necessary to conciliate her approbation of his conduct in this dilemma, by submitting to the decided unpleasantness of talking with her on a subject that fevered him, and of allowing her to suppose he required the help of her sagacity. Such was the humiliation imposed upon him. Further than this he had nothing to fear, for no woman could fail to be overborne by the masculine force of his brain in an argument. The humiliation was bad enough, and half tempted ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... youth, my inexperience, my lack of adroitness in social intercourse. I talked quietly and slowly, like my aunt, and I know that I had a tremendous air of sagacity and self-possession; but beneath that my brain and heart were whirling, bewildered in a delicious, dazzling haze of novel sensations. It was not I who spoke, but a new being, excessively perturbed into a consciousness of new powers. ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... would be experienced from the other States. He remarked on the exemption of slaves from duty, while every other import was subjected to it, as an inequality that could not fail to strike the commercial sagacity of the Northern and ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... also be many more who will be given trials by the big league clubs during the spring training season and who may later be turned back to the minors. Of the twenty-seven players thus far sent back seventeen of them advanced in their profession, a tribute to the sagacity, wisdom and impartiality of the members of the National Commission. The decision, as announced by Chairman Herrmann of the National Commission pertaining to this return of drafted players, is ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... had missed two Cabinet Councils at a time when the pressure upon his department was severe. It is true that he had an excellent undersecretary and an admirable staff, but the Minister was a man of such ripe experience and of such proven sagacity that things halted in his absence. When his firm hand was at the wheel the great ship of State rode easily and smoothly upon her way; when it was removed she yawed and staggered until twelve British editors rose up in their omniscience and traced out twelve several courses, ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of these regions to exhibit the passions and the talents of the people in equal and wonderful saliency. We are accordingly struck with two classes of social facts, which do not often arrest the attention in old communities. We see, for example, the most singular combination of simplicity and sagacity in the same person; simplicity in conventional respects, and sagacity in all that affects the absolute and real in life, nature and the human sensibilities. The rude man, easily imposed upon, in his faith, fierce as an outlaw in his conflicts with men, will be yet exquisitely alive to ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... for him, explains that the shower is over; an' also that he's in enormous demand to save Shoestring for beefin' Billy Goodnight. At this, Easy Aaron gets up an' coughs 'round for a moment or two, recoverin' his nerve; then he buttons his surtoot, assoomes airs of sagacity, tucks the Texas Statootes onder his arm, reepairs to the Burnt Boot an' allows he's ready to defend Shoestring ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... well. "Whenever one Faileth of these, that in the keyhole straight It turn not, to this alley then expect Access in vain." Such were the words he spake. "One is more precious: but the other needs Skill and sagacity, large share of each, Ere its good task to disengage the knot Be worthily perform'd. From Peter these I hold, of him instructed, that I err Rather in opening than in keeping fast; So but the suppliant at my feet implore." Then of that hallow'd gate he thrust the ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... when accompanied by a pursing of the mouth, and a mysterious looking round) more and more convinced her simple-minded auditors (i.e. some of them, for it is not to be denied that there were a few incredulous ones who, either from former experiences, or natural sagacity, or some cause unknown, hesitated not to declare it to be their fixed and unalterable opinion that these seeming indications of superior knowledge on the part of good Mrs. Gordon, were but "a deceitful show," "for their 'delusion' given,") that she, Mrs. G., had ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... Kars' reckless spirit he possessed the wide sagacity and vigorous responsibility of a born leader. It was this which inspired the men he gathered about him. It was this which claimed their loyalty. It was partly this which made Bill Brudenell willingly ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... before leaving England, of the neighbourhood of the Hudson river as their location, showed a worldly sagacity not to be exceeded by any emigrants even of the present century. Bancroft designates it "the best position on the whole coast." (History of the United ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... contrary, I assume that at the end of the war, as at the beginning, Mr. Asquith will control the foolish, and that common sense will prevail in the Cabinet when a treaty is the subject of converse. Still further, I will assume that, contrary to nearly all precedent, the collective sagacity of the Ministry has not been impaired, and its self-conceit perilously tickled, by the long exercise of absolute power in face of a Parliament of poltroons. And, lastly, I will abandon my old argument that the discussion ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... on imports to the object of revenue the influence of the tariff on manufactures will necessarily present itself for consideration. However wise the theory may be which leaves to the sagacity and interest of individuals the application of their industry and resources, there are in this as in other cases exceptions to the general rule. Besides the condition which the theory itself implies of a reciprocal adoption by other nations, experience teaches that so many ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... the occasion—which, as speeches went in those days, was very short—is a model of sagacity and courage. He had to plead his own fitness, the unfitness of his adversary, and the wishes in the matter of the Sicilians. This had to be done with no halting phrases. It was not simply his object to convince a body of honest men ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... the government with such uniform success and felicity." Had Elizabeth been weak, the Duke of Anjou might have realised his ambitious dream, with the unhappiest results for England; and that he fortunately failed was entirely due to her sagacity and her quick perception of his irresolute and feeble character. In the sumptuous train attendant upon this "Petit Grenouille," as he styled himself in one of his babyish epistles to England's sovereign majesty, there was a certain knight ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... to discover whether his brother-monarch enjoys the aid of such counsellors as will make an attack on him dangerous; in the later, with the demand that he shall acquit himself satisfactorily, or suffer a forfeit: and the king is delivered from a serious strait by the sagacity either of a minister . . . or of the daughter of his minister, who came to her father's assistance .... These tasks are always such as require ingenuity of one kind or another, whether in devising practical experiments, in contriving subterfuges, ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... N. intelligence, capacity, comprehension, understanding; cuteness, sabe * [obs3][U.S.], savvy * [U.S.]; intellect &c. 450; nous[Fr], parts, sagacity, mother wit, wit, esprit, gumption, quick parts, grasp of intellect; acuteness &c adj.; acumen, subtlety, penetration, perspicacy[obs3], perspicacity; discernment, due sense of, good judgment; discrimination &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... glance at the results of the Conference, it would be ungracious not to welcome as a precious boon the destruction of Prussian militarism, a consummation which we owe to the heroism of the armies rather than to the sagacity of the lawgivers in Paris. The restoration of a Polish state and the creation or extension of the other free communities at the expense of the Central Empires are also most welcome changes, which, ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... this scheme, Ulysses proceeded to count the whole band, and found that there were forty-six men, including himself. He then numbered off twenty-two of them, and put Eurylochus (who was one of his chief officers, and second only to himself in sagacity) at their head. Ulysses took command of the remaining twenty-two men, in person. Then, taking off his helmet, he put two shells into it, on one of which was written, "Go," and on the other "Stay." Another person now held the helmet, while Ulysses and Eurylochus drew out each a shell; and ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... than half sprung through, they accomplish their purpose of shaming the others into greater exertions. It is well known that one of the ablest, if not the very ablest, of the distinguished men whom the penetrating sagacity of Nelson discovered and brought forward, owed his first introduction to the notice of that wonderful commander by an exploit of this ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... learnt from me he had composed a similar story? Does not this prove that the invention was obvious and natural? Besides, the answers of the ghost, like those of an oracle, were so obscure that he was in no danger of being detected in a falsehood. If the man who personated the ghost possessed sagacity and presence of mind, and knew ever-so-little of the affair on which he was consulted, to what length might not he ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... appear extravagant praise, but for its justice we confidentially appeal to the record. The plays which have most severely tried the sagacity of Shakspeare's critics, are Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, and Othello. We do not hesitate to say that Mr. Hudson's analysis and representation of these are the most thorough, accurate, and comprehensive which exist at present either in English or German. Compare him or these ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... With the sagacity of his race, he surveyed the hotel, and determined the exact location of the show-room. Stealthily and noiselessly, he entered it; found the cloak—took it and departed, chuckling at his good fortune. As he was creeping out of the apartment with his booty, a thought struck him, which not only arrested ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... training in the practical working of our institutions which must be necessary to most of the immigrants before they can intelligently exercise the rights which are conferred upon them by American citizenship and we cannot but admire the sagacity and judiciousness of those who framed our naturalization laws in selecting this period of time for the pupilage of the intending citizen. The period is long enough even for one who is engrossed in the cares ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... man sufficient SAGACITY to perceive, at all times, the strong interest which binds him to the observance of justice and equity, and STRENGTH OF MIND sufficient to persevere in a steady adherence to a general and a distant interest, in opposition ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... kind of cooler, which preserves liquids, and even meats, for a longer time than any previously known to the richest planter in the island. This discovery does great credit to the sagacity of the labourer who has ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... the boat; the oarsmen, too, were seated; all save one, who stood ready to push off and then spring himself. With the sagacity of their race, the dogs now seemed aware that they were in the very instant of being deserted upon a barren strand. The gunwales of the boat were high; its prow—presented inland—was lifted; so owing to the water, which they seemed instinctively to shun, the dogs could not well leap into the ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... emotion; certainly he never kindles terror in the breast of his readers. But Demosthenes followed a great master,[1] and drew his consummate excellences, his high-pitched eloquence, his living passion, his copiousness, his sagacity, his speed—that mastery and power which can never be approached—from the highest of sources. These mighty, these heaven-sent gifts (I dare not call them human), he made his own both one and all. Therefore, I say, by the noble qualities which he does possess ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... reasoning, was some time since identified by my esteemed correspondent, Professor Cyrus Thomas, of Illinois, as a cartouche of one of the ahau katuns, and probably of the last of them. It gives me much pleasure to add such conclusive proof of the sagacity of ...
— The Books of Chilan Balam, the Prophetic and Historic Records of the Mayas of Yucatan • Daniel G. Brinton
... he acted for himself with all the promptness of an elder person acting for him, and, in spite of the fascination of the subject, resolutely muffled his head in the bed-clothes and refused to hear the tale. His sagacity in judging of the character of others was shown, too, even as a school-boy; and once it led him to take an advantage which caused him many compunctions in after-life, whenever he recalled his skilful puerile tactics. On one occasion—I tell the story as he himself rehearsed it ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... passion had in great measure deprived him of the sagacity which the circumstances demanded, supposed that the tears were genuine enough, and the words even more so. Wherefore:—"Madam," quoth he, "I could not furnish you with a thousand, but if five hundred ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... fortunately for Ericsson and the reputation of our country, he soon after met with Captain Stockton, of the United States navy, who at once took the deepest interest in his plans. The result of one experiment with Ericsson's steamer was sufficient to convince a man of Stockton's sagacity of the immense advantages which the new motor might confer upon the commerce and upon the navy of his country, and forthwith he ordered an iron steamer to be built and fitted with Ericsson's propeller. This vessel was named the Stockton, and was launched in July, 1838, and, after being ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... better condition than mine, or who labored harder to fulfill their part. On a proper representation, General Grant postponed the attack. On the 21st I got the Second Division over Brown's-Ferry Bridge, and General Ewing got up; but the bridge broke repeatedly, and delays occurred which no human sagacity could prevent. All labored night and day, and General Ewing got over on the 23d; but my rear division was cut off by the broken bridge at Brown's Ferry, and could not join me. I offered to go into action with my three divisions, supported by General Jeff. C. Davis, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... be cruel not to let the poor beasts make use of the strength and sagacity nature has given them to save their lives," answered Guert, straining his eyes after Moses, the horse that was behind, so long as his dark form could be distinguished, and leaning forward to listen to the ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... to him all the cares of his ministry; your gaiety cheered his drooping spirits; and your counsels assisted him when he wanted advice. For you were capable, my dear Horace, of counselling statesmen. Your sagacity, your discretion, your secrecy, your clear judgment in all affairs, recommended you to the confidence, not of Maecenas alone, but of Augustus himself; which you nobly made use of to serve your old friends of the republican party, and to confirm both ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... send nothing except rubbish. The "original Doctor Jacobs" excoriates unmercifully the whole tribe of swindlers whose rascalities debauch and bring odium upon the trade. He exhorts the gentleman of great reputed "shrewdness and sagacity" to observe the utmost caution in conducting operations, and gives him explicit directions how ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... in the command of the squadron by Captain Sherard Osborne, an officer of equal determination, courage, and sagacity, who was not likely to leave any of the work he had undertaken undone, or half-done. Our three commanders proceeded in the same spirit to the execution of their duty. On revisiting several places where a few weeks before they had destroyed all the then ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... are not the same, nor equally fortunate; and those incidents which the vulgar call omens, though not founded on any natural reason, have, even by persons of sagacity, been held and deemed as fair and fortunate. One of these superstitious omen-mongers rises in the morning, goes abroad, chances to meet a friar belonging to the beatified St. Francis; and as if he had encountered a dragon in ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... milk, have been considered as a salutary aliment. How are we to account for this singular course in the development of knowledge? How have the unlearned inhabitants of one hemisphere become cognizant of a fact which, in the other, so long escaped the sagacity of the scientific? It is because a small number of elements and principles differently combined are spread through several families of plants; it is because the genera and species of these natural families are not equally ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... several occasions, 'I would have conquered Egypt.' Yet, knowing of the British occupation, he deliberately sent an army to its inevitable ruin. It is difficult to reconcile such conduct with the character for sagacity and intelligence which Abdullah has deserved. There is no doubt that he wanted to conquer Egypt. Possibly by some extraordinary chance Wad-el-Nejumi might succeed, even with his small force. If so, then the glory of God and the power of the Khalifa would advance together. If not—and ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... that his gun had remained unloaded, and he applied himself eagerly to repair this negligence, when he heard the dog in full cry, making swiftly in his direction. He threw himself upon the ground, where the fern was thickest; but this seemed insufficient to baffle the sagacity of the hound—the animal had got his scent, and was baying close at hand. The keepers were drawing nigh. Luke gave himself up for lost. The dog, however, stopped where the two poachers had halted, and was there completely at fault: snuffing the ground, he bayed, wheeled round, and then set ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Moines d'Occident, has given us the most delightful history that exists of the conversion of Anglo-Saxon England, a work combining the depth of a Christian philosopher with the sagacity of a statesman, and a dramatist's appreciation of character, while in it we miss nothing of that picturesque vividness and engaging simplicity which belong to our early chroniclers; thus conferring upon England a boon if possible greater than that bestowed upon ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... bushmen themselves, they determined upon taking that course in preference to the more circuitous, though better defined, dray road and townships. With this intention, provided with a descriptive sketch of the country, a pocket compass, and the sagacity and instinct of their black boy, they started for Barra Warra, a station distant about fifty miles; which was centrally situated, and from whence there was a postman's track to Brompton. To reach this point before dark, it was necessary to ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... space of one year, unless, by winning the cup twice in succession, they gain the right of keeping the bat for yet another year. How is that, umpire?" And the authorities replied, "O men of infinite resource and sagacity, verily is it a cold day when you get left behind. Forge ahead." But, when they had forged ahead, behold! it would not run to eleven little silver bats, but only to ten little silver bats. Thereupon the headmaster, a man liberal with ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... his colleague and his own wound, set out during the silence of the following night, and encamped upon the nearest mountains he could reach, in a position elevated and secured on all sides. Here the two generals exerted their sagacity, the one in effecting, the other in guarding against, a deception. Hannibal got possession of the ring of Marcellus, together with his body. Crispinus, fearing lest any artifice should be practised by the Carthaginian's employing this signet as the means of deception, had sent round messengers ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... toward his ransom; and after his release he was transferred to the king's own service, where about 1368 he was promoted to the rank of esquire. He was probably already married to one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting. Chaucer was now thirty years of age, and his practical sagacity and knowledge of men had been recognized; for from this time on he held important public positions. He was often sent to the Continent—to France, Flanders, and Italy—on diplomatic missions; and for eleven years he was in charge of the London customs, where the ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... feeling himself on the defensive, had pressed matters with most unseemly zeal, so that the charge of political persecution raised by Burr's attorneys was, to say the least, not groundless. Furthermore, in opposing the President in this matter, Marshall had shown his usual political sagacity. Had Burr been convicted, the advantage must all have gone to the Administration. The only possible credit the Chief Justice could extract from the case would be from assuming that lofty tone of calm, unmoved impartiality of which Marshall was such a master—and never more than ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... chief. Appalled and terrified, the white men cast a cheerless gaze on the hordes around them. A nod from the chiefs might be the onset of destruction. At this portentious moment, Farmer's Brother interposed. He replied not to his brother chief, but with a sagacity truly aboriginal, he caused the cessation of the council, introduced good cheer, commended the eloquence of Red Jacket, and before the meeting had reassembled, with the aid of other prudent chiefs, he had moderated the fury of his nation to a more salutary ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... would be easy to dissolve an alliance composed of such discordant parts. For this purpose he sent over a lady of great sagacity and address, who belonged to the train of the Duchess of Clarence, and who, under color of attending her mistress, was empowered to negotiate with the Duke, and to renew the connections of that Prince with his own family. She represented ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... Coverdale. His biographer justly quotes two or three sentences from The Blithedale Romance, as striking the note of the author's feeling about the place. "No sagacious man," says Coverdale, "will long retain his sagacity if he live exclusively among reformers and progressive people, without periodically returning to the settled system of things, to correct himself by a new observation from that old standpoint." And he remarks elsewhere that "it struck ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... two at thirty, four at forty, ten at fifty. For every single vote which he has with an income of a hundred a year, he should have ten with an income of a thousand, (provided you first see to it that wealth is, as nature intended it to be, the reward of sagacity and industry—not of good luck in a scramble or a lottery). For every single vote which he had as subordinate in any business, he should have two when he became a master; and every office and authority ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... wife-poisoner, the defaulting cashier, the river-pirate, or the great counterfeiter. He paid his hotel-bill as a gentleman should always do, if he has the money, and can spare it. The detective had probably overrated his own sagacity when he ventured to suspect Mr. Venner. He reported to his chief that there was a knowing-looking fellow he had been round after, but he rather guessed he was nothing more than "one o' them ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... his; every brick, stone and beam. There were no directors to meddle with his plans, no fool's hand to block his progress, to thwart his vast projects. Slowly he became rich, for every piece of steel that went out to the purchasers was honest steel. Sagacity and loyalty overcame all obstacles. Many a time he might have sold at a handsome profit. But selling wasn't his idea; he had a son. Besides, this was his life-work, and he detested the idle rich, which at that time were just ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... all gates and windows; the Printers come not out; they sleep in their workrooms; their very food is handed in to them! (Weber, i. 276.) A victorious Parlement smells new danger. D'Espremenil has ordered horses to Versailles; prowls round that guarded Printing-Office; prying, snuffing, if so be the sagacity and ingenuity ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... regarding the purchase of ribbon and crepe paper. It was Mollie who put the finishing touches to most of the little gifts. In short, all through December Mollie was weighed down under an avalanche of responsibility. It speaks volumes for her sagacity and skill that she never got things mixed up or made any such terrible mistake as letting one little Joseph find out what another was going to give him. "Dead" secrecy was the keystone ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Dan; and then he gave the stranger a full account of Crippy's sagacity and wisdom, with such success that when he had finished the goose evidently stood high in the ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... settlement of disputed claims, he possessed himself of their persons, and had them strangled—two upon December 31, and two upon January 18, 1503. Of all Cesare's actions, this was the most splendid for its successful combination of sagacity and policy in the hour of peril, of persuasive diplomacy, and of ruthless decision when the time to strike his ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... that was renewed at night with astonishing perseverance! I can generally look out his hiding-place, which is in some corner near by, and dispatch him. His redeeming qualities are few, and are more than balanced by the evil, as far as I have discovered. Their sagacity in some instances will find a place of concealment not easily discovered. At the approach of cold weather, the box or chamber of the hive being a little warmer than other places, will attract a great many there to deposit their eggs. Little piles of ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... has moved for two centuries upon a principle of slight regard to classical literature. Latin literature was very much neglected, and Greek nearly altogether. The more was the astonishment at finding a rare delicacy of critical instinct, as well as of critical sagacity, applied to the Greek idiomatic niceties by a Scottish lawyer, viz., that the same eccentric judge, first made known ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... to her with a manner so graceful, and a smile so benignant, as to show that under the dingy blue uniform there beat the heart of a gentleman. He kept a keen eye on current events, and sometimes expressed his views with great sagacity. One day he stopped ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... afterwards famous personage appeared in the valley of the Colorado, on the Gila branch, being no less than Kit Carson,* one of the greatest scouts and trappers of all. At this time he was but seventeen years old, though in sagacity, knowledge, and skill soon the equal of any trapper in the field. In 1827, Ewing Young, another noted trapper, having been driven away from the Gila by the natives, organised a company of forty men to go back and punish them, which ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... Paraleipomenon—I tell you before-hand, you had better throw down the book at once; for without much reading, by which your reverence knows I mean much knowledge, you will no more be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motley emblem of my work!) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to unravel the many opinions, transactions, and truths which still lie mystically hid under the dark ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... carried down into the most minutely practical details,—(which are often the most significant), and embracing, over the entire surface of France, the buildings even of the most secluded villages; his artistic enthusiasm, balanced by the acutest sagacity, and his patriotism, by the frankest candour, render his analysis of history during that active and constructive period the most valuable known to me, and certainly, in its field, exhaustive. Of the ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... Seleucia revolted, it was he who at the assault first mounted the breach and, striking terror into the defenders, took the city. Though less than thirty years of age at the time when he was appointed commander, he was believed to possess, besides these various qualifications, consummate prudence and sagacity. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... called, suddenly, as he advanced to the rear room, where, among his older pets, was a huge Newfoundland, of great sagacity. "Rover, ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... due bounds that could be afforded in this work, to follow out this compact, singularly weak on the part of King James, and assuredly either contrived by his boasted king craft, or devised by some wily Dutch politician, who was acquainted with his majesty's wonderful sagacity. This union and the council of defence, turned out a most fruitful source of advantage to the Dutch, who had completely duped the king and government of England, and totally expelled the English Company from any share whatever in the trade of the spice islands; after contriving to make them ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... Hortense repeated the upshot of her various conversations with her Cousin Betty. Then, when they got home, she showed the much-talked-of-seal to her father in evidence of the sagacity of her views. The father, in the depth of his heart, wondered at the skill and acumen of girls who act on instinct, discerning the simplicity of the scheme which her idealized love had suggested in the course of a single night to his ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... our legislative annals afford. And in that triumph the historian of the Anti-Slavery Measures may justly claim to have had a distinguished part. Honest, able, industrious, intelligent, indefatigable, zealous for his cause, yet flexible to events, gifted at once with practical sagacity and strong convictions, and with his whole heart and mind absorbed in the business of politics and legislation, he has proved himself an excellent workman in that difficult task by which facts are made to take the impress of ideas, and the principles ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... which he brought to the Fort. It was roasted for dinner, and proved of excellent flavour, though I could not agree that the tail, which was served up in a separate dish, was of that superior taste it is generally considered to be. The sagacity of this animal has often been described; and I have frequently been surprised at the singular construction of their houses, the care with which they lay up their provision of wood, and the mode in which they dam up the water near their habitations. They cut ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... momentary. Confirmed in the belief of his ulterior wisdom and virtue, his first embarrassment over, he was not displeased with this halfway tribute, and really believed that the time would come when Mr. Sol should eventually praise his sagacity and reservation, and acknowledge that he was something more than a mere boy. He, nevertheless, shrank from meeting Mornie that morning, and was glad that the presence of Mrs. Sol relieved ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... difficulty had been found in appointing a successor to General Simpson, who had resigned a task which he found overtaxed his powers. Sir William Codrington was junior to three other Generals, who might have felt aggrieved by being passed over. The sagacity of the Prince found a way out of the difficulty by appointing two of the three to the commands of the two corps d'armee into which the Army had, at his instance, been subdivided. See ante. 22nd ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... little mortified when he perceived that he had unwittingly exposed the momentous secret. He had not given Tom credit for so much sagacity as he had displayed in his inquiries; and as he had fairly reached his conclusion, he was willing he should have the ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... nothing to equal the sagacity of these Icelandic dogs save that of the sheep-dogs of France and Germany. They are often sent out in the pastures to gather up the horses, and will remain by them and keep them within bounds for days at a time. They are also much used in the management of sheep. Unlike ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... poetical accounts of valorous exploits by noble knights, with their tournaments and their adventures with giants, dwarfs, or enchanters. The tradition was of a community encompassed by dangers for men and for women, where life and goods depended on strength and sagacity. And so the original hero was strictly a practical soldier, a man who knew his business, who had very few troublesome scruples; he was a man of war from his youth up, struggling with arduous circumstance; and he usually came at last, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... tracking out of the claim to its complete establishment, Mr Pancks had shown a sagacity that nothing could baffle, and a patience and secrecy that nothing could tire. 'I little thought, sir,' said Pancks, 'when you and I crossed Smithfield that night, and I told you what sort of a Collector I was, that this would come of it. I little thought, sir, when I told you ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... frank, hearty gentleman of some sixty years, whose appearance indicated that the world had gone well with him, and that he was satisfied with the world. The ordinary expression of his face was that of quiet contentment, though at times it betrayed a keen sagacity and shrewdness, partly the revelation of nature, and partly the product of an intimate intercourse with that world with which his business brought him, in various ways, in contact. It was however apparent, that however ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... respectability of appearance—"Voyez-vous la, Monsieur, a droite, ces belles maisons de plaisance?—(exclaimed the charioteer)—"C'est la ou demeurent Messieurs vos compatriotes: ma foi, ils ont un joli gout." The first glance upon these stone houses confirmed the sagacity of the postilion. They are gloriously situated—facing the ocean; while the surrounding country teems with fish and game of every species. Isaac Walton might have contrived to interweave a pretty ballad in his description of ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the snow, with a step as sure as if he had trodden on the frozen earth itself. More than one of the maidens declared, that though they had endeavored to trace the footsteps of the hunters from the palisadoes, it would have exceeded even the sagacity of an Indian eye to follow their trail along the ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... will think slightly of me and belittle my wit and I shall be of those of whom it is said, 'He whose science excelleth his sense perisheth by his ignorance.'" When the King heard the boy's words, he was assured of his sagacity, and the excellence of his merit was manifest and he was certified that deliverance would betide him and his subjects at the boy's hands. So presently he resumed the colloquy and asked him, "Whence art thou ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... was half a year ago. You perceive, he has not succeeded; he has not devoured her; actually she has turned his fangs upon himself and has defeated his designs toward her as if by magic. And yet the only magic has been her vigilance, her courage, her sagacity. Smith,"—again he stroked the mane of his ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... energy, perseverance, enterprise, sagacity, activity, and varied resources" the Americans infinitely surpass the British; that he never met with "a stupid American." That our "American children" surpass us not only in our good, but "in our evil peculiarities." ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... and Aptitude. Education and Acquirements. Favier. Corsica. Paoli. Dumouriez sent to Poland. Stanislaus Policy. Dumouriez at Cherbourg. His Tact; Appearance. Dumouriez and Madame Roland. Roland's Vanity. His Opinion of the King. His Wife's Sagacity. Dumouriez in favour with the King. His Interview with the Queen. His Advice. Bonnet Rouge. Dumouriez and Robespierre. Petion and the Bonnet Rouge. The King's Letter. Treachery of the Girondists. Roland's Letter to the King. Letter of the Girondist ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... marks of real and profound scholarship, in so far as it goes, more than does the Grammar of Dr Stewart. One cannot read a sentence of it without seeing how carefully he had collected his materials, and with what judgment, caution, and sagacity he has compared them and drawn his conclusions. His discussions upon the Article, the Noun, the Verb, and the Preposition, are ample evidence of this. It is no doubt true that a much fuller discussion is, with ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... the idea at a glance. The happiest marriages are those in which youth and beauty and confidence on one side, rely on the sagacity, moderation, and prudence of years—middle age, I mean, madam, for I'll no' deny that there is such a thing as a husband's being too old for a wife. Here is Sergeant Dunham's charming daughter, now, to approve of such sentiments, I'm certain; ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... of Napoleon we know nothing, except that he ever acknowledged with the warmest gratitude the obligations laid on him, at the threshold of life by the sagacity and wisdom of Letitia. He always avowed his belief that he owed his subsequent elevation principally to her early lessons; and indeed laid it down as a maxim that "the future good or bad conduct of a child depends entirely on the mother." Even of ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... introduce, now, George Willison, her son, an extraordinary individual, apparently destined to be more notorious than his father, in so much as his character was composed of that mixture of simplicity, bordering on silliness, and shrewd sagacity in the ordinary affairs of life, which is often observed in people of Scotland. Though common, the character is nearly inexplicable to the analyst; for the individual seems conscious of the weaker part ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... discoveries of recent years is that of the new catacomb in Rome, which lies some distance to the east of the well-known vaults of St. Calixtus. The finding of this important burial-place, which is exceedingly rich in most interesting early Christian remains, is due to the energy and sagacity of Dr. Julius Burger, the young German specialist, who is rapidly taking the first place as an authority upon ancient Rome. Although the first to publish his discovery, it appears that a less fortunate adventurer had anticipated Dr. Burger. Some months ago ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ignorance and superstition, were inspired by the purest motives. "Conscience," observes Waddington, "however misguided, cannot be despised by a reflecting mind. When it leads one to self-sacrifice and moral fortitude we cannot but admire his spirit, while we condemn his sagacity and method." ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... requisition, and marvellous it was to see the instinct with which they seconded the efforts of their trainers. The ordinary hawking of the heron we had at a later period of this expedition; but the use now made of the animal was altogether different, and displayed infinitely more sagacity than one would suppose likely to be possessed by such an animal. These were trained especially for the purpose for which they were now employed. A flight of ducks—thousands of birds—were enticed upon the water as before by scattering ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... and Latinity, Like honorificabilitudinity, Where is the maid could resist your vicinity, Wiled by the impudent grace of your plea? Then your vivacity and pertinacity Carry the day with the divil's audacity; No mere veracity robs your sagacity Of perspicacity, Barney McGee. When all is new to them, What will you do to them? Will you be true to them? Who shall decree? Here's a fair strife to you! Health and long life to you! And a great wife to ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... Method; and we should never have known by what process truth is to be ascertained, if we had not previously ascertained many truths. But it was only the easier problems which could be thus resolved: natural sagacity, when it tried its strength against the more difficult ones, either failed altogether, or, if it succeeded here and there in obtaining a solution, had no sure means of convincing others that its solution was correct. In ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... recovery of August, he would not have thought so highly of her piety. But she managed to control her emotions until the minister was fairly out of the house. In bidding good-by, Mr. Hall saw how pale and tremulous Julia was, and with his characteristic lack of sagacity, he took her emotion to be a sign of religious feelings and told her he was pleased to see that she was awakened to ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... at this freedom, drew back a few steps to examine the speaker; she turned her black eyes upon him, full of the keen sagacity so natural to women, seeking apparently to discover in what interest he stepped forth to explain Mademoiselle de Verneuil's birth. Corentin, on the other hand, who was studying the lady cautiously, denied her in his own mind the joys of motherhood and ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... individuals, the remarkable degree of self-sufficiency they possess gives them an air of independence rather apt to repel a stranger. I use this expression "self-sufficiency" in the largest sense. Conscious of the strong sagacity and the dogged power of will which seem almost the birthright of the natives of the West Riding, each man relies upon himself, and seeks no help at the hands of his neighbour. From rarely requiring the assistance ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Baltimore American Farmer an essay urging the encouragement of white laborers, and hinting at the ultimate abolition of slavery "if it should ever be thought desirable." More boldly still, a pamphlet appeared in Charleston, under the signature of "Achates," arguing with remarkable sagacity and force against the whole system of slave-labor in towns; and proposing that all slaves in Charleston should be sold or transferred to the plantations, and their places supplied by white labor. It is interesting to find many of the facts and arguments of Helper's "Impending ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... genuine Seltzer spring. The character of the water is almost identical with that of the celebrated Nassau Spring of Germany, which is justly esteemed so delicious by the natives of the "Fatherland." Our German citizens, with their usual sagacity, have discovered this fact, and the consumption of the water by them is ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn
... manifested was justified by the result. But it was not through any merit of his that the undertaking (of which he was the soul) prospered as it did; his design was aided in a wholly unlooked-for way, by a marvellous occurrence quite beyond his control, and which no sagacity could possibly have foreseen. One whom the wind and sea obeyed had given him His aid. Behind him stood One higher than he, whose spirit wrought in him and whose arm wrought for him,—not for his personal aggrandisement indeed, but for the weal of the nation. It was Jehovah. Alike what was done by ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... de 's friends who were yet at liberty, and finding no one willing to make an effort in her behalf, for fear of involving themselves, he discovered an old acquaintance in the "femme de chambre" of one of Fleury's mistresses.— This, for one of Fleury's sagacity, was a spring to have set the whole Convention in a ferment; and in a few days he profited so well by this female patronage, as to obtain an order for transferring us hither. On our arrival, we ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... I, "we philosophers must give an occasional dip into the mystical, and say something apparently absurd for the purpose of explaining that we mean nothing in particular by it. It gives common people an idea of our sagacity, to find how clear we come out of our apparent ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... is, that hostile Indians, in search of chance scalps, would be hovering about the column of troops, and so leave the by-path unmolested. But the servants of the party follow the route of the column: a measure, we are told, dictated by the sagacity of the Indian guide, in order to diminish the marks of their trail, if, haply, the Canadian savages should be prowling about so far in advance of their army! Certainly, all the sagacity of the fort would seem to have been concentrated in the person ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... again, tear the other loose, and feel about for a foothold in another direction. At the same time she drew out her body to its full length, and lay flat, so that she might gain as much support as possible by distributing her weight. Because of this sagacity, and because the mire at this point had more substance than in most of the other "honey-pots," she made a good fight, and almost, but not quite, held her own. By the time the tide had once more overtaken her she had sunk but a little way, and ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... distinctive possession of the best American nature, that almost indescribable quality which we call in general clearness or truth, and which appears in the physical structure as health, in the moral constitution as honesty, in the mental structure as sagacity, and in the region of active life as practicalness. This one character, with many sides, all shaped by the same essential force and testifying to the same inner influences, was what was powerful in him and decreed for him the life he was to live and the death he was to die. ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... and bring out a bottle of the green seal. This was ninety-shilling sherry—very good stuff to take; and, by the time they got into the second bottle, they had got into the middle of the scheme too. Viney was cautious and thoughtful. He had a high opinion of Watchorn's sagacity, and so long as Watchorn confined himself to weights, and stakes, and forfeits, and so on, he was content to leave himself in the hands of the huntsman; but when Watchorn came to talk of 'stewards,' putting this person and that together, Viney's experience came in aid. Viney knew a good deal. ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... content to deal vigorously with affairs, and leave art, religion, and science to the enjoyment or refreshment or enlightenment of others, he is accepted as strong, sounds and wise; but let him add to practical sagacity a love of poetry and some skill in the practice of it; let him be not only honest and trustworthy, but genuinely religious; let him be not only keenly observant and exact in his estimate of trade influences and movements, but devoted to the study of some science, and there ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... campaign by which Japan had her secret treaty with China hall-marked by the puritanical President of the United States, whose sense of morality could not brook the secret treaties concluded by Italy and Rumania with the Greater and Greatest Powers of Europe. Again, it was with statesman-like sagacity that the Japanese judged the Russian situation and made the best of it—first, shortly before the invitation to Prinkipo, and, later, before the celebrated eight questions were submitted to Admiral Kolchak. I was especially struck by ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... take great pains to elaborate upon his tremendous energy, sagacity and constructive enterprise, as though these were the exclusive qualities by which he got his fortune. Such a glittering picture, common in all of the usual biographies of rich men, discredits itself and is overthrown by the actual ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him Horatio." It was generally thought that although he swam so often on horseback, or crossed rivers in unsteady canoes, the general could not swim himself. His body was sufficient for endurance; and his mind, to sagacity and foresight, united the higher virtues of patience and fortitude. In one thing he appeared singular; long swords were now in fashion as best for attack or defence, but Gen. Marion always wore the ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... mental faculties, would, with her gifts of feeling and imagination, have fitted her to be a consummate artist, as her fiery and tender soul and her vigorous eloquence would certainly have made her a great orator, and her profound knowledge of human nature and discernment and sagacity in practical life, would, in the times when such a carriere was open to women, have made her eminent among the rulers of mankind. Her intellectual gifts did but minister to a moral character at once the noblest and the best balanced which I have ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... vice of our people in their relation to the politics of the land is cowardice. It is not lack of intelligence: our people know the meaning of political conditions with wonderful sagacity. It is not low morality: the great mass of our people apply high standards to the acts of public men. But it is cowardice. It is the disposition of one part of our people to fall in with current ways of working, to run with the mass; and of another part to rush headlong ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... followed, and all four set about the task with the cool daring shown from the first. Since each man was to lead his animal, it was necessary to dismount in front, instead of slipping over the tail, as would have been easier. The beasts showed striking sagacity in this delicate task. The trail was so narrow that to dismount to the left, on the side of the dizzying precipice, made it impossible for a man to keep his poise, while to descend on the right, directly beside the body of the animal was almost certain to crowd him over into the gorge. Each, ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... feared, therefore, that they intended to bind him to a tree at such a distance that we could hold no communication with each other. My dog Carlo was also not to be seen; I felt, however, nearly sure that the bushrangers had not carried him off. I had often remarked his peculiar sagacity, and hoped that, finding he could do me no good, he had kept out of the way to avoid the risk of being either killed or captured. I soon found that my anticipations were correct. The bushranger now holding ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston
... assigned to them directly by the side of the presiding officers, and over the snuff-box, in a quiet and familiar manner, the topics of the day were often discussed. To the privileges they then enjoyed, but more especially to their sagacity and industry, are we now indebted, as a country, for their "Register of Debates," which, with the "Intelligencer," has become a most important part of our national history. As in their journal nearly all the most eminent of American statesmen have discussed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Baglioni, whom Giovanni had avoided ever since their first meeting, from a doubt that the professor's sagacity would look too deeply into his secrets. Endeavoring to recover himself, he stared forth wildly from his inner world into the outer one and spoke like a ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... extracted to regale the voluptuary, and a kind of sentimental lust has prevailed, which, together with the system of duplicity that the whole tenor of their political and civil government taught, have given a sinister sort of sagacity to the French character, properly termed finesse; and a polish of manners that injures the substance, by hunting sincerity out of society. And, modesty, the fairest garb of virtue has been more grossly ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... before he ventures to step forward. When he finds himself getting into soft and marshy ground he stands stock still, and refuses to obey either stirrup or whip. If by accident he sinks into a morass, he makes a halt, and waits very contentedly until he receives assistance. But in spite of all this sagacity the traveller will not do well to resign himself wholly to the guidance of his mule. In ordinary cases these animals allow themselves to be guided, and sometimes they appear to think it more safe to trust to the bridle than to themselves. One of my ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... always had had, a very large surplus of income over and above what was needful to maintain his huge estates in Africa, his many luxurious villas and town-palaces there, his yacht and his palaces in Italy at Baiae and at Rome. The normal accumulation of this surplus had taxed his sagacity as an investor, for it was always harder for him to find advantageous investments for his redundant cash than to find cash for tempting investments. Certainly his excess income more than sufficed for any reasonable ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Capacity, or Inclination, to argue upon this Subject; and being a little indolent withal, I shall take the Liberty of entertaining to Day with a Story, that lies ready at my elbow; and which I declare before-hand, has no significant Meaning in it, that I know of: If the Sagacity of my Readers can make more of it than my self, in God's Name, let them please ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... there was no mistaking the portrait. This could not have troubled Thoreau much for he was a perfect stoic, and cared little for the opinions of others so long as he satisfied his own conscience. Emerson, however, felt it keenly, for it was equally a reflection on his friend and his own sagacity. In his last volume of poems Lowell also speaks of Emerson in a way which indicates rather a ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... ground. They seldom take hold of a bush or limb, and never break one; and by observing those precautions and that of setting up the weeds and grass which they necessarily lop, they completely elude the sagacity of their pursuers, and escape that punishment which they are conscious they merit ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... that was no evidence in fact, he was convinced of the truth of Mahr's perfidy; convinced that the lady rated A1 by the keenest detective bureau in the country had obtained the proofs of guilt and used them with the same perfect business sagacity she had used in his own case. It sickened him. Somehow he could forgive her handling such a case as his. It was purely commercial; but this other was uglier stuff. His soul rebelled. He would not have it so; ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... discovered in him some alarming features; but they had full and entire confidence in their friend Favoral's prudent sagacity. ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... the road we looked up and saw a red signal-light glowing in the darkness of the mountainside. It seemed but a trifling way up—perhaps a hundred yards, a climb of ten minutes. It was a lucky piece of sagacity in us that we concluded to stop a man whom we met and get a light for our pipes from him instead of continuing the climb to that lantern to get a light, as had been our purpose. The man said that that lantern was on the Grands ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that," with an accent that levels down as well as up. Hawthorne had to the full this democratic, familiar, derogatory temper. Pierce was to him a politician, just as Cilley had been, and for politicians as a class he had a well-defined contempt. He believed Pierce to be a man of honor, sagacity, and tact, a true man, not great in any way, but quite the equal of other men in the country and fit in ability, experience, and character to be President, if his fellow-citizens desired him to ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... July 20.] he was also charged with a royal declaration promising that, even then, were submission made, the charter should be restored with only such changes as the public welfare demanded. [Footnote: Mass. Rec. v. 422, 423.] Dudley, who was a man of much political sagacity, had returned and strongly urged moderation. The magistrates were not without the instincts of statesmanship: they saw that a breach with England must destroy all safeguards of the common freedom, ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... acuteness, contained in his little treatise concerning 'the ballad-hero, Robin Hood,' are really surprising. The story of an obscure outlaw, who chased deer and took purses in a northern forest five hundred years ago, has been investigated with the painstaking sagacity of a Niebuhr; and a strong light has been unexpectedly thrown on the state of public sentiment and manners existing at that period. Mr Hunter, it is proper to say, dwells in his treatise chiefly upon results, and says little, and that very modestly, of the labours by which they were ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... introduce the fallacy of right and wrong. Spontaneous distaste should take the place of right and wrong. And least of all must there be a cry: "You see, dear, you don't understand. When you are older—" A child's sagacity is better than an adult ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... encourage him with judicious aid when the times are bad. The mtayer, who has hope of making a little money over and above what is barely sufficient to support himself and his family, and knows that results will depend largely upon his own sagacity and industry, works with a steady zeal that it would be unreasonable to expect of the hired labourer, who, having his measured wage always in his mind's eye, has no incentive to do more than what ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... the Ionian school. He was born at Miletus, a Greek colony in Asia Minor, about the year 636 B.C., when Ancus Martius was king of Rome, and Josiah reigned at Jerusalem. He has left no writings behind him, but was numbered as one of the seven wise men of Greece on account of his political sagacity and wisdom in public affairs. I do not here speak of his astronomical and geometrical labors, which were great, and which have left their mark even upon our own daily life,—as, for instance, in the fact ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... a good choice of means." But prudence is found in irrational animals: hence it is said in the beginning of Metaph. i, 1 that "those animals which, like bees, cannot hear sounds, are prudent by instinct." We see this plainly, in wonderful cases of sagacity manifested in the works of various animals, such as bees, spiders, and dogs. For a hound in following a stag, on coming to a crossroad, tries by scent whether the stag has passed by the first or the second road: and if he find that the stag has ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... fine irony in some of his remarks on Priestley's interpretations of Scripture. 'To others,' he says in his 'Charge,' 'who have not the sagacity to discern that the true meaning of an inspired writer must be the reverse of the natural and obvious sense of the expressions which he employs, the force of the conclusion that the Primitive Christians could not believe our Lord to be a mere man because the ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... with all their sagacity had failed to see that a frankly undemocratic constitution would not long be tolerated. The bold denial of popular rule was bound to offer an easy point of attack to a man, like Jefferson, who so far as his constitutional opinions ran, was not a bit more ready than Hamilton to turn over government ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... Forsters, particularly the father, a man of great sagacity and of very acute discernment, paid much attention to this interesting subject. The information they procured is contained in their respective works, and is, as might be expected, very similar. From this it would have been easy to add to the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... the floor of Parliament, he still continued the patriot—that if he advanced his own fortunes, it was not at the expense of the country—that some of the best measures passed by this and the subsequent Parliament, owed their final success, if not their first suggestion, to his far-seeing sagacity. ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... easy to discover great sagacity and great extravagance, an ability to do much defeated by the desire of doing more than enough. It ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... his sagacity in the civil affairs of his nation, are, like his military talents, of a high order. One or two cases in which these have been exhibited, are worthy of being recorded. A few years since, some of his warriors fell in ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... before the tilted vehicle could take him there. In the first flash it looked as wild as suicide; but in the second it was as sensible as a safe investment. The Yorkshireman had evidently more promptitude, as well as more sagacity, than Muscari had given him credit for; for he landed in a lap of land which might have been specially padded with turf and clover to receive him. As it happened, indeed, the whole company were equally lucky, if less dignified in their form of ejection. Immediately under this abrupt turn ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... wisdom and sagacity, this remark of the foolish mother's was the truest word spoken in the discussion. It was Hilda's tone that was at the root of the evil. If Hilda, with the intelligence as to which she was secretly so complacent, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... 'friends of freedom' with whom Mr. Stearns had invited John Brown to consult were profoundly impressed with his sagacity, integrity, and devotion; notably among these were R. W. Emerson, Theodore Parker, H. D. Thoreau, A. Bronson Alcott, F. B. Sanborn, Dr. S. G. Howe, Col. T. W. Higginson, Gov. Andrew, and others. In February (1857) he appeared before a committee of the State Legislature, to urge that Massachusetts ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... Delvile, "your affairs will not much miss him! Since I have heard of the excess of his extravagance, I have extremely rejoiced in the uncommon prudence and sagacity of his fair ward, who, in such dangerous hands, with less penetration and sound sense, might have been drawn into a thousand difficulties, and perhaps defrauded ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... mildness, gained great popularity. The majority in Sweden deemed him merely a creature of Napoleon, whose favor they hoped to gain by this flattering choice; others, it may be, already beheld in him Napoleon's future foe, and knew the value of the sagacity and wisdom with which he was endowed, and of which the want was so deeply felt in Sweden at a period when intrigue and cunning had succeeded to violence. The Freemasons, with whom he had placed himself in close communication, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... color. Her determined and resolute character, which enabled her to limit the ravages of Shay's mob, was manifested in her conduct and deportment during her whole life. She claimed no distinction, but it was yielded to her from her superior experience, energy, skill, and sagacity. Having known this woman as familiarly as I knew either of my parents, I cannot believe in the moral or physical inferiority of the race to which she belonged. The degradation of the African must have been otherwise caused than ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... there had of late been an outcry against the number of reprieves granted, and the public had begun to think itself not sufficiently protected. He thought the best chance was the discovery of some additional fact that might tell in favour of Leonard, and confident in his own sagacity, was going to make perquisitions at the mill. Every one had been visiting of late, and now that he knew more, if he and his microscope could detect one drop of human blood in an unexpected place, they ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... came of a collision between Russian and Afghan troops at Panjdeh, over a disputed point in the demarcation of the north-western frontier of Afghanistan. Abdur Rahman's attitude at this critical juncture is a good example of his political sagacity. To one who had been a man of war from his youth up, who had won and lost many fights, the rout of a detachment and the forcible seizure of some debateable frontier lands was an untoward incident; but it was no ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... relate that among the Queen of Sheba's tests of Solomon's sagacity she brought before him a number of boys and girls apparelled all alike, and desired him to distinguish those of one sex from those of the other, as they stood in his presence. Solomon caused a large basin of water to be fetched in, and ordered them all to wash their hands. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... brought with him from abroad a valet, who sometimes professed himself to be French, at others Italian, and at others again German. He spoke all these languages with equal fluency, and seemed to take a kind of pleasure in puzzling the sagacity and balking the curiosity of such of the visitors at the castle as at any time happened to enter into conversation with him, or who, struck by his singularities, became inquisitive respecting his country and origin. Sir Robert called him by the French name, ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... the Minnatarees two boys, who, from the hour of their birth, showed superior wisdom, sagacity, and cunning. Even while they were children they were wiser than their fathers. They asked their parents whence the light came which streamed through the fissures of the rock and played along the sides of the cavern, and whence and ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... impelled the strange pertinacity of my pursuit would have been unintelligible. I have said that a very disagreeable impression remained on my mind respecting certain aspects of his character, and I felt somewhat ashamed of my imperfect sagacity in having up to this period been entirely blind to those aspects. The truth is, every human being is a mystery, and remains so to the last. We fancy we know a character; we form a distinct conception of it; for years that conception remains unmodified, and suddenly the strain of some emergency, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... their original colors. The path of Gustavus was not in general one of glittering feats, although his life is in itself one grand achievement. What he accomplished was the effect of strong endurance and great sagacity; and though he wanted not for intrepidity, it was of a kind before which the mere warrior must vail his crest. All the remaining movements of the war of liberation consist in sieges of the various castles and fortresses of the country, undertaken ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... the soft earth, and remained with his mottled legs in the air in that position for at least five minutes with unflinching gravity. He was extricated without a murmur. I hesitate to record the many other instances of his sagacity, which rest, unfortunately, upon the statements of prejudiced friends. Some of them were not without a tinge of superstition. "I crep' up the bank just now," said Kentuck one day, in a breathless state of excitement, "and dern my skin if he wasn't ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... to the Carmelites, near the Luxembourg, and, "if there is not room enough there," to Bicetre; here, "they will disappear from the surface of the globe."[34121] Certain leaders desired to entrust the purification of Paris to the sagacity of popular instinct. "In loose and disconnected phrases" they address the people: "Rouse yourselves, and act according to your inclinations, as my indications might only startle those you should strike down and thereby allow them to escape!" Varlet proposes, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... words audibly, and looked hard at the Intendant. Bigot cursed him twenty times over between his teeth, for he knew La Corne's indomitable energy and sagacity, that was never at fault in finding or forcing a way to whatever he was in search of. It would not be long before he would discover the presence of a strange lady at Beaumanoir, thought Bigot, and just as certain would ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... almost needless to observe, that the Epistle in question has very particularly exercised the critical sagacity of the literary world; yet it is remarkable that, amidst the great variety of comments and decisions on the work, it has been almost universally considered, except by one acute and learned writer of this country, as a loose, vague, and desultory composition; a mass ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... a man of great sagacity. Few statesmen have had keener insight, or more true and sane foresight. While cordially recognizing this, it is not necessary to claim for him ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... all. He and Zoe spent Elysian hours, meeting twice a day in the shrubbery, and making love as if they were the only two creatures in the world; but it was blind Elysium only to one of them—Severne was uneasy and alarmed the whole time. His sagacity showed him it could not last, and there was always a creeping terror on him. Would not Uxmoor cause inquiries? Would he not be sure to tell Vizard? Would not Vizard come there to look after Zoe, or order her back to Vizard Court? ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... particularly the genius and manners, not only of a single person before he was born, but of a whole race of people, from the first founder of the race to the present time? It was somewhat wonderful, and not to be foreseen by human sagacity or prudence, that a man's whole posterity should so nearly resemble him, and retain the same inclinations, the same habits, the same customs throughout all ages. The waters of the purest spring or ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... deer, fearless and tireless, Wetzel's peculiar bloodhound sagacity, ferocity, and implacability, balanced by Jonathan's keen intelligence and judgment caused these bordermen to become the bane of redmen and renegades. Their fame increased with each succeeding summer, ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... the commonality, who being a young man has had but little or no means of displaying his sagacity—a quality with them most frequently synonymous with cunning—commences for himself in a small way. Hence, too, being polygamous, and his wives being bought with cattle, his first wife is taken from a position accordant with that of a young, untried, and poor or comparatively poor ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... in Manchester some piece of sharp practice, about which people said, 'Ah, well, he is a clever fellow,' and all but condoned the immorality for the sake of the smartness? The lord and the steward belong to the same level of character; and vulpine sagacity, astuteness, and qualities which ensure success in material things seem to both of them to be of the highest value. 'The children of this world, in their generation'—but only in it—are wiser ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... it looked as if he must instantly annihilate the slim, light creature that opposed him. It was a dreadful place to give battle, on that straight shelf of rock overhanging a sheer drop of perhaps a thousand feet. But scorn and rage together blinded the sagacity of the bear. With a grunt ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... newest political thought is addressed to the beginnings and the desirability of a complete transformation of the British Empire. They are not all dreamers and faddists who commend the change and would hasten it. Of such is Mr. Bernard Holland, a man whose studies, whose sagacity, whose freedom from the limitations of partizanship and the heats of controversy, entitle him to a respectful hearing whenever ...
— Mr. Edward Arnold's New and Popular Books, December, 1901 • Edward Arnold
... to the poor hound, and succeeded in making it comprehend that he wanted "to go home." With that canine sagacity which approaches very near to reason, the dog at once sought for the path by which they had entered the morass, found it, and ran forward eagerly. Etienne entered it, trembling with hope, when the dog stopped, growled, and ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake |
